Making Small Groups Work:

Overcoming Barriers to Collaborative

Learning in the Mathematics
Classroom
by

Jo Denton
Student Number: 1255558

Dissertation presented as a partial requirement for

the award of the Degree of MSc Mathematics
Education of the University of Warwick

Module ID Code: IE913

Affiliation: Centre for Education Studies

August 2014
 Table of Contents
Page No.
Acknowledgements iii

Abstract iv

Introduction 1
Background Context and Research Aims 1
Definition of Terms 2
Research Questions 3
Overview of Study 4

1. Literature Review 6
Conceptual Review: A Constructivist Continuum 6
Constructivism and Social Interaction 6
Situated Cognition: Is Environment Everything? 8
Radical Constructivism and Ontological Reality 11
The Constructivist Continuum 12
Mixed Ability: A Prerequisite for Effective Group Work? 14
Empirical Review: Cooperation Vs. Collaboration 15
Defining Cooperative and Collaborative Learning 15
Cooperative Learning: Origins and Research 19
Collaborative Learning and Rich, Group-worthy Tasks 22
Establishing Conceptual and Empirical Links 25
Reciprocity in Group Work 26
Cognitive Elaboration Perspective 28
Jigsaw and the Mathematics Classroom 29
Think-Pair-Share and the Mathematics Classroom 30
Kagan Structures and the Mathematics Classroom 31
Barriers for Teachers in Effective Use of Group Work 36

2. Research Design 41
Methodology 41
Combined Methods Approach 44
Pilot Study 50
Three Phased Approach 52
Analysis Rationale 54
Sampling Methods 56
Ethical Considerations 60

3. Results Analysis and Findings 62

Pilot Study Results 62

i
 Pre-Intervention Teacher Interviews 66
Learner Questionnaires 68
Post-Intervention Teacher Interviews 72

4. Discussion 75
The Barriers: Agreement in the Research 75
Classroom Management and Practicalities 76
Time Management 79
Assessment Issues 81
Impact of Prior Experience and Teacher Knowledge 82
Solving Problems on the Constructivist Continuum 84
Increased Engagement and Participation 87
Developing Group Skills 89
Developing Elaboration Skills 90
Increased Teacher Confidence 94
The Importance of a Variety of Methods 95
Limitations of the Research 97

5. Conclusions 99

References 102

Appendices
1. Kagan’s Cooperative Learning Structures 114
2. Pre-Intervention Teacher Interview Schedule 118
3. Final Learner Questionnaire 119
4. Post-Intervention Teacher Interview Schedule 121
5. Original Pilot Learner Questionnaire 122
6. Refined Pilot Learner Questionnaire 124
7. Application for Ethical Approval 126

ii
 Acknowledgements

Foremost I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor

Andrea Pitt for the guidance and feedback through the learning process of
this dissertation. Your support has been invaluable. Furthermore I would like
to thank Dr Jenni Ingram, Faye Baldry and Mike Ollerton for everything I
learnt in my masters taught modules to get me where I am today. I would
also like to thank the participants in my action research, particularly the
teachers who have willingly shared their precious time during the processes
of interviewing and planning. Finally I would like to thank my husband, Chris,
who has supported me throughout this entire process, by believing in me,
keeping me sane and looking after our young children Emma and Samuel to
allow me the space and time to study.

iii
 Abstract

This dissertation aims to uncover and address the barriers to implementing

small group work in the mathematics classroom. The literature review
outlines the research that exists in this field to date both conceptually, from a
constructivist perspective and empirically, through exploration of cooperative
and collaborative learning techniques. Research questions addressing the
barriers teachers face and how structured group work could help to
overcome any barriers, are investigated through an action research project in
the author’s school. A combined methods approach using both qualitative
and quantitative methods from a constructivist epistemology and interpretive
methodology is used in the research design. The findings from the empirical
research show that a phased approach from cooperative to collaborative
structures was positively received by both teachers and learners furthermore
that structured group work increased teacher confidence in implementing
small group work in mathematics. However the findings also indicate that
further research is required to support learners in developing their
mathematical explanations to maximise the potential of constructing
knowledge through peer discussion in small group work.

iv
 Introduction

Background Context and Research Aims

Despite a wealth of research over the last few decades suggesting that small

group work has a positive effect on both attainment and attitudes to

mathematics (see e.g. Davidson, 1985; 1990; Nichols, 1996; Boaler, 1999;

Swan, 2006; Allen, 2012), the subject is often perceived by learners as more

isolating than any other school subject where the work set lends itself to

working individually on problems (Nardi & Stewart, 2003). This is mirrored

by my own experience as a classroom teacher, an AST (Advanced Skills

Teacher) and a Secondary Strategy Consultant, where I have had the

opportunity to observe not only mathematics lessons but also lessons in

other subject areas, leading me to agree with Nardi and Stewart (2003) that

achieving effective group work seems more problematic in mathematics than

other subjects with many mathematics teachers avoiding group work

altogether.

So what’s so hard about getting small groups to work? Learners need to be

taught the skills for working in groups in the same way as they need to be

taught a new mathematics objective and this needs to be worked up to

gradually (Slavin et al., 2003): you wouldn’t try to teach compound interest to

someone who had no comprehension of percentage; instead you would first

teach the concept of percentage, exploring mental, written and calculator

methods to finding a percentage of a quantity; this would probably lead on to

developing these methods to increasing and decreasing by a given

1
percentage which would then give rise to multiple ways of understanding and

calculating successive percentage changes, i.e. compound interest. In the

same way I believe that learners not only need to be taught how to break a

task into more manageable chunks but they also need to learn how to work

together with their peers to achieve their learning goals.

Definition of Terms

The terms cooperative and collaborative learning will be used throughout the

dissertation and the debated definitions will be discussed in depth in the

literature review. The review concludes that cooperative learning refers to a

structured approach to small group work where the teacher retains control of

the learning process and the learners work towards a shared learning goal,

whereas in a collaborative learning environment there is a greater

responsibility given to the learners who support each other to achieve

individual learning goals. I believe that it is the handing over of responsibility

to the learner which is the greatest barrier for mathematics teachers to using

small group work consistently and effectively and believe the structures

described in adopting cooperative learning strategies (e.g. Kagan, 1989;

Aronson, 1978) could be the key to overcoming this barrier. Cooperative

structures are simply ways of organising small group tasks, however with

hundreds of these structures to choose from (see for example Kagan, 1994),

how can mathematics teachers decide where to start?

2
Research Questions

This dissertation aims to investigate the barriers for teachers in using small

group work in mathematics and as an outcome of empirical research provide

effective small group activities to provide scaffolding for the teacher to

introduce small group work in a structured way in mathematics. The initial

aim of this research therefore is to investigate the following questions:

1. What are teachers’ perceptions of the barriers to group work in

mathematics?

2. Does the use of structures for group work change teachers’

perceptions?

Overview of Study

From a constructivist epistemology with consideration of radical

constructivist, social constructivist and situated cognition perspectives,

Chapter 1 presents and discusses a review of both the relevant literature for

these theories to frame this research as well as a literature review of

collaborative and cooperative learning, particularly those relating directly to

mathematics. The literature review aims to present and analyse research

that exists to date; the conceptual element of the review will look at how

radical constructivism, social constructivism and situated cognition describe

the construction of knowledge through small group work; the empirical review

will examine prevailing research in the field of cooperative and collaborative

learning to identify evidence which supports my research questions and

3
ultimate findings and will also identify elements of the field which require

further empirical investigation.

The empirical research for this dissertation is conducted by means of action

research at my own school, a federation of two 11-16 single-sex schools,

working with teachers and classes identified as needing support to

implement group work. The two schools have recently undergone a

colocation move and mathematics lessons for both boys and girls are now

taught in the same area, however the vast majority of classes remain single-

sex. The Federation is non-selective and located on the south-coast of

England in a town where two out of the ten secondary schools are grammar

schools. The proportion of learners who are from minority ethnic

backgrounds or speak English as an additional language in the Federation is

above average. This study does not make any attempt to generalise beyond

the author’s school however; the context of the schools simply provides the

reader the potential to compare the findings and conclusions from this

research with similar schools.

Chapter 2 describes this action research approach and considers theoretical

standpoints and data collection methods in relation to this methodology and

reflects on the reliability and validity of the chosen methods, in order to

consider the limitations of the study. A combined methods approach of both

qualitative and quantitative methods is described to both address the diverse

nature of the data and to attempt to triangulate any findings. These methods

include semi-structured teacher interviews, informal classroom observations

4
and learner questionnaires. Sampling and ethical implications are also

considered in this chapter and an interpretive analysis rationale is outlined.

The findings from the analysis of the results of the action research are

presented in Chapter 3. These findings are discussed in depth in Chapter 4

and are compared and contrasted with the previous research in this field,

making links back to the literature review. Finally, in Chapter 5 conclusions

are drawn from the empirical findings for making small groups work in

mathematics.

5
 Chapter 1

Literature Review

There is a wealth of research promoting the use of small group work in

mathematics (see e.g. Davidson, 1985; Slavin; 1990; Nichols, 1996; Boaler,

1999; Swan, 2006, Johnson & Johnson, 2009), however if you walk into most

English secondary schools’ mathematics classrooms, you are likely to find

the desks set out facing the front (Kutnick et al., 2005) in a traditional

approach to teaching and learning through transmission of knowledge from

teacher to learner (von Glasersfeld, 1998). This would seem to go against

the major epistemology associated with group work in education, that of

social constructivism (Mercer, 2008). However is social constructivism

necessarily the most appropriate theory of learning to describe the

construction of knowledge in small groups in the mathematics classroom?

Conceptual Review: A Constructivist Continuum

Constructivism and Social Interaction

“If one seriously adopts the constructivist approach, one

discovers that many more of one's habitual ways for thinking have

to be changed”. (von Glasersfeld, 1995a).

Do mathematics teachers need to change their way of thinking and hence

their pedagogy in order to support learners, aided by their peers, to construct

knowledge for themselves? A constructivist epistemological stance believes

6
that learners have to construct meaning for themselves (Wheatley, 1991).

French educational psychologist Piaget, considered the father of

constructivism (Walshaw, 2004) believed that “development moves from the

individual to the social” (Rogoff, 1999, p.76), that is that cognitive

development of the individual is required in order to later develop socially.

However Piaget believed that by approximately secondary school age, the

formal stage in his genetic epistemology (Dulit, 1972), cognitive processes

are primarily supported through language and hence thought can become

predominantly collective (Rogoff, 1999). The lead researcher on social

constructivism, Russian educational psychologist Vygotsky (von Glasersfeld,

1995b) differed in this perspective believing that thinking develops through

social interaction from the very beginning and formed the basis of social

constructivism on first constructing knowledge in a social environment aided

by cultural tools to build the foundations for individual understanding (Rogoff,

1999). It is the impact of the type and the context of social interaction on

cognitive development which separates the two theories at this formal stage

(ibid). On one hand Piaget believed in achieving equilibrium in group

discussion, emphasising “cooperation as the ideal form of social interaction

promoting development” (ibid, p.72). Piaget set out conditions to achieve

this equilibrium, including having common intellectual values and reciprocity

within partners (Rogoff, 1999), in order to discuss differences of opinion and

work out those differences, an element of what he termed cognitive conflict

(ibid). Vygotsky on the other hand believed that the ideal partner should be

more knowledgeable and defined the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

as the “distance between the actual development level as determined by

7
independent problem solving and the level of potential development as

determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration

with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p.33).

A criticism on Vygotsky’s theories has been that they were just that, theories,

not empirically tested or verified (Mercer, 2008), however subsequent studies

claim that the relevance of his ideas to the classroom context have been

demonstrated (ibid). Nevertheless a limitation of the novice and more

capable other in Vygotsky’s ZPD model is that it could be considered

teacher-centric (Litowitz, 1993) as at the start of the process it relies heavily

on the teacher to guide the learner which could be seen as a criticism in

learner-centred practices which are particularly prevalent in current teaching

and learning models (Schweisfurth, 2013). This was not the intention of

Vygotsky however, who believed there is scope for a peer to take on the role

of the more knowledgeable other (Vygotsky, 1978) and while partners should

not be equal, this “inequality is in skills and understanding rather than in

power” (Rogoff, 1999, p.79). Rogoff (1999) further believes that because of

this “interaction with either adults or peers can bring about cognitive growth”

(p.79). But what does this look like in practice and how can teachers get this

to work in the mathematics classroom?

Situated Cognition: Is Environment Everything?

Boaler (2006a) offers a framework for utilising group work for the learners to

take on the role of the more knowledgeable other through mixed ability

groupings, based Cohen’s and Lotan’s Complex Instruction (Cohen, 1994;

8
Cohen & Lotan, 1997), where learners support each other in solving

problems rather than relying on the teacher for that support. Here Boaler’s

model is underpinned by a situated epistemology, as she is not only

considering the importance of language and communication in learning but

also the impact of the environment on learning. In situated cognition

teachers are the managers of that environment and it is the culture of the

classroom which provides the context through which cognition is situated,

that is where learning takes place (Lave and Wenger, 1991). A more recent

example of using peers as the more knowledgeable other is through the use

of Lead Learners in classrooms (Stewart, 2009), where selected students

become the expert and support the learning of their peers, which again

supports a more learner-centred approach to teaching.

From the perspective of situated cognition, Boaler (1999) carried out a

longitudinal empirical study over a three year period of two schools, Amber

Hill and Phoenix Park, with very different approaches to the teaching of

mathematics: Amber Hill was very didactic in teaching style and traditional in

terms of setting and predominant use of textbooks in lessons; whereas

Phoenix Park was more progressive and learner-led within mixed-ability

groups. Boaler’s findings on the effect of group work on attitude and

attainment (1997a; 1998) are discussed in the empirical review later in this

chapter; in terms of this conceptual review Boaler (1999) describes learning

mathematics in small groups through a situated cognition epistemology,

where environment is everything. Lave and Wenger (1991) refer to this

learning environment as a community of practice, where solving problems as

9
part of the culture of this community is vital for knowledge transfer to take

place. This is particularly pertinent to the teaching of mathematics, for

example abstract concepts in algebra can be situated by the creation of a

community of learners encouraging participation and discussion, which

creates a context of solving problems as mathematicians (Lave, 2011).

Boaler attributes the lower attainment at Amber Hill to the fact that the

learners at this school viewed the mathematics classroom as one community

of practice, but regarded “other places, even the school examination hall as

different communities of practice” (Boaler, 1999, p279). Boaler aimed to

“show how the perspective of situated cognition illuminated the complexities

of students’ mathematical behaviour” (ibid, p.259). Here, their mathematical

behaviour illustrates that for a community of practice to allow for transferable

knowledge and skills, it needs to be a broader environment, tackling a variety

of problems and ways of working.

A limitation of situated cognition to describe learning in small groups could be

the actual process of transference of knowledge to other situations, however

Bereiter (1997) believes that if an abstract relationship between two

situations is developed then knowledge transfer is achievable. Boaler (1999)

concludes that the transfer of knowledge from one situation to another for

pupils at Phoenix Park was made possible through the mathematics

classroom becoming a “social arena” (ibid, p.279) as opposed to the formal

textbook approach at Amber Hill, which together with open-ended nature of

the problem solving enabled the pupils to see the connection between school

mathematics and real-world mathematics.

