Linkages between cognitive and social dialogue patterns during collaborative small-group discussions

Abstract

BackgroundCollaborative small-group discussions have the potential to promote reading comprehension, critical thinking, and argumentation. However, few studies have gone beyond cognitive processes to understand the social characteristics of dialogue and their potential contributions to students’ cognitive processing in turn-by-turn dialogic exchanges. AimsThis study closely examined dialogues between speakers and addressees regarding their levels of cognitive processing (i.e., cognitive dialogue patterns) and social processes reflecting social cohesion (i.e., social dialogue patterns). The aims were to understand, first, the relations between students' cognitive dialogue patterns and their social dialogue patterns, and second, the relations between students' cognitive dialogue patterns and peers’ social dialogue patterns. SampleThis study included 4070 speaking turns generated by 120 fifth-graders in 60 small-group discussions. MethodsStudents participated in small-group discussions, called Collaborative Social Reasoning. Dialogue between pairs of group members formed social networks, based on which Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) were specified. ResultsFindings showed that speakers' social dialogue patterns were associated with their cognitive dialogue patterns. However, receiving social dialogue patterns from peers did not always predict students’ advanced types of cognitive dialogue patterns. ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that cognitive and social aspects of small-group discussions are intricately linked, and that encouraging social cohesion does not guarantee that students will engage in collaborative and critical discussions.