A new University of Illinois study has found that practice working on group projects might help children become better decision makers.
In the study, published in the American Educational Research Journal, collaborative work was compared with direct instruction to measure how well students could make reasoned decisions and apply their skills in a new task. The students, more than 760 fifth-graders, explored a scenario in which a community was deciding what to do about a pack of wolves menacing their town. Students had to decide whether the community should hire professional hunters to kill the wolves, and were asked to consider the environmental, economic and social impact their decision would have.
The curriculum’s aim was not to arrive at the “right” answer but to raise awareness of responsible and reasoned decision-making. After this curriculum, the students were asked to explain their decision about the wolves and also about a moral dilemma between two friends in another story, “The Pinewood Derby.” Those who had worked in groups showed better decision-making capabilities. They recognized multiple sides of a dilemma, considered many reasons to support differing viewpoints and were able to weigh the pros and cons of different decisions, according to the researchers.
In contrast, students who studied the wolf curriculum by listening to an instructor had no better decision-making skills than students who did not receive the wolf curriculum at all.
The study was led by Xin Zhang, a doctoral student in psychology. “Collaborative group work positions students as active decision-makers, whereas direct instruction places them in a passive role, following the reasoning of their teacher,” Zhang said. “We further theorize that the essential difference between collaborative group work and direct instruction is that students learn about the ‘self as agent and others as (the) audience,’’’ a hypothesis explored in another paper by Zhang’s coauthors, Richard C. Anderson, director of the Center for the Study of Reading, and graduate student Joshua A. Morris, both of the U of I.
It was also found that girls were better at certain decision-making skills, but that finding may have to do with girls’ more advanced writing ability.
The researchers noted that the results are especially pertinent to low-income minority students, whose schools often teach with didactic arithmetic exercises and simple reading lessons. Widely implemented Common Core standards mandate a teacher-directed learning environment that can compromise children’s ability to develop these skills.
“If children are to become thoughtful decision-makers, they need more time in the school day for collaborative group work that involves active reasoning about significant issues,” Zhang said. “Promoting active reasoning is one key to cultivating disadvantaged students’ development of intellective competence and academic ability.”
Additional coauthors included Brian Miller of Towson University, Tzu-Jung Lin of Ohio State University, May Jadallah of Illinois State University, Beata Latawiec of Wichita State University, Jingjing Sun of the University of Montana and Jie Zhang of Western Kentucky University.
Contact Ann Farrar at afarrar@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Capital City Parent February 2016.