10
Radical Constructivism and Ontological Reality

Radical constructivist epistemology follows the constructivist stance that

transmission of knowledge is not possible and knowledge must be

constructed, however radical constructivism is thus named due to its

unconventional theory that “knowledge does not reflect an “objective”

ontological reality” (von Glasersfeld, 1984, p.5). As such it is not prescriptive

in the teaching techniques used as it is a self-proclaimed theory of knowing

and learning, as much ontological as epistemological, and it is down to the

teacher to decide what works best (von Glasersfeld, 1995) as long as the

emphasis is on “[t]eaching [r]ather than [t]raining” (ibid, p.178).

A main component of radical constructivism is the need for intrinsic

motivation on behalf of the learner, which von Glasersfeld (1995) believes is

not possible without learners learning to solve problems for themselves,

hence gaining the confidence to solve other problems. This concurs with

Bruner’s (1972) take on constructivism who believes these intrinsic rewards

come from the sense of autonomy a learner experiences through mastery of

problem solving and believes furthermore that learners are then equipped to

generate knowledge and opinions of their own (p.123).

As a constructivist theory, radical constructivism advocates the use of

language and communication:

“Talking fosters reflections and reflections foster understanding” (von

Glasersfeld, 2003, 7:44)

11
However Simon (1995) states that “we have no way of knowing whether a

concept matches an objective reality” (p.5). Radical constructivism demands

social interaction for new knowledge to be constructed, but it differs from

social constructivism in that the knowledge is constructed socially but

remains a subjective construction to the individual. Furthermore, von

Glasersfeld (1995b) notes that despite social interaction, it cannot be

assumed that a learner has constructed the same meaning as the teacher

intended:

“If the meaning of the teacher's words and phrases has to be interpreted by

the students in terms of their individual experiences, it is clear that the

students' interpretations are unlikely to coincide with the meaning the

teacher intends to convey” (Von Glasersfeld, 1995b, p.182).

This is where discussion with peers can tease out these understandings,

although the individual meaning will always remain subjective as you cannot

know for certain what is in someone else’s head (von Glasersfeld, 1991).

Von Glasersfeld refers to this as viability. As meaning is always subjective,

knowledge cannot ever be representative of reality, just a set of concepts

which are “viable within the knowing subject's range of experience” (von

Glasersfeld, 1989, p.125).

The Constructivist Continuum

Constructivism, radical constructivism, social constructivism and situated

cognition epistemologies could all be placed at various stages on the same

continuum (see Figure 1) or sliding scale (Perera, 2011), supporting Rogoff’s

conclusion that Piaget’s constructivism is a “limited version of social impact

12
on the individual’s cognitive development” (1999, p.81). A situated cognition

perspective would lie at the other end of this scale where environment is

everything and where there should be a purpose for learning in any change

to that environment (Brown et al., 1989). Despite being on opposite ends of

the continuum, radical constructivism and situated cognition hold the same

underlying principles that learning cannot be simply transmitted from teacher

to learner and that working together with others will support the construction

of knowledge for themselves. Sfard (1998) believes “whatever version of

constructivism is concerned – the moderate, the radical, or the social – the

same dilemma must eventually pop up: How do we account for the fact that

learners are able to build for themselves concepts that seem fully congruent

with those of others?” (p.7). From a radical constructivist perspective, and

indeed any of the constructivist perspectives to some extent, the word ‘seem’

in Sfard’s statement is paramount, in terms of whether reality is objective or

subjective.

Constructivism
Radical Moderate Social Situated Cognition

Figure 1 – A Constructivist Continuum?

Ironically radical constructivist theory is “subject to its own claims about the

limits of knowledge” (Confrey, 1995, p. 195), therefore it is only true to the

extent that it allows us to make sense of our experience, its “viability” (ibid),

however, this dissertation is primarily concerned with teacher and learner

13
motivation and changing attitudes as opposed to measuring understanding.

This dissertation will focus on constructivism, from the radical constructivist

view on ontological reality to social constructivism and situated cognition as

progenies on the constructivist continuum (Perera, 2011) to frame and

describe the learning in small group work in this research.

Mixed Ability: A Prerequisite for Effective Group Work?

Much of the research into small group work in mathematics describes mixed

ability as a prerequisite (e.g. Boaler, 1999; Nardi and Stewart, 2003; Nichols,

1996; Whicker et al., 1997), agreeing with Vygotsky’s belief that “what

children can do with the assistance of others might be in some sense even

more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone”

(Vygotsky, 1978, p.32), by this Vygotsky is referring to the Zone of Proximal

Development (ZPD), which is what learners are able to understand through

the support of the more knowledgeable other, which in the context of group

work would imply mixed ability groupings to provide this support. However

mixed ability is rare in secondary mathematics classrooms beyond Year 7 in

the UK (Ofsted, 2012), in fact even Boaler’s Phoenix Park have now moved

to setting classes a result of “having succumbed to many years of

conservative education policies” (Boaler, 2012, p.14).

Dweck’s (2008) Growth Mindset considers that ability is not predetermined

and can hence be developed. Boaler’s (2013) research shows that individual

teachers who adopt a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset over

learner ability, still have little control over how learners are grouped as

14
“[s]uch changes require positive leadership from governments, local

authorities, head teachers and heads of department” (Boaler, 2013, p.149).

However, this does not necessarily hinder working in small groups from a

theoretical perspective: there could be a range of ability within a particular

mathematics ability set with learners possessing different mathematical

strengths, which could still enable peer-support with a more knowledgeable

other. This would however require careful planning of small groupings

around learners’ strengths. So perhaps considering the constraints afforded

by many schools across the UK, including the author’s school, effective

group work could still be achieved with mathematics ability groupings.

Empirical Review: Cooperation Vs. Collaboration

Defining Cooperative and Collaborative Learning

Wertsch (1979) attempts to clarify Vygotsky’s social constructivism, which he

believes had previously been poorly translated, as well as apply the theory.

Mercer (2008) claims this research “provided the kind of empirical illustration

which is lacking in Vygotsky’s original accounts” (p.2) and believes that

subsequent research has confirmed the importance both Vygotsky and

Wertsch placed upon discourse in the classroom. Furthermore, Mercer

(2008) claims that learners sharing ideas and explaining and justifying their

reasoning with their peers is the most productive form of interaction in the

classroom and that over time this “can promote the learning and conceptual

understanding of the individuals involved” (ibid, p.8).

15
Cooperative learning is a term used predominantly in the USA as opposed to

the term collaborative learning which used more in the UK (Panitz, 1999) and

cooperative learning and collaborative learning are often used

interchangeably (McInnerney & Roberts, 2004). For example, although

group work is an essential element of Boaler’s research, she seems to make

no clear distinction between cooperative and collaborative learning, as has

used both terms to describe working together in groups. She uses them

interchangeably, using collaborative most often (e.g. Boaler, 2006a; 2006b;

2008), but occasionally refers to cooperative instead (e.g. Boaler, 1997b)

with seemingly no distinction between them. There is however a much

debated distinction between the two paradigms (Bruffee, 1995; Brody, 1995;

Panitz, 1999; Nam & Zellner, 2011). Figure 2 compares the definitions

arrived at by some of the key researchers in the development of this field.

16
Researcher Cooperative Collaborative
Slavin  Learners are given  Learners work together
(1987) instructional methods to but with “no
support working together consequences based on
to solve problems group members’
learning” (p.1166)
Bruffee  Designed for younger  Designed for older
(1995) learners learners
 Learners are collectively  Individual progress is
accountable for the assessed after
progress of the group collaborative learning
 Participation is ensured  Only one social role (the
through assigning social recorder) which is
roles chosen by the group
Dillenbourg,  Division of labour among  Mutual engagement of
Baker, the participants participants
Blaye and  Each student is  Co-ordinated effort to
O’Malley responsible for a part of solve the problem
(1995) the information required to
solve the problem
Panitz  Structure of interaction  Philosophy of interaction
(1999)  Designed to facilitate the  Individuals are
accomplishment of a responsible for own
goal through learners actions, including
working together in learning and respect the
groups abilities and
 Teacher maintains contributions of others
complete control  Groups assume almost
total responsibility
Johnson et  Learners work together to  Develops the skills
al. (2000). achieve shared learning required for productive
goals cooperative learning
McInnerney  Learners work or act  Learners work in a group
& Roberts together as one to of two or more to
(2004) achieve a common goal achieve a common goal
 Tendency not to place  Each individual’s
emphasis on the input of contribution to the whole
particular individuals is emphasised
Kutnick et  Individual learners all  Learners work in
al. (2005) work on the same task conjunction with others
or in jigsaw fashion
Swan  Shared goals for the  Used to develop
(2005) groups and individual conceptual
accountability for all group understanding
members to achieve  Used for solving more
learning goals complex problems

Figure 2 - Researcher Definitions of Cooperative and Collaborative Learning

17
Panitz’s definitions appear in this table, although he purposely set out to

bring together the definitions of other researchers to define the “holy grail of

interactive learning” (1999, p.3). Constructivism was presented in the

conceptual literature review as a sliding scale from radical to social to

situated, similarly Panitz places the definitions of cooperative and

collaborative learning along a continuum “from a closely controlled, teacher-

centred system to a student-centred system where the teacher and students

share authority and control of learning” (ibid, p.5).

Bruffee’s definition of the two terms supports this moving from cooperative to

collaborative claiming “[c]ollaborative learning is designed to pick up where

cooperative learning leaves off” (Bruffee, 1995, p.16). This hierarchy of the

two terms is further supported by Swan’s (2006) definition of collaborative

learning as a means of construction of conceptual understanding. However

conversely, in Johnson’s et al’s (2000) definitions, it is implied that

collaboration develops the skills required for learners to work cooperatively.

Slavin (1987), McInnerney and Roberts (2004) and Kutnick et al. (2005) state

similar differences between the two but do not explicitly imply that one is

more desirable than the other. Figure 3 summarises the key differences

between cooperative and collaborative learning discussed above:

Cooperative Learning Collaborative Learning

 Shared learning goals with  Work together to achieve
individual accountability individual learning goals
 Assessed as a group during  Assessed as an individual after
group work group work
 Structured  More open-ended
 More teacher control  Less teacher control

Figure 3 – Cooperative and Collaborative Learning Summary

18
For the purpose of this study, group work will refer to learners working

together to solve problems through both applying prior knowledge and the

construction of new knowledge. It will take the definitions of cooperative and

collaborative learning as summarised in Figure 3 and will consider

cooperative learning as a structural means of achieving the ultimate goal of

effective collaborative learning.

Cooperative Learning: Origins and Research

Modern cooperative learning was introduced in the mid-1960s by Johnson

and Johnson, building on Deutsch’s (1949) social interdependence theory.

Johnson and Johnson (2000) list five major components which are vital to

achieving social interdependence: individual accountability; positive

interdependence; face to face interaction; taught social skills; and group

processing (p. 7). For the next two decades cooperative learning was

developed by a number of researchers and a range of methods emerged

(see Figure 4).

Researcher-Developer Date Method

Johnson & Johnson Mid 1960s Learning Together & Alone
DeVries & Edwards Early 1970s Teams-Games-Tournaments (TGT)
Sharan & Sharan Mid 1970s Group Investigation
Johnson & Johnson Mid 1970s Constructive Controversy
Aronson & Associates Late 1970s Jigsaw Procedure
Slavin & Associates Late 1970s Student Teams Achievement
Divisions (STAD)
Cohen Early 1980s Complex Instruction
Slavin & Associates Early 1980s Team Accelerated Instruction (TAI)
Kagan Mid 1980s Cooperative Learning Structures
Stevens, Slavin, & Late 1980s Cooperative Integrated Reading &
Associates Composition (CIRC)

Figure 4 - Development of Cooperative Learning (Johnson et al., 2000, pp. 3-4)

19
Complex instruction has more recently been developed by Boaler (2011),

however generally more recent research into cooperative learning has

focused more on evaluating the impact of adopting cooperative group

structures, particularly on achievement, as opposed to new developments

being introduced (see e.g.; Nichols, 1996; Whicker et al., 1997 Johnson et al,

2000; Ashman & Gillies, 2013). According to Johnson et al. (2000), “this

combination of theory, research and practice makes cooperative learning

one of the most distinguished of all instructional practices” (p.12).

Cooperative learning is a widely researched field, with more than 1200

research studies conducted (Johnson & Johnson, 2009). Much of the

research relating to cooperative learning emanates from the USA and

focuses on specific interventions to assess the impact on attainment and

motivation in learners. Reviewing this amount of research is beyond the

scope of this dissertation, however Johnson et al. (2000) carried out a review

of their own evaluating 158 reports on social interdependence which I will

summarise and critique here. Johnson et al. (2000) looked into several

issues surrounding the impact of cooperative learning, including the

validation of the procedures, how many cooperative learning methods have

actually been evaluated and how effective are the methods in improving

achievement. The two cooperative learning methods which came out

strongest in their evaluation of the meta-analysis were Learning Together

and Academic Controversy, the two methods which Johnson and Johnson

developed themselves. In part this could be down to the fact that over a third

20
of the studies evaluated were their own research papers, which you would

expect to meet the criteria of their own evaluation.

Johnson et al. (2000) do however, in the conclusions of their meta-analysis,

state the need for “[m]ore studies conducted by independent investigators”

(p.15). They claim that researcher-developers’ evaluations of their own

cooperative learning methods are potentially biased due to the vested

interest the researcher-developer has in selling the resources and training

and express the need for the next generation of researcher-developers who

“subject their formulations to rigorous empirical evaluation” (ibid, p.13).

Whicker et al. (1997) had actually already provided an independent

evaluation for cooperative learning in mathematics, examining student

attitudes and motivation as opposed to just attainment. Their review of a

number of cooperative learning studies, where learners work together on

group goals but with individual accountability, finds that it has been linked to

“increases in self-esteem, attendance, time on task, enjoyment of school and

classes, and motivation to learn” (Whicker et al., 1997, p.43); indeed their

own empirical research evidenced cooperative learning as “an effective

instructional strategy for learning advanced mathematical topics at

secondary level” (ibid, p.47). Similarly, writing a paper on the effects of

cooperative learning on achievement and motivation in geometry as part of

his PhD degree, Nichols (1996) could be considered independent. Nichols

concludes that his research findings gave “positive indications” (ibid, p.475)

21
that “cooperative learning can result in increased achievement and

motivation to learn” (ibid, pp.474-475).

Collaborative Learning and Rich, Group-worthy Tasks

If we use the summary definitions of cooperative and collaborative learning

(see Figure 3), then collaborative learning is the end product which can be

achieved through cooperative learning methods. But what is the end point

we are trying to reach? Swan (2006) believes that teachers’ reliance on

transmission of knowledge is responsible for learners’ perception of

mathematics as “a series of unrelated procedures and techniques that have

to be committed to memory” (p.162). By taking a more active role in their

learning, Swan believes it will transform the mathematics, the learning and

the teaching from a transmission orientation to a collaborative orientation,

through discussion and exploration to make connections in the mathematics

(Figure 5).

