Productive Disciplinary Engagement: characteristic of the Highest and Lowest Performance of a Group

Abstract

The present study explores teacher education students’ productive disciplinary engagement during mathematical tasks. Moreover, the sessions with the highest and lowest learning scores of one group during a mathematics course. Later, these are referred as High-performance session (HPS) and Low Performance session (LPS), respective-ly. Using a process-oriented approach, interaction analysis was used to code the video recordings of the group in both sessions. The coding was done observing the second-by-second varia-tions in each dimension. Every event identified was assigned with one of four levels of quality (low, moderate-low, moderate, or high). Next, a co-occurrence analysis was used to examine the simultaneous variations between dimensions. Finally, the study was later extended to the individual level using inductive analysis, looking for reasons to explain the quality-levels of engagement reached by the group in each session. The results indicate more consistent higher quality-levels for all facets of engagement in the HPS, and moderate levels in the LPS. In regard of the co-occurrence of quality-level varia-tions of engagement, in both sessions were found four pairs of dimensions that varied syn-chronously more often (Col-Dis, Beh-Col, Soe-Col, and SoE-Dis) and two less often (MeC-Beh and MeC-SoE). Some features found to influence on the quality-level of engagement were group composition, pre-task knowledge, and the use of the collaborative script. For researchers, these findings support the claim of engagement as a meta construct composed by different components and provide empirical results for the rubric used by Rogat et al. (2019a). For teachers and educators, this study provides insights to better design of collabora-tive interactions, providing support for the development of individual and group regulatory skills to increase the quality of engagement.

Se analizó la interacción de un grupo de estudiantes de docencia durante un curso de matemáticas. Específicamente, las dos sesiones del curso con su puntuación de aprendizaje más alta (SAP, sesión de alta performance) y más baja (SBP, sesión de baja performance). La codificación se realizó observando las variaciones segundo a segundo de 5 dimensiones (conductual, colaborativa, socioemocional, metacognitiva y disciplinar). A cada evento identificado se le asignó uno de cuatro niveles de calidad (bajo, moderado-bajo, moderado o alto). A continuación, se analizó la co-ocurrencia de variaciones simultáneas entre dimensiones. Por último, se observó el nivel individual buscando razones que explicaran los niveles de calidad de la participación alcanzados en cada sesión. Los resultados indican niveles de calidad más altos y consistentes para todas las facetas de la participación en la SAP, y niveles moderados en la SBP. En cuanto a la co-ocurrencia de variaciones en los niveles de calidad de la participación, en ambas sesiones se encontraron cuatro pares de dimensiones que variaban sincrónicamente con mayor frecuencia, y dos con menor frecuencia. Algunos factores que influyeron en la calidad de la participación fueron la composición del grupo, los conocimientos previos a la tarea y el uso del guión colaborativo.