The situated nature of dialogic interactions: Children's talk across different tasks

Abstract

This paper analysed the situated nature of dialogic interactions by comparing primary-school children's communicative patterns when solving two divergent literacy tasks versus a convergent logical-reasoning task. Peer interactions were analysed using a compact version of the CAM-UNAM Scheme for Educational Dialogue Analysis (SEDA), which qualifies dialogic interactions. Compact-SEDA allowed systematic, fine-grained analyses of children's conversations when addressing each task. We related children's communicative patterns to dialogic interaction styles previously identified as productive for learning, namely ‘co-constructive’ and ‘exploratory’. Results showed that children subtly adapted their discussions to the knowledge domain and nature of the task. For the divergent tasks, children created meaning jointly by elaborating, chaining, and gradually transforming their own and each other's ideas, negotiating perspectives and seeking agreements. This pattern reflects a ‘co-constructive’ interaction style. In contrast, for the convergent task, children reasoned together, positioned themselves in the dialogue by agreeing or disagreeing with each other's ideas, and supported their positions by making their reasoning explicit through arguments and counter-arguments. This pattern reflects an ‘exploratory’ interaction style. Results confirm and expand findings from previous studies on peer communication patterns associated with the nature of the task, using more comprehensive, refined and objective analytical tools than previously employed.