Figure 5 – Transmission and Collaborative Orientations (Swan, 2006, p.162)

22
Swan lists eight teaching principles to enable this shift from transmission of

knowledge to collaborative learning:

 building on learners’ prior knowledge;

 addressing learners’ common misconceptions;

 using higher-order questioning;

 using cooperative small group work;

 encouraging reasoning;

 using rich, collaborative tasks;

 creating connections between topics;

 using technology appropriately. (Swan, 2006, p.163)

However Swan (2006) recognises that theory without exemplification is

difficult to put into practise in the classroom, so developed five types of

activity to support the implementation of these principles:

 Classifying mathematical objects

 Interpreting multiple representations

 Evaluating mathematical statements

 Analysing reasoning and solutions

 Creating problems (Swan, 2006, pp.163-164)

Classifying mathematical objects could include learners identifying the odd

one out from a list (Swan, 2006), which becomes higher-order thinking when

learners must find a justification for each item in the list being the odd one

out. Any grouping activity (e.g. card sorts) would also facilitate this

classification as well as being an activity which would support the

interpretation of multiple representations, for example a matching activity

23
where learners group equations to their corresponding graphs to make

connections in the different representation of functions. Formative

questioning techniques such as Always, Sometimes, Never True (Swan,

2006) could support the evaluation of mathematical statements. Analysing

reasoning and solutions could simply be achieved by presenting learners

with worked examples and tasking groups with marking and correcting them

or offering multiple methods for learners to compare. In creating problems

for their peers to solve, learners can explore the structure of the mathematics

through investigating “the doing and undoing processes in mathematics”

(Swan, 2006, p.169).

Learners working on rich tasks is seen by Swan (2006) as an important

condition for achieving collaborative learning, but what constitutes a rich

task? Lotan (2003) proposes tasks are either routine or open-ended and the

more open-ended the problem the more “group-worthy” (ibid, p.72) the task.

Horn (2005) lists four properties which make tasks group-worthy: “They

 illustrate important mathematical concepts;

 include multiple tasks that draw effectively on the collective resources of

a [student] group;

 allow for multiple representations;

 have several possible solution paths.” (Horn, 2005, p.219)

The exemplification of Swan’s (2006) activities discussed above could

potentially fulfil these four properties.

24
From this review of cooperative and collaborative learning, this dissertation

will take the view that cooperative learning can provide the structure for

teachers to introduce group work (Panitz, 1999) into the mathematics

classroom, by maximising participation (Bruffee, 1995), teambuilding (Slavin,

1987) and sharing responsibility for learning and progress (Swan, 2005).

The ability for learners to construct new knowledge and apply existing

knowledge through collaborative learning (Swan, 2005) will be viewed by this

dissertation as the ultimate aim of group work in mathematics. Collaborative

learning will be the outcome of the structured cooperative group work

(Bruffee, 1995), where learners can work on complex and challenging rich,

group-worthy tasks (Swan, 2006; Horn, 2005) with minimal support from the

teacher (Panitz, 1999).

Establishing Conceptual and Empirical Links

Johnson et al. (2000) believe that the success of cooperative learning in

general is as a result of how it relates to a wide range of social science

theories, particularly cognitive developmental learning theories in the field of

psychology, including those of Piaget and Vygotsky. In fact Johnson et al.

(2000) further believe that “almost any teacher can find a way to use

cooperative learning that is congruent with his or her philosophies and

practices” (Johnson et al., 2000, p.3). So can the theories of Piaget and

Vygotsky be used to define cooperative and collaborative learning

respectively? As stated in the conceptual section of this literature review,

Piaget believed cooperation was key for discussion to aid cognitive

development, however was his intended meaning of cooperation the same

25
as the definition(s) of cooperative learning above? Mercer (2008) states that

Vygotsky’s theory of social constructivism has already been applied to

collaborative learning, a view support by Slavin (1987), however if the

teacher gives up all control over the groups as in Panitz’s (1999) definition of

collaborative learning, would the more knowledgeable other have to come

from mixed ability groupings?

Group dynamics, whether mixed ability or not, need to be considered in

terms of the effects made by the composition of groups (Trautwein et al.,

2006). For example, could learners’ social standing or perceived academic

ability affect how they participate? There is evidence to show that

cooperative learning techniques can overcome some of the issues relating to

social standing, for example Aronson and Bridgeman (1981) found that the

Jigsaw technique overcame some of the boundaries in racial segregation in

the USA. Trautwein et al. (2006) found that the attainment composition of

groups does make a difference to how learners perceive their own

mathematical ability and their confidence in that ability and Bennett and Cass

(1989) found that higher attaining learners were more likely to have their

contributions listened to than lower attainers. If perceived mathematical

ability affects how learners contribute in lessons and then perhaps working in

ability groups could minimise this effect.

Reciprocity in Group Work

Boaler’s and Staples’ (2008) research into Railside School in the USA looked

at the Complex Instruction approach in practice where mathematics

26
classrooms at the school were multidimensional, roles were given to group

members, praise was given to affirm competence in all group members and

learners were taught to be responsible for each other’s learning. This

resulted in learners seeing the reciprocal potential in collaborative learning,

as they “talked about their enjoyment of helping others and the value in

helping each other” (Boaler and Staples, 2008, p.633), that is there is

learning potential not only from getting support from a fellow group member

but also in explaining mathematics to others, fulfilling Piaget’s conditions of

achieving equilibrium between partners (Rogoff, 1999).

This value in the reciprocity of group work was discussed as early as 1962

by Bruner (in Hoyles, 1985) and is echoed in Hoyles’ (1985) use of a “social

interaction perspective” (p.212) to define understanding in mathematics as

“the ability to:

 form a view of the mathematical idea

 step back and reflect upon it

 use it appropriately and flexibly

 communicate it effectively to another

 reflect on another's perspective of the idea

 incorporate another's perspective into one's own framework or

challenge and logically reject this alternative view” (ibid)

These abilities could be considered a prerequisite for achieving Swan’s

(2006) eight principles for implementing collaborative learning, so these are

perhaps the skills which cooperative learning techniques need to develop to

27
make the transition from cooperative to collaborative. However how can

these skills be developed in learners?

Cognitive Elaboration Perspective

The “cognitive elaboration perspective” (Slavin et al., 2003, p.183) considers

the ability of learners to explain, rephrase information and build on prior

knowledge. Elaboration strategies could range from as simple as

paraphrasing and summarising information, to as complex as deriving

understanding of new concepts from known facts and contrasting related

concepts (Weinstein et al., 2011). However the “active processing involved

in using elaboration strategies is what is key to learning” (ibid, p.139) through

forming “meaningful connections between what the learner is trying to learn

and their prior knowledge, experience, attitudes and/or beliefs” (ibid, p.137).

The ability for learners to communicate their mathematical understanding

effectively to their peers and incorporate another’s perspective into their

schema, as required in the social interaction perspective (Hoyles, 1985),

could be developed through a cognitive elaboration approach. Furthermore

supporting learners to form connections in their mathematical understanding

is key to collaborative learning (Swan, 2006). Several researchers have

developed frameworks for developing elaboration skills, including Yager et

al.’s (1995) Structured Oral Discussion, Dansereau’s (1988) Scripted

Cooperation and King’s (1994) Guided Peer Questionning. All these

techniques have one thing in common: providing learners with structure to

achieve effective small group work.

28
Jigsaw and the Mathematics Classroom

Aronson’s (1978) Jigsaw Classroom consists of forming small home groups

and each member of the group breaking off into a different expert group to

learn a new concept or solve part of a wider problem. The learners then

return to their home groups to put the pieces together. Slavin (1989)

believes this increases motivation and interest in what other group members

have to contribute as “the only way students can learn other sections than

their own is to listen carefully to their teammates” (p.235). However Slavin

(1989) also concedes that just because the discussion has taken place,

understanding is not guaranteed. In the Jigsaw technique, as all learners are

assessed individually on the entire content (Blaney et al., 1977), teachers are

able to assess individual understanding. Research evidence has shown

Jigsaw to improve the way group members interact (Slavin, 1985) and has

been shown to have a positive impact on self-esteem (Blaney et al., 1977).

More recent research indicates that learner outcomes are improved through

the use of the Jigsaw technique as opposed to more traditional forms of

instruction (Artut and Tarim, 2007; Johnson et al., 2000), however Webb

(1989) believes that the overall effectiveness of learning in groups depends

on the level which learners are able to elaborate on their explanations. This

agrees with Rohrbeck et al. (2003) who found that the effectiveness is

dependent on a learner’s competence at tutoring. Learners may master their

expert topic but be unable to explain it to others or indeed learn the other

content from their home group members, which although the individual

assessment in the Jigsaw technique will expose, the technique itself will not

29
resolve the issue as learners “require specific development of skills for

discourse” (Cohen, 1994, p. 7).

Think-Pair-Share and the Mathematics Classroom

In this technique, the teacher poses a question or problem and the learners

first think about it individually, then they share their ideas with their partner,

and finally share their ideas with the rest of the group, developing their ideas

at each stage, which Kagan terms a “concept development strategy” (1989,

p.14), that is a technique which generates ideas and understanding through

promoting thought and reflection. Think-Pair-Share is well known in both

collaborative and cooperative techniques (see e.g. Li and Lam, 2005;

Boston, 2002) and the technique was first introduced by Lyman (1981). The

strategy allows learners’ individual ideas to form before building on them

socially (Carrs, 2007) and it “compels them to explain their thoughts to one

another” (von Glasersfeld, 1995b, p.190), linking to the constructivist

perspective. Von Glaserfeld states two main advantages of learners

explaining their thinking, firstly communicating ideas verbally requires a

degree of reflection on their own and others’ thinking and secondly learners

will often listen more intently to their peers than the teacher (ibid), perhaps as

they are more open to something which they know their contemporaries

understand already. Nevertheless, new learning can only be constructed if

learners have the skills required to explain, question and hence elaborate

their understanding to their fellow group members. As with Jigsaw, these

skills first need developing in learners.

30
Kagan Structures and the Mathematics Classroom

In Kagan’s structured approach to cooperative learning, small groups of four

mixed ability learners work as a team, which aims to “maximize peer tutoring

and positive modelling” (Kagan, 2008, para.10). In groups of four, learners

can easily work in pairs and then share their ideas with the rest of the group.

Kagan (2008) claims that learner participation is increased with his

cooperative learning structures compared to whole class question and

answering sessions (ibid). The teacher becomes the facilitator listening in to

the small group discussion and as a result “hears the thinking of the low-

achieving and middle-achieving students, not just the high achievers”

(Kagan, 2008, para.12) so is able to assess a larger proportion of learners in

lesson time. In terms of time management, Kagan admits that there is an

increase in workload for teachers to learn the structures, but believes that

“once teachers know the structures, teaching is easier” (ibid, para.14).

Kagan lists four principles which underpin his structures and links them

specifically to cooperative learning theory:

1. The learning task promotes teamwork and students experience

themselves as being on the same side;

2. Each student is held accountable for their individual contribution;

3. Students participate about equally; and

4. Many students are engaged at once. (Kagan, 2008)

Furthermore, he claims they are “designed to meet the more demanding

criteria of equal participation and maximizing simultaneous interaction”

(Kagan, 2001, p.3). However the structures also link with the constructivist

31
epistemological stance taken in this dissertation, particularly Vygotsky’s

social constructivism as they are also “designed to regulate task difficulty to

keep students in the zone of proximal development” (Kagan, 2001, p.5).

Kagan believes by allowing learners to work in small groups on problems

which they could not do alone, they provide mediation for each other.

Furthermore he believes that this “mediated learning allows students to

progress smoothly through the zone of proximal development so they learn

to do alone that which previously they could do only with help” (ibid),

however this could be viewed as a somewhat simplistic understanding of the

concept of the ZPD.

The structures also correspond with other theories on the constructivist

continuum, for instance situated cognition theory :

Situated perspectives suggest that the behaviours and practices of

students in mathematical situations are not solely mathematical, nor

individual, but are emergent as part of the relationships formed

between learners and the people and systems of their environments.

(Boaler, 1999, p.260)

The natural, real-life interaction context in which the structures engage the

learners in discussion and communication has the potential to build these

relationships and to help them “see themselves as equal status members in

a community of learners” (Kagan, 2001, p.8). Furthermore, Kagan believes

this can help “sidestep the transference gap” (ibid, p.6), that is they acquire

skills which can be applied to various situations.

32
Kagan’s cooperative learning structures were first developed in the 1980s

and are now used in schools worldwide (Kagan, 2003). But what is the

empirical evidence to support the usage of the structures? Of the 158

studies selected for Johnson et al.’s (2000) meta-analysis, not a single one

investigated Kagan’s cooperative learning structures, perhaps as Kagan

frames his research on positive interdependence which may not have

completely met the prescribed criteria of social interdependence for

inclusion, however of the researched based evaluations found from this

systematic review of Kagan Structures, only one (Maheady et al., 1991) was

actually published before the meta-analysis.

A research team at the State University of New York has since published a

series of independent and peer reviewed papers on Kagan’s Numbered

Heads Together (see Appendix 1) structure (Maheady et al., 2002; 2006;

Haydon et al., 2010), which showed that student attainment was higher than

when traditional whole class teaching was employed (e.g. Maheady et al.,

2006). Kagan (2014) used this series of research studies to calculate the

average positive effect size for Kagan Structures at 0.92, indicating an

increase from the 50th to the 82nd percentile (Kagan, 2014). This means

that you would expect the average person in the experimental group to score

higher than 82% of the control group (Coe, 2002). In Johnson et al.’s (2000)

meta-analysis only one cooperative method produced an effect size larger

than this, which was Learning Together, suggesting that Kagan’s structures

perform in line with the more extensively evaluated cooperative techniques,

although it should be noted that the four studies used to calculate Kagan’s

33
effect size is much smaller than the number of studies used for some of the

cooperative techniques in Johnson et al.’s (2000) meta-analysis, which

calculated average effect sizes from as little as one study to as many as 57

studies on a single cooperative learning technique.

However a gap in the empirical research to date seems to be an independent

evaluation of a wider range of Kagan’s structures and the effect of combining

the structures. This gap in the research is especially true for their use in

mathematics at secondary school level where only one empirical evaluation

was found by the author (Van Wetering, 2009) on the Kagan website, so the

independent nature of this research is unclear. Van Wetering’s research was

an action research study conducted with her own classes to evaluate the

effects of using the structures on both learner attainment and learner

attitudes to group work. Van Wetering compares her class averages with the

control group of the previous cohort’s attainment and the cooperative

structures approach outperformed the traditional teaching methods in all

examinations, however some of the differences between the class averages

are very small and could be attributed to other factors, for example in the

composition of the two cohorts.

Despite there being an expectation to use Kagan’s structures in the author’s

school to develop the use of group work in lessons, there has been little

evidence of its implementation in mathematics lessons. Through informal

discussions with mathematics staff at the school, this is in part due to the fact

that they find it hard to adapt the generic structures to mathematics teaching.

34
From an internet search of the terms Kagan and mathematics, a variety of

activities were found using a selection of Kagan Structures for paired and

group discussion in mathematics. This search enabled the shortlisting of ten

structures (see Appendix 1). This variety of structures could support Boaler’s

(1999) stance for solving problems in a range of ways and in a broader

environment to allow knowledge to be applied in alternative contexts.

Kagan’s structures seem to naturally fit with the social interaction perspective

with regards to the reciprocity of group work. Kagan emphasises that

although the lower attaining learners benefit most from the approach, the

“gains are not purchased at the expense of the high achieving students — all

students benefit” (Kagan, 2008, para.10), suggesting learners appreciate that

explaining to their peers has value in strengthening their own understanding.

However, the cognitive elaboration perspective could also be addressed, for

example if the coaching hints in Quiz Quiz Trade or Inside Outside Circle

(see Appendix 1) offered alternative ways of approaching the problem, then

scaffolding for elaboration could be achieved. Similarly, Collective Memory

(See Appendix 1) could be used to support learners in describing small

details to their peers. These tasks would perhaps offer a starting point for

teachers and learners to develop cooperative learning in a structured way

with scaffolding explanations, which in turn would contribute to Hoyles’

(1985) social interaction perspective, with the hope of ultimately contributing

to the collaborative behaviours described by Swan (2006). If Kagan

structures could offer a starting point for developing the cooperative

behaviours, then perhaps these skills could be practised further through

35
Think-Pair-Share and Jigsaw before groups work more independently on

Swan’s five types of collaborative activities and other rich, group-worthy

tasks. This would structure the transition from cooperative to collaborative

learning.

Barriers for Teachers in Effective Use of Group Work

Johnson et al. (2000) describe cooperative learning as “one of the most

remarkable and fertile areas of theory, research, and practice in education”

(p.2), however effective group work strategies have not had sufficient impact

on English secondary schools (Kutnick et al., 2005) where learners spend “a

lot of their classroom time in the presence of other pupils, but with no clearly

defined learning purpose that engaged them collaboratively” (ibid, p.364). In

Kutnick et al.’s (2005) research across English, mathematics, science and

humanities in 47 secondary schools, planning for meaningful group work was

not evident. Kutnick et al. (2005) found that even when teachers planned for

group work just a third of teachers provided support for learners to develop

the skills to optimise learning in this manner.

Tinzmann et al. (1990) believe that simply rearranging the desks allows

learners to take more active roles in the classroom. However, teacher buy-in

is also vital to the success of implementing cooperative learning effectively

(Sapon-Shevin and Schniedewind, 1991) as the results of empirical research

in this field could be affected if the teacher were not committed to using

group work (Dotson, 2001).

36
Panitz (1997) lists eleven barriers for teachers using collaborative learning

techniques in the classroom:

 Loss of classroom control

 Lack of teacher confidence

 Concerns over content coverage

 Lack of ready-made resources

 Teachers' egos, wanting to perform

 Uncertainty how to assess individual progress when working in groups

 Concern being observed as unexpected outcomes are more likely to arise

 Learner apathy and resistance to thinking for themselves

 Lack of familiarity with cooperative learning techniques and classroom

management

 Lack of teacher training in collaborative teaching methods

 Large class sizes and inappropriate classroom setup (ibid)

The third bullet point above is supported by von Glasersfeld (1995b) who

claims that a common barrier for teachers and leaders in schools is the fear

that spending too much time on group work in lessons will not allow the

necessary content to be covered, however he believes the research of Cobb

on teaching arithmetic (Cobb et al., 1993) has shown this is not the case.

Furthermore Swan (2006) states it is “better to aim for depth than for

superficial ‘coverage’” (p.163)

Panitz (1997) suggests policy changes which need to take place for

collaborative learning to be more widely and effectively used. However,

37
could the structured approach of cooperative learning, help to overcome

some of these barriers as “[c]ooperative learning is actually a generic term

that refers to numerous methods for organizing and conducting classroom

instruction” (Johnson et al., 2000), that is it can be tailored to not only suit the

needs of the learners but also the policy constraints of the individual

institution.

Many of the cooperative learning group formations designate specific roles

for each team member (Bruffee, 1995). However is this always suited to

solving problems in the mathematics classroom? The theory of Complex

Instruction claims that the assignation of roles is appropriate for mathematics

learning, for example facilitator, team captain, recorder/reporter or resource

manager (Boaler and Staples, 2008; Cohen and Lotan, 1997). While the

assignation of roles can be used as a tool to ensure all group members are

participating (Boaler and Staples, 2008), it does not guarantee that all group

members will progress in the learning of mathematics and assessing

individual progress becomes a concern for teachers (Panitz, 1997). Boaler

and Staples (2008) cite a number of ways teachers in their research have

addresses those issues, including administering both group and individual

assessments and to ask individuals follow up question once a problem had

been solved as a group.

Dillenbourg’s et al.’s (1996) definition of cooperative learning (see Figure 3)

supports the Jigsaw technique where each member of the group has a

particular task to work on and then they come together to put those together,

38
by each group member explaining their learning to the others. This

increases participation without assigning roles. Kagan (1994) offers

hundreds of practical structures for teachers to use in their classrooms, many

of which do not require this assignation of roles, however there is a lack of

research evidence on their individual quality and little guidance for teachers

as to which structures are most suitable for use in their classroom (Panitz,

1997), particularly as Kagan (1994) offers generic structures which are not

explicit for how to apply them in a mathematics context. This sentiment is

echoed by Johnson et al (2000) who claim teachers “have very little

guidance as to which specific cooperative learning methods will be most

effective in their situation” (Johnson et al., 2000, p.4). Kagan’s Cooperative

Learning Structures exemplify this, as with hundreds of structures to choose

from, how do we know which lend themselves particularly well to the learning

of mathematics? Many teachers are unlikely to take the risk to randomly try

a general structure, since one of the barriers for using small group work is

teacher confidence (Panitz, 1997).

The research questions set out in the introduction aim to investigate how

teachers’ attitudes to implementing group work in mathematics can be

improved. Learner enjoyment and motivation are important factors in

improving participation and engagement in lessons (Kagan, 2003), however

if mathematical learning is not taking place, then group work is not

worthwhile (Cohen, 1994). As previously discussed, mathematical discourse

does not always equate to developing mathematical understanding, therefore

strategies need to be in place to structure that support for learners’ to

39
develop their cognitive elaboration to maximise the construction of

knowledge.

40
 Chapter 2

Research Design

This chapter outlines the action research methodology and research

methods used in the empirical research for this dissertation. Limitations of

these methods and potential threats to the validity and reliability of the results

are also considered. Links are made back to the literature review to

formulate a structured approach to introducing group work in the action

research and an analysis rationale is outlined. Finally sampling methods and

ethical considerations are discussed.

Methodology

As stated in the introduction, this dissertation aims to answer the following

questions:

1. What are teachers’ perceptions of the barriers to group work in

mathematics?

2. Does the use of structures for group work change teachers’

perceptions?

The methodology needs to be appropriate to the research questions being

explored (Gorard & Taylor, 2004). As a practitioner researcher, the primary

interest is in the barriers for teachers using group work in the author’s own

school context, so an action research study of the author’s school is most

appropriate. The second research question lends itself particularly well to

41
the action research approach, however the first research question also fits

within this framework as it is a necessary step within the process of bringing

about the desired change in attitudes towards group work.

1. What are teachers’ perceptions of the barriers to group work in

mathematics?

The first research question is addressed through an interpretive study as

it is very much the teachers’ perspectives in which this research is

interested. The data needed to be collected is teachers’ personal views

about group work to ascertain both directly and indirectly the barriers they

face to ensuring group work is conducted and managed effectively.

2. Does the use of structures for group work change teachers’

perceptions?

Small-scale action research is particularly appropriate for this research

question because the overall intentions are to improve mathematics

teachers’ current perspectives on group work with the ultimate hope of

improving learners’ experiences in mathematics lessons. A selection of

Kagan structures (see Appendix 1) will be piloted to select a few

structures to create a phased structured approach to introduce group

work for participant teachers in the main action research study. The first

phase will aim to increase learner engagement and participation through

collaborative structures, so learners’ opinions from the pilot study will be

collected and analysed in order to create a shortlist, based on structures

which learners have positive attitudes towards. Following the action

42
 research, teachers’ opinions need to be collected to make a judgement

on whether the structures for group work have brought about the desired

change. The collection of learners’ opinions and examples of small group

discussions will attempt to triangulate any findings.

The research questions in this study also fit with the cyclic approach

associated with action research (Coghlan and Brannick, 2005):

Planning – This will include collecting teachers’ attitudes to group work to

determine the barriers. In addition to this, a small pilot study will test the

research instrument for the collection of learners’ opinions and will also trial

the techniques discussed in the literature review to facilitate group work.

Acting – At this stage, training will be given to all mathematics staff at the

author’s school on the cooperative and collaborative learning techniques

identified in the literature review, followed by joint planning with participant

teachers. The participant teachers will trial group work techniques over the

course of a school term using a three-phased approach from simple

cooperative structures to more open-ended collaborative tasks.

Observing – Informal observations will be made of participant classes to

capture some of their small group discussions and interactions during each

of the three phases. Particular focus to be given to the cooperative and

collaborative learning behaviours exhibited in these discussions.

Reflecting – The cycle continues by collecting teachers’ opinions on their

current thoughts on group work and whether they felt the phased approach

had any impact on their participant class or indeed any other classes they

teach. Finally the findings and conclusions on the analysis of this data will

43
be shared with the mathematics department at the author’s school, which

can then be used in future departmental planning to continue the action

research cycle.

All the research questions are to be investigated through inductive reasoning

with the author open to new and unexpected themes occurring as opposed

to deductively testing hypotheses. Inductive reasoning fits with the

constructivist epistemological framework, in particular the radical

constructivist view of ontological reality as it is open to epistemic uncertainty.

Combined Methods Approach

Due to the diverse nature of the type of data collection required to address

each research question, it will be necessary to use a combined methods

approach (Gorard & Taylor, 2004), more commonly referred to as a mixed

methods approach where there are both quantitative and qualitative methods

for testing the relationships between the variables (Kerlinger in Cohen et al.,

2007).

For the first research question, qualitative semi-structured interviews with

four members of mathematics department staff will be conducted individually,

recorded and transcribed. Interviews allow the researcher to probe deeper

into the participants’ thoughts (Silverman, 2006). These interviews will be

semi-structured to ensure the key points are explored but that flexibility is

maintained (Robson, 2002) so questions can be adapted if deemed

appropriate. This flexibility allows unexpected themes to surface (Zhang &

44
Wildemuth, 2009), which could well change the focus of the research

questions. To achieve the semi-structured approach, an interview schedule

(Robson, 2002) was produced (see Appendix 2) with prompt questions to

probe deeper where required (Kajornboon, 2005). The interviews were

chosen to be conducted individually so less experienced staff would not be

anxious about their existing knowledge and current practice compared to

more experienced or more senior teachers. However a limitation of this

could be that in a one to one interview the interviewee might just say what

they think the interviewer wants to hear, so to minimise this potential threat to

validity (Cohen et al., 2007), all interviewees will be assured of the non-

judgemental nature of the interviews and that anything they say will remain

confidential and they will remain anonymous (BERA, 2011).

The interview questions focus on the teachers’ attitudes to group work (Miller

& Glassner, 2004), when they are likely to use it in their lessons, for which

type of classes, ability, topic etc. If they are not currently confident in using

small group work in class, the interview structure will probe what the barriers

are. In order to address the remaining research questions, the last section of

the semi-structured interview will be to ask each teacher to identify upcoming

topics for the selected class for the author to prepare small group activities.

A possible issue with these interviews could be that because only four

teachers will be interviewed, the data collected may not reflect the opinions

of all the mathematics teaching staff at the school. To minimise this, a range

of experience and teaching styles will be purposively chosen in the sample of

teachers with whom to conduct this research. Another issue with interviews

45
is that it is very time consuming to convert the recordings made in the

interviews into transcript form (Britten, 1995). Furthermore there is a

potential issue with bias in the analysis and interpretation of interview data,

even if in transcript form, as the researcher may seek out themes which

support the research questions and ignore others which perhaps negate

them (Johnson, 1997).

To address the second research question a phased and structured approach

to implementing group work will be developed following the pilot study. The

author, in collaboration with the participant teachers where possible, will

create mathematics specific activities to trial with their participant class.

During this stage in the action research cycle, the author will make informal

non-participant observations of some of the small groups’ discussions in

lessons to collect qualitative data of their mathematical discourse, as

epistemic actions, which construct knowledge, are most likely to be observed

in a social setting (Herschkowitz et al., 2001). This dialogue will be analysed

in terms of the cooperative and collaborative behaviours, as outlined in the

literature review, displayed by the learners. In particular the following

behaviours will be looked for in these observations:

Cooperative Behaviours

The following cooperative behaviours exemplify the definition of cooperative

learning concluded from the literature review, that of maximising

participation, teambuilding and sharing responsibility for learning and

progress:

46
  Learners work together to achieve a common goal (Johnson et al.,

2000; McInnerney & Roberts, 2004)

 Learners ask their peers for help (Johnson et al., 2000)

 Many learners are engaged at once (Kagan, 2008)

 A shared responsibility for learning is demonstrated (Bruffee, 1995)

Collaborative Behaviours

As collaborative learning has been defined as the outcome of successful

structured group work, the cooperative behaviours above would be expected

to be demonstrated alongside the following behaviours required to work

collaboratively on complex tasks with minimal support from the teacher:

 Learners offer alternative approaches in explanations and explain

their reasoning (Mercer, 2008)

 All learners’ input to discussion is valued by their peers (Panitz, 1999)

 Learners demonstrate intrinsic motivation to solve problems in groups

(von Glasersfeld, 1995)

 Learners demonstrate a coordinated effort to solving problems with

mutual engagement and participation (Dillenbourg et al., 1996)

It was decided to take written field-notes on key elements of learners’

discussions as opposed to audio recording the learners, as the presence of

an audio recording might stifle the discussion (Swann, 1994). Furthermore

on an audio recording it could be difficult to ensure the right learner is

matched to each voice and in listening back the audio, non-verbal

47
communication would not be observable (ibid). A video recording would

potentially overcome this, but it was felt due to the low self-esteem of many

students at the school, a video recording could restrict the discussion even

more than an audio recording (ibid). It could be argued that the presence of

the author listening to the discussion would also affect the discourse as it is

almost “impossible to maintain a strict separation between your role as an

observer and your usual role” (ibid, p.28), however the decision was made in

conjunction with the participant teachers that the author’s presence would

have less impact than an audio recording. A limitation of this method is not

everything from the discussions are able to be captured, since small group

discussion “flows very rapidly” (ibid, p.31) and there is potential in

observational bias as observations are “subjective in interpretation” (Burton

et al., 2008, p.97), that is the researcher may focus on comments which

support the research questions rather than being open to other themes in the

data. The effects of these limitations will need consideration in the

interpretation of the discourse (Swann, 1994).

Following the intervention, all participant learners will complete a

questionnaire (Appendix 3) to provide quantitative data on learners’

perspectives. These questionnaires will investigate learners’ confidence,

perception of their progress and their attitudes to the small group structures

trialled. A questionnaire as opposed to interviews here will allow feedback

from a large number of the learners (Rea & Parker, 2012). This

methodological triangulation between teacher interviews, researcher

observations and learner questionnaires, should ensure that data is collected

48
“from as widely different perspectives as possible” (Denscombe, 2007,

p.135) in terms of the wider impact of the structured approach to

implementing group work in mathematics.

Of course the participants, for example, may have just enjoyed doing

something different in their mathematics lessons, rather than positive

responses to the questions being directly attributable to group work, which

could be considered a limitation. To address the validity of the questionnaire

it must be asked if it measures what it is intended to measure (Hartas, 2010).

Therefore it is of particular importance to ensure the respondents know that

they are giving their opinions on the structure of each activity, not the

content. For example, Quiz Quiz Trade may have been used to solve

problems involving percentages, however the participants are feeding back

in terms of the structure of the technique to support their peers to construct

new knowledge or apply existing knowledge, not to whether they enjoyed

learning about percentages. It is difficult to ensure all respondents

understand each question, particularly considering they are school-aged

(Lewis & Lindsay, 2000). To help overcome these issues, the teachers were

encouraged to use each structure more than once with their class to enable

the structure to be separated from the content and the learners were

reminded what each of the cooperative structures were before completing

the questionnaire. A further limitation is that the participants will might offer

“social desirable answers” (Hartas, 2010, p. 258); that is they could respond

how they think the teacher or the author would like them to respond. To

minimise this threat to validity the participants were assured anonymity

49
(BERA, 2011) and the questionnaires were also completed in silence, under

“exam-like conditions” (Francis, 2000, p. 29), so that respondents would give

their own opinions and not be swayed by another participant.

Finally to complete the investigation of the second research question, the

participant teachers will take part in a post-intervention interview to assess

how the three-phased approach supported both them and their classes in

implementing group work and evaluate the impact of the action research. A

semi-structured interview schedule was again used (see Appendix 4) to allow

for flexibility.

Pilot Study

Before the acting stage of the action research cycle, the ten shortlisted

Kagan structures were piloted with the author’s Year 9 class and a pilot

questionnaire (Appendix 5) was used to collect feedback. The questionnaire

was based on a questionnaire used in Van Wetering’s (2009) research to

collect learners’ attitudes to group work and was devised to include generic

questions about learners’ attitudes to group work as well as their attitudes to

the piloted techniques. Hence it served two purposes: firstly to get an insight

into the structures to which learners respond positively in order to further

shortlist the cooperative learning structures from the literature review to use

in the main action research study. Secondly it enabled a pilot of suitable

questions for the learner questionnaire, to gain information on whether these

questions could be understood by respondents and whether the response

scales were appropriate (Hartas, 2010). The response scale used was a
50
simple four point Likert scale of strongly disagree, disagree, agree and

strongly agree. This was chosen to force the participants to give either a

positive or negative response (Garland, 1991). The structures with the

largest proportions of positive responses will be selected for the main part of

this study.

The research needs to be replicable to ensure reliability (Bashir et al., 2008),

so one week after completing the initial questionnaire, the pilot class were

given the same questionnaire again to assess if learners respond to the

questions in the same way as before. To minimise bias, no further group

work was conducted between the two occasions of completion of the

questionnaire.

Following the pilot, some of the questionnaire items were refined (see

Appendix 6). For example two questions were very similar so they were

separated and the former was reversed to enable some triangulation of the

responses to assess whether the participants respond as expected even if

questions are phrased differently (Black, 1999). This also tests the validity of

the questionnaire; that is to check if participants are reading each question

and not just succumbing to the “temptation just to mark all of them the same”

(ibid, p.229) by responding positively to everything if they like group work.

51
Three-Phased Approach

Kutnick et al. (2005) found that only a minority of teachers provided support

for learners to develop the skills required to work in groups and the cognitive

elaboration perspective highlighted the difficulty learners have in explaining

their thoughts to one another (Slavin et al., 2003). It is hoped that a

structured approach to group work from cooperative to collaborative learning

activities can address both these issues, through scaffolding this

development of group skills, to increase teacher confidence in implementing

group work and enabling learners to develop cooperative and collaborative

learning behaviours. To facilitate this a three-phased approach was devised

as outlined in the Figure 6, which sits within the acting stage of the action

research cycle.

52
 Phase 1 Increasing Participation, Team Building and
Cooperative Developing Elaboration Skills
Routine
Quiz Quiz Trade (Kagan, 1994)

Collective Memory (Kagan, 1994)

Rally Robin (Kagan, 1994)

Open-ended

Phase 2 Sharing Responsibility of Learning and Applying

Cooperative Elaboration Skills
Routine All Write Round Robin (Kagan adaptation)

Think Pair Share (Lyman, 1981)

Open-ended Jigsaw (Aronson, 1978)

Phase 3 ‘Group-worthy’ Tasks to Construct Knowledge

Collaborative
Routine Classifying mathematical objects
(e.g. Odd One Out, sorting activities)
Interpreting multiple representations
(e.g. card match activities)
Evaluating mathematical statements
(e.g. Always, Sometimes, Never True)
Analysing reasoning and solutions (Swan, 2006)

Rich Tasks e.g. Volume = 216 (Boaler, 2002)

Open-ended Creating problems (Swan, 2006)

Figure 6 - Three-phased approach to support teachers to use collaborative learning

techniques

The first phase is to support teachers to use cooperative structures which

aim to increase participation and to support team building. These are simple

structured Kagan tasks which were selected from the pilot study results (see

Chapter 3). These structures also aim to begin to develop elaboration skills,
53
in line with Slavin et al.’s (2003) cognitive elaboration perspective, through

providing coaching hints for learners in their explanations to their peers.

The second phase continues to utilise structured techniques to support

learners in sharing responsibility for learning through group accountability

(Askew and Wiliam, 1995), an important behaviour of cooperative learning

(Bruffee, 1995; Johnson et al., 2000; McInnerney & Roberts, 2004). Jigsaw

(Aronson, 1978) was also chosen to use in this phase as one of the barriers

to group work identified by Panitz (1997) is ensuring that all learners are on

task; in Jigsaw, each member of the small group has responsibility to learn

and feedback their piece of the overall task which could potentially overcome

this barrier.

The third and final phase uses Swan’s (2006) collaborative learning

techniques and rich ‘group-worthy’ mathematical tasks in accordance with

Horn’s (2005) conditions to develop cooperative learning behaviours. At

each stage in the above plan, the structures are intended to aid progression

from routine to more open-ended problems (Lotan, 2003).

Analysis Rationale

An empirical approach will be used to investigate the effectiveness of the

three phases in overcoming the barriers for teachers in using group work

effectively. Transcripts from the pre-intervention teacher interviews will be

analysed using a simple descriptive coding framework (Miles & Huberman,

1994) for thematic analysis to draw out emerging themes (Delamont, 2002)
54
of teachers’ current perspectives on group work. A similar approach is used

in the post-intervention interviews to allow any new themes to emerge

following the intervention. The analysis of the post-intervention interviews

will allow the structures to be evaluated in terms of how they develop

cooperative and collaborative learning from the teachers’ perspectives.

The data analysis software SPSS is used to analyse the quantitative

questions from the learner questionnaire, through producing frequency tables

to compare proportions (Muijs, 2010) in students’ opinions on group work in

general as well as the specific cooperative structures trialled with the

classes. This is made possible through the use of Likert scales where each

response is able to be converted to a number in order to treat the data

quantitatively. Generally these were four-point Likert scales as previously

discussed, however the pilot study found that questions relating to learners’

mathematical understanding required a five-point scale to allow for a neutral

response if participant learners felt unable to comment on any perceived

difference.

If the outcomes from the qualitative post-intervention teacher interviews

correspond with the quantitative data from the learner questionnaires then

greater confidence can be had in the validity of the findings (Cohen et al.,

2007). To make this comparison, the teacher interviews will need to be

compared with their corresponding class’ feedback.

55
The test-retest of the questionnaire with the pilot class will investigate

whether participants responded similar on each occasion, to consider the

reliability of the questionnaire, as the aim of this triangulation is to verify “the

repeatability” (Stake, 2005, p.454) of the findings. It should be noted

however that the reliability calculated is only for the pilot as a whole; it cannot

be verified whether individuals responded similarly on both occasions as a

result of the anonymity given.

Due to the small amount of dialogue collected from the small groups’

discussions, thematic analysis of the classroom observations was not

possible, however examples of the discourse are incorporated in Chapter 5

where the dialogue supports the findings from the literature review,

interviews and questionnaires and adds triangulation in terms of results from

different sources which are in agreement (Mathison, 1988). The qualitative

comments from the final question on the learner questionnaire (Appendix 3)

will also be used in this manner. Both these qualitative forms of data should

also to give more depth to the quantitative analysis (Creswell et al, 2006),

both in terms of the quality of group discussion and the learners’

perspectives.

Sampling Methods

To attempt to maximise the validity of the study, a purposive sample of

classes was selected in the hope of being as representative of the

Federation as possible (Cohen et al., 2007). The sampling method

employed was partly convenience sampling in the first instance to select

56
Teacher W (TW) and Teacher X (TX) and classes who were taught

mathematics during the author’s non-contact or AST allocated time, to

minimise cover implications. Following this selection however the sampling

became more purposive, as Teacher Y (TY) and Teacher Z (TZ) were

purposively selected for the following reasons: They both have very little

experience of using group work in lessons and they were keen to be involved

in the study to for their own professional development. This teacher buy-in is

crucial according to Sapon-Shevin and Schniedewind (1991). More

importantly in terms of sampling, TY and TZ both taught classes which if

added to the convenience sample, created a wider range of gender, age and

attainment of learners in the total sample (Denscombe, 2007), which

although does not guarantee representativeness, does attempt to maximise

it.

It should be noted that in-class support and observations were not possible

with TY and TZ due to the author’s teaching commitments at these times,

which will need to be taken into account in the analysis of the results,

however they were involved in all the other aspects of the action research

cycle.

Once a suitable team of teachers were selected then a purposive sample of

their classes for such a small sample was more appropriate than random

sampling. To maximise the representativeness, proportions of age groups of

learners in the school were calculated to compare with the distribution of age

groups in the sample (Robson, 2002). Year 11 were not included in the

57
calculations due to leaving school in the summer term when the action

research took place. Year 10 had work experience for two weeks so were

not chosen in the sample as the time to work with these classes on the

structures would be limited. The classes selected were as follows:

 Year 7 Boys (middle attainers)

 Year 7 Boys (higher attainers)

 Year 9 Boys (lower attainers)

 Year 9 Girls (lower attainers)

 Year 9 Girls (middle attainers)

As the author’s Year 9 class had worked on these group structures in their

mathematics lessons, they were included in the sample. The reasoning

behind this and the implications of this decision are discussed after Figure 7,

which shows the proportions of each group in the sample compared to the

proportions of those groups in the whole school.

Number of Number of
Proportion Proportion
students in participants
of school of sample
Federation in sample
Male 231 23.0% 58 46.0%
Year 7 - 8
Female 213 21.2% 0 0%
Year 7 - 8
Male 271 26.9% 21 16.7%
Year 9 - 10
Female 291 28.9% 47 37.3%
Year 9 - 10
Total Male 502 49.9% 79 62.7%
Total Female 504 50.1% 47 37.3%
Total Year 7 - 8 444 44.1% 58 46.0%
Total Year 9 - 10 562 55.9% 68 54.0%

Figure 7 – Proportions of age and gender in the sample compared with the population

58
The sample is representative of the population in terms of age, with very

similar proportions of younger and older learners in the sample as in the

whole school, however due to the constraints which required convenience

sampling, it was not possible to work with a teacher of a Year 7 or Year 8

girls’ class. As a result the gender split in each age group in the sample is

not representative of the proportions of males and females in the Federation.

After the pilot study, the author’s Year 9 class followed the same phased

approach for structured group work as the other participant classes and

completed the final revised questionnaire in line with the other classes.

Without the author’s Year 9 class in the sample, the proportion of girls in the

sample would only be 18.3% compared to 50.1% for the school, with the

addition of this class, girls are still not represented at KS3, however the

overall proportion of girls in the sample rises to 37.3%. While this is by no

means an exact stratified sample in terms of age and gender, it is closer to

the whole school proportions than with the author’s Year 9 class omitted.

This gender split causes implications for the generalisability of the findings of

this research (Cohen et al., 2007) which will be discussed in more depth in

Chapters 4 and 5. It is generally not recommended for the pilot respondents

to complete the final questionnaire (ibid) as their responses may be affected

by previous versions of the questionnaire. To take this into account in the

analysis of the results and to minimise the effect of the gender split, some

results will be calculated separately for males and females to compare the

differences in their responses to group work.

59
Ethical Considerations

All research will be carried out in accordance with BERA (2011) guidelines.

Ethical approval was granted by the Centre for Education Studies at the

University of Warwick for this research (Appendix 7). The Executive

Principal of the Federation gave consent to conduct the research in the two

schools including, in loco-parentis, consent to observe teacher-learner and

learner-learner discourse in lessons and conduct the learner questionnaire

(BERA, 2011). Prior consent of students and their parents was not obtained

for classroom observations as learners were not recorded or filmed and even

if they are quoted in the dissertation, individuals will not be identified in any

way.

The purpose of the study and how observational data and information given

in semi-structured interviews will be used, were explained to the teachers

selected to participate in this research. They were informed of the voluntary

nature of their participation and their right to withdraw at any time (ibid).

They were also assured that any observations would be to capture the

conversations between learners and not to grade or judge their teaching of

group work. At the start of each lesson, the purpose of the observation was

explained to the class. Information at the top of the learner questionnaires

also explained the purpose of the study and how information collected will be

used confidentially (see Appendix 3). Furthermore, a statement was

included in this information highlighting that the return of the questionnaire

for the purposes of data collection for this research is voluntary so students

had the option to simply not hand it in. The questionnaire was conducted in

60
lesson time so that it could be assured as much as possible that the students

understood this information.

The confidentiality of the research was explained to the teachers and that to

maintain anonymity they would be referred to as Teacher X etc. Likewise

learners will be referred to as Student A etc. from any observations recorded

so that individual learners will not be identifiable. Furthermore, no space for

names has be given on the learner questionnaires to ensure anonymity

(Cohen et al., 2007) and questionnaires will be collected in anonymously in a

large envelope.

61
 Chapter 3

Results Analysis and Findings

This chapter presents the findings drawn from the analysis of the results

collected from the action research. It first presents the results from the pilot

study which shaped the three-phased approach to structured group work and

the test-retest results to test the reliability of the questionnaire. It then

reveals the themes which emerged as barriers to teachers using group work

in mathematics from the analysis of the pre-intervention teacher interviews.

This is followed by the findings from detailed quantitative analysis of the

learner questionnaires, including the findings from analysing the differences

in responses, in terms of gender, age and attainment. Finally, the strengths

and barriers of the phased approach are presented from the thematic

analysis of the post-intervention teacher interviews.

Pilot Study Results

By grouping the strongly disagree and strongly agree categories with

disagree and agree respectively for the questions relating to specific

cooperative structures, it was clear to highlight which tasks were enjoyed by

the majority of the pilot group from highest percentage agreement (see

Figure 8). Enjoyment was considered relevant in the pilot of the structures

as a positive attitude from the learners is closely linked to intrinsic motivation

62
(Nov et al., 2010) which von Glasersfeld (1995) states is required for

collaborative problem solving. Learners’ demonstrating engagement and

participation in the first phase through enjoyment of the structures could have

a positive effect on teachers’ concerns about implementing group work.

I have enjoyed Inside

I have enjoyed Think
I have enjoyed Rally

I have enjoyed Rally

I have enjoyed Quiz

I have enjoyed Find

Collective Memory

Write Round Robin

I have enjoyed Mix

I have enjoyed All

Numbered Heads
someone who…
I have enjoyed

I have enjoyed

I have enjoyed
Outside Circle
Showdown

Quiz Trade

and Match
Pair Share

Coach
Robin

N 24 24 24 24 22 24 24 24 24 23 20
% Disagree 0.0 16.7 16.7 20.8 16.7 33.3 37.5 41.7 54.2 50.0 41.6
% Agree 100.0 83.3 83.3 79.2 75.0 66.7 62.5 58.3 45.8 45.8 41.7
% Missing 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.2 16.7
% Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Figure 8 – Pilot Group Perspectives of Cooperative Tasks

Rally Robin came out the highest with all respondents indicating a positive

attitude to the structure. Collective Memory and Think-Pair-Share were next

favoured with a large majority of participants in agreement, then All Write

Round Robin and Showdown. All these tasks had at least three quarters of

the pilot group giving positive responses.

Although Showdown had the fifth highest percentage agreement, it was

decided that Quiz Quiz Trade should be used in the main study instead of

Showdown as although 37.5% were not favourable about this task, in lesson

observations on three separate occasions with three different members of

teaching and senior leadership staff, the class were noted to be highly

engaged in mathematical discussion during activities using this structure.

63
Furthermore, the literature review discussed the need to support learners in

their elaboration skills, which is scaffolded for learners in Quiz Quiz Trade,

but not in Showdown.

As discussed in the research design in Chapter 2, the pilot study

questionnaire was administered a week later to compare the reliability of the

research instrument in terms of test-retest. No further group work was

trialled in this time to ensure that their opinions on group work had not been

influenced further, ensuring that the retest was simply investigating whether

participants would respond similarly on different occasions. The largest

difference in the percentage agreement from the first to the second test was

5.0%, which is a difference of only 2 respondents, one of whom could be

attributable to the change in total responses for that question between the

two occasions. Two statements had no change in the percentages of

positive responses from the test to the retest. Therefore all the generic

group work questions were used in the main action research as a result of

this reliability from the test-retest.

members questions before asking
I am more likely to ask my group

Being in a group has helped me

I find my group members to be

understanding of mathematics
I feel comfortable asking my
I feel comfortable working in

become more successful in

group members questions
I enjoy working in groups

when I work in a group

I feel I have a better

mathematics
the teacher
groups

helpful

N 24 24 24 24 24 23 23
Test
Percentage Agreement 95.8 95.8 91.7 83.3 87.5 82.6 78.3
N 24 24 24 24 24 24 24
Retest
Percentage Agreement 91.7 91.7 91.7 83.3 91.7 79.2 83.3
Difference in Percentage Agreement 4.1 4.1 0.0 0.0 4.2 3.4 5.0

Figure 9 – Test-Retest Comparisons for Reliability of Research Instrument

64
Following the test-retest of the original pilot questionnaire, some of the

questions about general group work were changed. The most notable

changes were splitting up questions Qp8 and Qp9 from the original

questionnaire:

Qp8. I feel I have a better understanding of mathematics when I work in a group

Qp9. Being in a group has helped me become more successful in mathematics

This was in part down to the fact they are very similar, so splitting up the

questions and then reversing question Qp8 (Qrp4 in the refined pilot

questionnaire, see Appendix 6) to triangulate results:

Qrp4. I feel I have a better understanding of mathematics when I work on my own

Interestingly, this question scored a percentage agreement of 82.6% and

79.2% on the test and retest respectively both indicating a positive attitude to

group work, with respect to their success in and understanding of

mathematics, however when that question was reversed in the refined pilot,

although the percentage agreement dropped to 62.5% (see figure 10), it

would be expected to be below 25%.

I am more likely to ask my group
fellow group members questions

Being in a group has helped me

I find my group members to be
I feel comfortable working in a

understanding of mathematics
I feel comfortable asking my

become more successful in

members questions before
I enjoy working in a group

when I work on my own

I feel I have a better
asking the teacher

mathematics
helpful
group

N 24 24 23 24 24 24 24
Percentage Agreement 91.7 95.8 87 79.2 91.7 62.5 83.3

Figure 10 – Responses from Refined Pilot Learner Questionnaire

65
There are several possible reasons for this: it could be attributed to the need

for a ‘don’t know’ response option for questions linking group work to

attainment as if participants are unsure they could be choosing almost

randomly and as this was the third time the pilot learners had completed the

questionnaire some may not have noticed the change in this question. Most

importantly however it casts doubt on the validity of this research instrument.

This revised question has remained in the main action research study as

comparing responses from different groups of learner is still possible,

however this refined pilot result will need to be considered when analysing

these questions and considering the limitations, particularly in terms of

whether understanding and success in mathematics are directly comparable.

Pre-Intervention Teacher Interviews

The transcripts were analysed using a simple descriptive coding framework.

As barriers to group work arose they were assigned codes which were used

whenever these topics arose again. Following completion of the coding of

the pre-intervention interview transcripts, these topics were then grouped into

common themes for the barriers facing teachers at the author’s school (see

Figure 11). Finally the themes were colour coded on the transcripts.

66
 Barriers to Group Work Code Theme

Learner behaviour LB
Students off task OFF Classroom
Classroom control CC management
Classroom layout ROOM and
Seating SEAT practicalities
Eye line to board EYE
Time needed to cover syllabus COV
Time needed to plan for group work PLAN
Time
Preparing for group work PREP
management
Time to get around to support each group SUP
Group work slows pace of lesson PACE
Students might just copy from others COPY
Objectives OBJ Assessment
Shared responsibility SHARE issues
Results RES
Teacher preferences TP
Learner preferences LP
Pair work is easier PAIR Impact of
Bad experience of group work BAD prior
If it isn’t broken… FIX experience
Effective group work is dependent on the class TYPE and teacher
Lack of training TRA knowledge
Knowledge of structures STR
Knowledge of roles ROLE

Figure 11 – Emerging themes from Teacher Interviews

The concerns which emerged directly as themes from the transcript analysis

were classroom management and practicalities, time management and

assessment issues. In addition to these it indirectly emerged that teachers’

knowledge of cooperative and collaborative structures were also a possible

barrier as well as teachers’ prior experience of both traditional teaching

through transmission of knowledge from teacher to learner which teachers

67
deemed successful, as well as their prior experience of ineffective group

work.

Learner Questionnaires

In total from the five classes involved in the action research, 126

questionnaires were collected in out of a possible 141. Due to the method of

completion of the questionnaires in class, all participant learners who were

present in school at the time each teacher conducted the survey handed in

their questionnaire, giving a response rate of 89.4% which is considered high

(Cohen et al., 2007). Due to some missing responses, not all 126

respondents completed every question but all the questionnaires were over

50 per cent complete so were considered to have enough completed for the

purposes of this analysis (ibid). The response rate for each question, N, has

been included in the frequency tables.

Questions Q3, Q4, Q6, Q7 and Q8 measure learner attitudes to group work:

Q3. I enjoy working in a group

Q4. I feel comfortable working in a group

Q6. I feel comfortable asking my fellow group members questions

Q7. I am more likely to ask my group members questions before asking the teacher

Q8. I find my group members to be helpful

In the same way as for the pilot study data, the strongly disagree and

strongly agree categories were combined with disagree and agree

respectively for the analysis of frequencies (see Figure 12).

68
 I feel comfortable working in

I feel comfortable asking my

I find my group members to

group members questions
I am more likely to ask my
I enjoy working in a group

before asking the teacher

fellow group members
questions

be helpful
a group
N 126 126 126 125 126
% Disagree 8.7 7.1 15.1 16.7 11.9
% Agree 91.3 92.9 84.9 82.5 88.1
% Missing 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.8 0.0
% Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Figure 12 – Learner attitudes to working in a group

All the questions relating to learners’ attitudes to group work had a high

majority percentage agreement with the highest proportion of positive

responses coming from the learners’ enjoyment and comfort working in a

group. The least positive attitudes related to asking questions to their fellow

group members, which had the largest proportion of disagree responses,

although over 82% were still in agreement that they were comfortable to ask

questions in their groups and more likely to ask their group members

questions than the teacher.

Q5 and Q9 relate to learners’ perception of the impact on their understanding

and success in mathematics as a result of working in a group:

Q5. Being in a group has helped me become more successful in mathematics

Q9. I feel I have a better understanding of mathematics when I work on my own

The percentage agreement for learners believing that group work has helped

their mathematical success was 46.8%. The percentage of learners who

69
disagreed that they understood mathematics better when they worked alone

was 44.4%. The purpose of reversing Q9 was to help assess the validity of

the questionnaire, which although was not answered as expected in the pilot

study, is strongly supported by the percentage responses in the main study

as highlighted in Figure 13, where the categories are grouped similarly to the

previous questions, but with the addition of the neutral category.

Being in a group has helped me

understanding of mathematics
become more successful in

when I work on my own

I feel I have a better
mathematics

N 126 126
% Disagree 19.0 44.4
% Neither Agree nor Disagree 34.1 37.3
% Agree 46.8 18.3
% Missing 0.0 0.0
% Total 100.0 100.0

Figure 13 – Learner perspective of impact on understanding of mathematics as a result of

working in a group.

In terms of gender (see Figure 14), both males and females responded very

similarly to the likelihood of asking their group members questions before

asking the teacher, although the biggest difference between genders was

how comfortable they feel asking their fellow group member questions with a

difference of over 6%.

70
 I am more likely to ask my group members
I feel comfortable asking my fellow group

Being in a group has helped me become

I find my group members to be helpful

I feel I have a better understanding of

mathematics when I work on my own
I feel comfortable working in a group

questions before asking the teacher

more successful in mathematics

I enjoy working in a group

members questions
Percentage Male 91.1 93.7 87.3 83.3 86.1 46.8 19.0
Agreement Female 91.5 91.5 80.9 83.0 91.5 46.8 17.0

Figure 14 – Effect of gender on attitudes to group work

Age made little difference to whether learners felt comfortable working in a

group (93.1% for younger learners and 92.6% for older learners). Where

age does appear to have an effect, is on learners’ perception of the impact of

group work on their understanding of mathematics: 51.5% of older learners

compared to 41.4% of younger learners, a much bigger difference than

between males and females with just a 2% difference (see Figure 14).

The percentage agreement varied most greatly when comparing ‘ability’

groupings (see Figure 15). Learners with above average attainment in

mathematics for their age, were more likely to enjoy and feel comfortable

working in groups, however below average attainers were most likely to ask

their group members questions before asking the teacher. It was average

attaining learners who were most likely to believe their understanding of

mathematics had improved as a result of group work as opposed to the lower

71
attaining learners, which Kagan (2008) claims learn the most in a

cooperative learning environment.

I am more likely to ask my group members

I feel comfortable asking my fellow group

Being in a group has helped me become

I find my group members to be helpful

I feel I have a better understanding of

mathematics when I work on my own
I feel comfortable working in a group

questions before asking the teacher

more successful in mathematics

I enjoy working in a group

members questions
Above average attainment 96.7 96.7 93.3 86.2 90 43.3 13.3
Percentage
Average attainment 92.3 94.2 86.5 80.8 88.5 48.1 21.2
Agreement
Below average attainment 87 82.6 73.9 87 82.6 34.8 21.7

Figure 15 – Effect of learner attainment on attitudes to group work

Learner responses for Q16, which invited participants to elaborate on any

area of group work they had experienced this term will be used in the

discussion in Chapter 4 as anecdotal evidence as the response rate for this

more open-ended question was low and many of the comments did not add

anything more to the closed responses. Similarly as the observational

evidence was limited, this will not be analysed here, but will be discussed in

Chapter 4 where the observations support the discussion.

Post-Intervention Teacher Interviews

Due to unforeseeable circumstances, Teacher X was unable to complete the

action research cycle. The author was able to complete the three-phased

intervention with the class in order to conduct the questionnaires with the

Year 7 middle ability boys, however because TX had missed the second and

72
third phases of the action research cycle and due to absence from school, a

post-intervention interview was not conducted with this teacher.

The other three teachers involved in the action research were interviewed,

recorded and transcribed in the same way as the pre-intervention interviews.

Figure 16 summarises the strengths and barriers of the three phases which

were reported in these post-intervention interviews.

Phase Strengths Barriers

1  Engaging  Explaining the structures
 Learners’ enjoyment initially to learners
 Confidence building  Assessing all learners’
 Time-efficient understanding
 Availability of resources  More for revision than new
 Easy to plan learning
 Team building
 Develops strategy
 Support in explanations
 Increase in participation
 Increase in mathematical
discourse between learners
2  Engaging  Keeping learners on task for
 Sharing knowledge longer periods
 Reinforcing understanding  Difficult to give control over
when explaining to others to learners
 Everyone involved  Some learners found
 Learners work with different explaining to their peers
people difficult
 Some learners prefer to
work alone
 Assessing all learners
3  Challenging and rewarding  Time to prepare resources
tasks Some learners dominating
 Learners working more small group
independently

Figure 16 - Strengths and barriers of the three phases to introduce group work

73
The following themes across these strengths and barriers emerged:

 Increased Engagement and Participation

 Increased Teacher Confidence

 Developing Group Skills

 Developing Elaboration Skills

The first two points above emerged as strengths. Elements of the second

two bullet points emerged as strengths, however other factors relating to

these themes were also cited by participant teachers as barriers. Some off

the assessment, time and classroom control concerns which emerged as

themes from the pre-intervention interviews remained an issue for individual

teachers but were addresses by the action research for others. However all

three teachers reported positively on the phased approach to introducing

group work in the mathematics classroom:

TW: I would definitely feel more confident about using it now.

TZ: I think it’s given me more confidence and ways to approach it. Different

ideas which I’d never tried before.

TY: Students don’t have that much experience explaining things to each

other so they find it difficult and then they disengage because they’re not

getting that much out of it. So I think the phased approach is really useful.

74
 Chapter 4

Discussion

This chapter will discuss the findings presented in Chapter 3 in relation to the

conceptual and empirical literature reviews and how these findings support

the research questions for this dissertation. This will first be discussed in

terms of the four themes which emerged as barriers to effective small group

work in mathematics which address the first research question, linking those

themes to previous research. For each of these four themes the evidence

will be considered for how the action research element of this study

overcame these barriers to address the second research question. It will

then consider the evidence which links the group work which took place to

the constructivist continuum. Finally it will discuss the themes which

emerged as strengths and barriers from the three-phased approach to

developing group work and how cooperative and collaborative behaviours

were displayed to assess the impact of the action research.

The Barriers: Agreement in the Research

The findings from the pre-intervention interviews support the majority of

barriers to group work found from previous research. Figure 17 maps the

themes which emerged from this action research and ten of Panitz’s (1997)

potential barriers. Panitz’s eleventh barrier, that of teachers' egos and

75
wanting to perform, did not arise from the interviews, however this is perhaps

more personal for teachers to openly admit to as a negative character trait.

Barriers to
Group Work Panitz’s (1997) Barriers
Theme
 Loss of classroom control
 Lack of teacher confidence
Classroom  Lack of familiarity with cooperative learning
Management & techniques and classroom management
Practicalities  Large class sizes and inappropriate classroom setup
 Concern being observed as unexpected outcomes
are more likely to arise
Time  Concerns over content coverage
management  Lack of ready-made resources
Assessment  Uncertainty how to assess individual progress when
issues working in groups
Impact of prior  Learner apathy and resistance to thinking for
experience themselves
teacher  Lack of teacher training in collaborative teaching
knowledge methods

Figure 17 – Comparsion of emerged themes and Panitz’s (1997) barriers

Classroom Management and Practicalities

A common concern within this theme was teachers’ confidence in terms of

classroom control. The perception for some teachers was that classes

working in silence equated to better learning, which was mainly attributed to

keeping them on task:

76
 TX: I like control; I worry about children going off task.

TZ: My Year 10 girls just can’t be trusted not to talk off topic so I tend to

have to get them to work in silence, it’s really difficult to let them talk but not

talk about…boys, social lives…

The comment by Teacher Z above implies that successful small group work

is dependent on the class involved, for TZ it was dependent on age and

behaviour. In fact all four participant teachers believed that successful small

group work, including pair work, was dependent on the class:

JD: How often would you say you have learners working in pairs?

TW: I would say… probably depends on the group.

TZ: Maybe one lesson a fortnight. Depends on the group, some of them a

little bit more.

However the type of class where teachers used group work as a pedagogic

strategy was different for different teachers. For TY it was attributed to the

relationship the teacher had with the class:

TY: It depends on the group. I think some groups are more naturally

inclined toward group work than others.

JD: What type of groups would you say? Is there a type of group?

TY: It’s difficult to explain. It’s difficult to explain because it’s not necessarily

an ability thing, it’s more of like an attitude thing I think, or it depends on my

relationship with them a little bit I think.

77
Both Teacher Y and Teacher Z believe that sometimes, although

implementing group work with lower attaining learners can be more difficult,

they are the type of learner who benefits most from the strategy:

JD: Do you find it easier to do with the lower ability, younger students?

TY: No, I find it more challenging, but then they learn more from doing it so

that compensates for the fact that it’s a bit more tricky.

TZ: Year 10 boys [TZ has a low attaining class] need to support each other

so I often get them to do things with partners.

This corresponds to Kagan’s (2008) assertion that it is the lower ability

learners who benefit most from his cooperative learning techniques, however

Kagan advocates a mixed ability learning environment which was not a

possible condition for this action research. Learners’ perceptions in this

empirical review do not agree with TY and TZ nor do they corroborate

Kagan’s assertion, as the below average attainers were the least likely to

believe that being in a group had helped them become more successful in

mathematics and the most likely attainment group to feel they have a better

understanding of mathematics when working alone. Furthermore this

category of learner had the highest proportion of negative responses in their

attitudes to group work in all but one question relating to attitude. These

negative responses could be attributed to the lower attaining learners’

abilities to explain their understanding to their peers (Blumenfeld et al.,

1996). The exception was where below average attainers were the most

likely to ask their group members for help before asking the teacher,

however this perhaps just as much exposes the limitation of the question as

the response is relative to another variable.

78
Despite positive feedback from the post-intervention teacher interviews in

terms of engagement and participation, for Teacher Z classroom

management remained an issue:

TZ: The barriers were control of the students, it works for a while keeping

them engaged but then you often start to lose them and then it’s making

sure everyone is still on task then I try to interrupt it and control it too much.

Participant learners from TZ’s class corroborate that classroom management

may still be an issue:

“The class go a bit over the top on noise”

“Sometimes it gets too loud and it starts getting hard to concentrate”

This is perhaps not surprising as five out of the eleven barriers to

implementing group work listed by Panitz (1997) can be linked to concerns

over classroom management (see Figure 18) so there are more elements to

overcome in classroom management than the other three themes. However

Teacher Z is new to the profession where classroom management issues are

common (Muijs & Reynolds, 2005).

Time Management

In line with Panitz’s (1997) barriers, time management was a concern for

Teacher Y at the start of the action research:

TY: Planning group work requires a lot more thought because I have to think

about who I’m going to put with who and how I’m going to change the room

up and things like that, so it just means that those lessons take longer to

plan.
79
Furthermore, it emerged that higher attaining learners may experience less

group work in mathematics than other learners, as there was not enough

perceived gains in using group work with this type of learner compared to the

amount of teacher preparation required:

TY: Group work I find requires a lot more work and planning on my side and

for the groups that I think are pretty strong, I think the sort of marginal

benefits you get from putting them into groups isn’t that much [compared to

whole class teaching methods].

However the learner questionnaires showed that over three times the

number of learners who felt they had a better understanding of mathematics

when working alone, believed that working in a group had helped them

become more successful in mathematics. Above average attainers are the

most likely to respond positively to all except one question relating to attitude

to group work and the exception, which was the likelihood to ask group

members questions before the teacher, was only 0.8% less than the most

likely category.

However Panitz (1997) states one of teachers’ concerns is the lack of ready-

made resources. The phased approach, particularly the first phase, helped

to overcome some of these concerns over the time required to plan for group

work:

TY: In the first phase, they were very time efficient activities… you get a lot

out of it for a small input, that’s what I liked.

TZ: The strengths was probably the availability of resources, it wasn’t hard

to plan it.

80
However, although this was certainly the case for the structures used in the

early phases, it was felt that if specific activities are not readily available then

time is still an issue in the later phases of the structured approach to produce

these:

TY: The later collaborative stuff is stuff that I have only really done with my

[participant] Year 9 class, just because to create those resources is quite

difficult.

Teacher Y has been unable to experience an impact of the third phase

beyond his participant class due to the lack of resources available.

Assessment Issues

Assessment was the least cited theme to emerge from the pre-intervention

teacher interviews, only being discussed by Teacher W. This does not

necessarily mean that assessment is not an issue, just that teachers in the

author’s school do not perceive it as a major barrier. This could be down to

the fact that until teachers come to implement group work they will not

discover the potential assessment issues, particularly considering that

assessment is a weak aspect of mathematics teaching generally (Ofsted,

2012). So perhaps teachers do not see it as any bigger barrier than

assessing individual progress in a more traditional lesson.

Where assessment was mentioned it was more in relation to whether there

was equal contributions by all small group members as opposed to

assessing learners’ understanding:

81
 TW: I find it quite hard to work out that all four members have equally

contributed to the task rather than two lead it and two agree, or one sit back

completely and not really be as involved.

This sentiment is echoed by this learner in his qualitative response on the

learner questionnaire:

“I never copy when I work alone.”

The issue of assessing that all learners are involved is discussed further in

the Increased Engagement and Participation section below, however

assessment in terms of marking remained an issue after the intervention:

TW: It’s a great team building activity [Rally Robin], but the way that it works

it’s very hard in a class environment to actually ascertain as to whether

what’s been written down is correct or just nonsense!

Impact of Prior Experience and Teacher Knowledge

From the pre-intervention teacher interviews it emerged that the impact of

teachers’ own learning preferences may dictate their teaching styles:

JD: How often would you say you have learners working in small groups?

TW: Very rarely.

JD: Is there any reason?

TW: I don’t like doing it myself. I don’t like working in groups, I’d rather just

get on with it and do it myself.

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However the learner questionnaires showed that all categories of learner

were more likely to believe that working in groups improved their

mathematical understanding than working alone.

Sometimes teachers may know all the theory and agree with the benefits, but

do not have the necessary tools to put that into practice:

TX: I think there are benefits if it’s done correctly. I think it allows the strong

to help the weak. I think it allows students to shine when they wouldn’t

previously. It develops social skills; they’re going to be working in the real

world soon where they are going to be interacting with their peers, so it’s

good practice.

JD: So based on all of those benefits why would you say you’re very rarely

using it?

TX: I don’t know how to do it effectively.

In the post-teacher interviews, all three teachers found the phased approach

to structured group work was helpful in putting the theory into practice:

TW: It was a class which I hadn’t done much group work with at all so being

able to have the phases to introduce them to it was really helpful.

TZ: Yeah definitely. Made it easier for me to know how to approach it and

where to start.

TY: I think there does need to be a phased approach, because I think if we

went straight into the collaborative stuff, you’d get the kind of teething

problems that I had before I started.

83
Solving Problems on the Constructivist Continuum

The post-teacher interviews suggest that the action research project created

a context for situated learning in the participant classes and those classes

starting to develop as communities of learners (Lave, 2011) solving problems

together:

TY: They are seeing the things I give them more as problems to solve rather

than exercises to get done.

TW: [They] have definitely now become more independent of me. So I have

noticed generally they have helped each other out on their tables and have

been happy to explain to each other what’s going on, rather than 5 or 6 girls

all waiting for me to help them, they have definitely looked to their peers for

help first before nagging at me.

This ease of working with their peers is also evidenced by the quantitative

data from the learner questionnaires and could be regarded as a necessary

step to creating Boaler’s “social arena” (1999, p. 279). This social element to

solving problems will hopefully enable participant learners to transfer

knowledge (Boaler, 1999) over a period of time to a range of situations,

however there is not the evidence in this action research to evidence that

here.

There was evidence however of group members acting as Vygotsky’s (1978)

more knowledgeable other, through supporting their peers to achieve more

than they could do alone in their ZPD for that particular moment in time:

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 SS: You’re confusing me!

SQ: That’s the highest [points to 4] and the range is three so the lowest

must be one.

SS: Oh because range is biggest take away smallest?

SQ: Yes.

Student S understood how to calculate the range but was unable to apply it

in this collaborative problem solving context without the support of SQ.

However this only supports the benefit of the more knowledgeable other in

pair work, which in the pre-intervention teacher interviews was perceived as

easier to implement in lessons than groups of three or four, in terms of equal

participation. There was evidence that there were benefits to working in

small groups other than pair work in terms of developing elaboration skills as

illustrated in the following discourse:

SA: It’s prime, I don’t know what that is.

SB: It can only be divided by one and itself

SA: I still don’t get it

SB: You know, number 7 doesn’t appear in any other times table other than

1 and 7.

SC: So 1x7=7 and 7x1=7 but no other numbers.

SA: Like 9 isn’t prime because 3 goes in?

SB: Yeah.

A cooperative behaviour illustrated in both these excerpts is learners asking

their peers for help (Johnson et al., 2000). However in small groups as

opposed to pairs, there is the added benefit here that between SB and SC,

different ways of approaching the problem are offered to SA, thereby

displaying Mercer’s (2008) collaborative behaviour of offering alternative

85
approaches. By interpreting her understanding through giving an example

and justifying that example, there is evidence that SA has constructed the

concept of a prime number through the support of her peers and which she

was not able to do alone, again supporting the social constructivism

perspective. A similar excerpt further illustrates the scaffolding that small

groups can offer with regards to alternative approaches:

SJ: I eliminated these two people because one of the suspects didn’t know

that x equals 6.

SK: I don’t get it.

SJ: I worked backwards so 15 take 9 equals 6.

[SK looks confused]

SL: Look, if you put 6 into that [points to x + 9], you get 15.

SK: Oh yes, I get it.

[SK goes on to correctly solve the next problem unaided]

SJ and SL display collaborative behaviours by offering alternative ways of

approaching the problem, through either substitution or inverse operations,

which together give the scaffolding required in Slavin et al.’s (2003) cognitive

elaboration perspective. This comment from a learner questionnaire

suggests that learners appreciate the alternative approaches to problem

solving that collaborative learning can provide them:

“It helps me understand when having different ways of solving things”

However although there is evidence that the discussion between SJ, SK and

SL seemed to scaffold the explanation, as knowledge is a construct which is

subjective to the individual (von Glasersfeld, 1991), SK’s understanding

cannot be guaranteed from a radical constructivist perspective. This is

86
particularly the case here as, although SK seemed to apply the knowledge to

the next problem, she did not articulate her understanding of either method.

This is further illustrated by the following discussion:

SE: Is that a short line?

SG: Yes.

SF: I got 15 for the shorter side but the longest is 12mm.

SE: You need to take away because it’s a shorter line you’re trying to find

so you still square both and square root, but you take them away instead of

add.

[SF goes on to complete the problem alone]

SF appreciates that her answer cannot be correct, and by completing the

problem she demonstrates Kagan’s perspective of the ZPD that her peers

have supported her to do alone what she could not do before (Kagan, 2001),

however her understanding of why she needs to subtract cannot be

guaranteed from a radical constructivist framework, particularly on the

evidence of this discussion.

Increased Engagement and Participation

The strengths of the first phase of Increasing Participation, Team Building

and Developing Elaboration Skills have a common theme of engaging

learners:

TZ: Strengths was that it was really engaging […] They would ask if we

were doing group stuff today and then be really glad if we were.

87
From evaluating the author’s class working on the structures, Quiz Quiz

Trade and Rally Robin were effective structures for the collaborative

behaviour of engaging many learners at once (Kagan, 2008).

As well as engaging learners, TW also believed the structures to have a

positive effect on their class’ confidence:

TW: I think it helps to build confidence; everyone has to be involved, you

can’t dip your go or just sit back and let everything around you happen and

the competition element of making sure all your answers are correct

definitely helps to encourage the students to participate mathematically with

it.

This comment made by a member of TW’s class supports this perceived

increase:

“[I] have gained confidence learning”

From TW’s point of view, this gain in learner confidence has resulted in an

increase in learner participation, in terms of engaging in mathematical

discourse:

TW: They have a lot more confidence now in sharing their ideas. I think

they’ve now understood that they don’t necessarily have to work with the

same people all the time; moving round and working with other people in the

group can work as well and they’ve definitely gained in confidence to have

mathematical conversations and put out their ideas, knowing that it could be

right, it could be wrong, it could be half right, it could then lead onto the right

ideas. I think they’ve probably become a lot more independent and less

hands up “Miss, Please”.

88
Developing Group Skills

The phased approach was designed to support learners in developing the

skills required for working in groups (Slavin et al., 2003; Kutnick et al., 2005)

and the post-intervention teacher interviews showed that the teachers felt

that the structures in the phased approach supported that development:

TW: I would say they are tasks that really helped introduce working as a

team, as a group.

TZ: I think the Collective Memory was good for kind of strategy; someone

had to take the lead and designate who was going to try and remember what

so communication I guess as well.

Collective memory was also observed with the author’s class as an effective

structure for developing the cooperative behaviour of working together to

achieve a common goal (Johnson et al., 2000; McInnerney & Roberts, 2004).

However the aim is not solely to develop team building skills, as stated

earlier if mathematical learning is not taking place it is not a worthwhile task

in a mathematics lesson (Cohen, 1994). Other comments evidenced that

from the teachers’ perspectives, learning was taking place:

TZ: That’s more team work [Rally Robin] but also more mathematical as

they are sharing their knowledge of mathematics with one another, helping

each other correct maths problems and come up with new maths questions,

reinforcement of their understanding and helping other people get up to the

same level, so I think they were really sharing their knowledge there.

TW: I would say there is potential for learning there [Quiz Quiz Trade] as

students are encouraged to help each other out and are structured and there

89
 is an end point of showing understanding on the questions before being able

to move on.

However these developed group skills are the teachers’ perceptions.

Although observations were made which evidence cooperative and

collaborative behaviours, no starting point was measured to evidence how

the structured approach developed these skills.

Developing Elaboration Skills

On the whole, the phased approach was seen by the participant teachers as

a useful way of beginning to develop learners’ explanation skills as required

by the cognitive elaboration perspective (Slavin et al., 2003):

TY: Students don’t have that much experience explaining things to each

other so they find it difficult and then they disengage because they’re not

getting that much out of it. So I think the phased approach is really useful.

TW: Because the structure is on the cards [Quiz Quiz Trade]; the help, the

hints are on the cards, then it gave them a starting point for their

explanation, which I think had it just been the question and an answer,

maybe they then wouldn’t necessarily be very good at explaining how to get

from one to the other. But with the help and the hints that are on the cards, I

think that definitely gives them some structure and some support in

explanations.

However the evidence indicates that the action research did not allow

enough time for this development to on move from the structured support

given in Quiz Quiz Trade for example. When the teachers moved into the

90
second phase, some learners were still unable to articulate their

understanding to the peers:

TY: I think it might be worth spending some lessons training the kids on how

they can communicate their ideas or something like that to make it more

efficient, because I really like the structure [of Jigsaw], but it didn’t work so

well.

This is perhaps the case in the following excerpt, where although they were

supporting each other, they worked on the questions almost individually, not

displaying the cooperative characteristics of working together or fostering a

shared responsibility for learning. In addition only a simple procedural

method is offered as opposed to elaborating on their reasoning:

SE: Is it Pythagoras’ theorem? We all know how to do it, we revised it

yesterday?

SF: Yes.

[Students calculate independently]

SG: Oh I know what I’ve done, I forgot to square them.

SH: Wait, I’m confused.

SG: You need to press this button first then the number.

SH: Oh yes.

The discussion enabled SH to go on to solve the problem, but there is no

evidence that SH has developed the concept of Pythagoras’ theorem in their

schema as a result of this low level discussion.

When one member of the group has the ability to offer an explanation and

take the role of the more knowledgeable other however, they do not

91
necessarily know that their peers need, or indeed want, that explanation

unless their peers have the confidence to ask them to explain:

SM: How many numbers are there? [Writes 4, 4]

SN: Why have you written that?

SM: I don’t know how many numbers there are but 4 is the mode so there

must be at least two fours.

SP: You just need to explain sometimes!

The learner questionnaires indicate that this could be particularly an issue for

girls who felt less comfortable asking questions of their fellow group

members than boys. If learners do not have the confidence to ask their

group members for support then the cooperative behaviours of learners

asking their peers for help (Johnson et al., 2000) and working together

towards common goal (Johnson et al., 2000; McInnerney & Roberts, 2004)

are not achieved and teachers’ concerns over copying could become a

reality.

Learners’ confidence to ask their peers for support also relates back to the

learners’ standing in the group and whether they feel they are listened to by

their peers (Bennett & Cass, 1989). The observational data does not

indicate that this was an issue, for example in this discussion, Student Q, a

stronger member of the class in terms of both attainment and confidence,

took control, but Student R, a lower attaining learner within the class also

gives input and is listened to by her group members:

92
 SS: How does that work if it’s out of 25?

SR: It all adds up to 25 but each one is out of 5.

SQ: There are five people doing five tests so 25 in total, not the test out of

25.

[…]

SR: You have the mode? That means you have the mean and median

because they’re all the same.

SQ: No, but….oh yeah, well done darling!

This demonstrates the collaborative behaviour of all learners’ input being

valued by their peers (Panitz, 1999). Teacher W believes that the reason

learners’ perceived mathematical ability by other members their small groups

was not an issue in the action research was due to the group work being a

different way of learning for all the learners:

TW: It slightly took them all out of their comfort zone, that actually they were

all happy for someone to be saying something so it wasn’t all just up to

them.

This seems to not correspond with Trautwein’s (2006) assertion that group

dynamics plays a role, however this research would need to be carried out

over a longer period of time to ascertain whether this phenomenon of all

contributions being valued regardless perceived ability within the class,

would continue once learners were more accustomed to this way of working.

There was evidence from the post-teacher interviews of the more open-

ended tasks in the third phase producing collaborative learning:

93
 TY: The main thing is it’s really challenging so I don’t think many kids would

know how to do it [a rich, problem solving activity] purely on their own

because you need lots and lots of ideas, so tasks like that where it’s very

challenging and it’s also quite rewarding to get the answer because it’s quite

challenging. The kids also realise that they can’t do it on their own as there

is so many different pieces of information and I think they learn more, but

they also develop a bit of a passion for working in teams because that’s a

real example of where you need to work in a group to achieve a complex

goal.

Teacher Y is describing collaborative behaviours here through mutual

engagement and coordinating their efforts (Dillenbourg et al., 1996) without

the need for teacher control (Panitz, 1999). These collaborative behaviours

which TY describes also suggest that these learners are showing intrinsic

motivation perhaps made possible through the learners learning to solve

problems on their own (von Glasersfeld, 1995).

Increased Teacher Confidence

The post-intervention teacher interviews revealed that the action research

had a direct impact on the teachers’ pedagogy:

TZ: I taught my kids in rows for the first two terms, so having them in groups

now, and I think I’ve got them in the right groups, I’ve changed them round a

few times to get the right balance on each table. I think now we’re at a place

(at the end of term!) that I’m more willing to try stuff with them definitely and

they know the expectations and are getting used to the idea of doing it.

94
 TY: If it was incorporated as part of a regular scheme of work then I can see

my role would definitely change to more of like a group facilitator.

Furthermore, the engagement of the learners appears to have influenced

teachers’ confidence in implementing group work as a result of the action

research:

TZ: I think it’s probably helped with the engagement of some of the students

definitely. I was doing it with the top set and they all like maths anyway but I

think now that I’ve done it with them, who I know I can trust more than some

of my other classes, I’ve got the confidence to do it with some of my weaker

classes who I think would get more benefit from it.

The Importance of a Variety of Methods

This dissertation has predominantly focused on the active, participatory

nature of learning, whether cooperative or collaborative. The participants

started the action research cycle with a limited experience of group work and

reservations to use it in mathematics lessons. As a result of the action

research teachers have noticed an increased engagement and participation

in mathematical discussions with they believe has supported learning. Sfard

(1998) uses the terms acquisition metaphor and participation metaphor to

differentiate between two types of learning. Although not entirely mutually

exclusive, Sfard describes the participation metaphor as the act of

community building and communicating, which is an aid to support the

acquisition metaphor, that is, the development or construction of knowledge.

However she claims that there is the danger that the participation metaphor

is taken to mean that all learning should be cooperative learning and hence

95
many interpret all teacher instruction as negative. Sfard (1998) warns that

“too great a devotion to one particular metaphor and rejection of all others

can lead to theoretical distortions and to undesirable practical

consequences” (p.5). According to Nune et al. (2009), further research is

needed to find “the characteristics of mathematics teaching at higher

secondary level which contribute both to successful conceptual learning and

application of mathematics” (p.10).

This issued was raised with the participant teachers, where they felt that the

cooperative structures and collaborative activities better supported the

application of mathematics and problem solving as opposed to being a

platform to learn new conceptual knowledge:

TZ: The activities we were doing were a lot reinforcing what they know and

taking it to a problem solving level, looking at something and thinking how do

I solve that? They’ve got the skills because I’ve already taught them it.

Working out how to apply them was more what they were learning rather

than learning a new specific maths skill.

This seems to support that teachers should not rely on one just one of the

acquisition and participation metaphors; as cooperative and collaborative

learning methods alone may not necessarily contribute to both conceptual

learning and applying mathematics.

96
Limitations of the Research

The potential threats to the validity and reliability of results and the limitations

of this research have been discussed throughout the dissertation, however

the biggest flaw in the research design was the questionnaire as a valid

research instrument. The questions were based on Van Wetering’s (2009)

questionnaire to collect learner attitudes as they were simply phrased and

straightforward to understand, however there was too much focus on

enjoyment. Although enjoyment is important in increasing engagement and

participation (Kagan 2003), enjoyment on its own does not necessarily imply

learners are engaged, they may just enjoy the chance to chat with their

peers. Furthermore even if enjoyment could be linked to engagement, it is

not possible to know if learners can separate the cooperative structure from

the mathematical content in evaluating that enjoyment. The impact of how

each teacher explains a task is a further dimension to this limitation of using

enjoyment as a measure.

Other issues with the questionnaires, included the reversed question, which

did not make an explicit link between understanding and success in

mathematics, the difference between the two is subjective. Furthermore the

reversal of the question threw doubt on the validity of the questionnaire in the

pilot study, that is, could the responses for other questions also be different if

reversed? For these reasons the data collected from the learner

questionnaires has limited use in providing evidence for this research. The

most reliable use is in making comparisons across different groups (e.g.

gender, class) in the questions relating to attitudes to group work. Less

97
confidence can be had in making generalisations across the school and in

comparing learners’ perceived impact of group work on their mathematical

understanding.

98
 Chapter 5

Conclusions

This dissertation set out to investigate the barriers teachers face in

introducing group work into the mathematics classroom and whether a

structured approach to group work could change teachers’ perceptions. The

literature review found that a continuum from radical constructivism to

situated cognition could describe the complexities of learning in groups,

through social interaction and creating a problem-solving environment in the

classroom. By comparing and contrasting both cooperative and collaborative

group work techniques, a definition was formed describing how the

cooperative behaviours of participation, teambuilding and sharing

responsibility (Bruffee, 1995) for learning are a prerequisite for higher-level

collaborative behaviours such as mutual engagement (Dillenbourg et al.,

1996) and intrinsic motivation (von Glasersfeld, 1995). From these

frameworks, a structured, phased approach to group work was developed

and investigated empirically through an action research study.

The biggest barriers for teachers using group work in mathematics in the

author’s school were found to be classroom management and practicalities;

time management; assessment issues; and the impact of their prior

experience and teacher knowledge. These concerns agree with previous

research in this area (Panitz, 1997).

99
The structured approach supported teachers to overcome some of these

issues, particularly in the first phase using the Quiz Quiz Trade, Collective

Memory and Rally Robin structures which in the teachers’ opinions,

increased participation and developed teambuilding skills. The Quiz Quiz

Trade structure was also perceived to give some support to learners in

developing their elaboration skills. Teachers found classroom management

was not an issue at this stage due to the increased learner engagement and

teachers found the structures were time-efficient.

In the second phase, the Jigsaw structure was found to be helpful for sharing

responsibility of learning, however for one teacher, the learners had not

developed sufficient elaboration skills to explain their understanding to one

another. More research is needed therefore into providing more scaffolding

for learners in their explanations during this phase.

Conceptual development was observed by the author during these phases,

with evidence of learners acting as the more knowledgeable other to help

their peers do what they could not do alone (Vygotsky, 1978). However

teachers perceived both the first and second phases as opportunities for

revision and applying their mathematics as opposed to constructing new

knowledge. In the third stage, teachers reported that learners were

displaying collaborative behaviours through intrinsic motivation of learners to

solve problems in groups, suggesting that they are beginning to act as a

community of learners (Lave, 2011).

100
Some of the issues with classroom and time management resurfaced after

the first phase particularly in the third phase with the more collaborative tasks

where one teacher found it difficult to keep learners focused on task.

However overall, the structures for group work went some way in changing

teachers’ perceptions of group work and increased their confidence in using

both cooperative and collaborative techniques.

101
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Appendix 1 – Kagan’s Cooperative Learning Structures

The following ten structures were shortlisted from an internet search of the
terms Kagan and mathematics:

1. Quiz Quiz Trade

Each member of the class is given a card containing a question and a
worked solution to act as coaching notes. The class pair up and take
turns to ask each other their question, supporting the other with the
worked solution and hints as required. After they have both asked their
questions, they then swap cards and find another learner to pair up with.
It is hoped by this point the learners understand how to tackle their new
question in order to offer support to their next pairing. This gives
structure and support for learners to take responsibility in helping their
peers to understand, with less reliance on the teacher. The coaching
element is key here, however the quality of the coaching hints needs
careful consideration to ensure that learners could offer each other
effective support.

2. Collective Memory
Groups of students have to recreate a poster on a particularly topic. In
turns they come to the front and look at the poster for 15 seconds, they
then return to their groups and must describe in two minutes what they
saw while the rest of the group write or draw. Then the next student
views the poster for 15 seconds and returns to the group etc. The fact
that the person who sees the poster cannot write, forces learners to
communicate with one another. While this structure can be used for
revision of prior learning it could also be used to construct new
knowledge by posing new problems within the poster or putting in errors
for learners to identify.

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3. All Write Round Robin
In silence students take turns to answer a problem in a grid in groups,
while watching closely what their other group members are doing.
Afterwards they discuss as a group whether they all agree. As it is a
team effort, the group must concentrate on all answers given, again
encouraging them to explain to each other if mistakes are made, allowing
the more able in that topic to be the more knowledgeable other, if they
have supported their peer to develop their mathematical understanding
further. When the teacher takes feedback however the group should only
get credit if any group member can explain any problem. The structure
seems particularly suited to tasks which have common errors and
misconceptions to promote more quality discussion, for example the
order of mathematical operations.

4. Rally Coach
In pairs, one learner supports another to answer a first set of questions,
then roles are reversed for the second set. The coaching element is key
here, however this structure however assumes that one learner can
support the other without intervention as it does not provide scaffolding to
support the learners to support each other. If neither understands,
teacher input will be a necessity to move learning forward.

5. Rally Robin
In groups of about four, learners are asked a question which has multiple
answers, for example ‘the answer is 4, what is the question?’ Group
members take it in turns to write a different answer on the group’s
whiteboard with the aim of being the group with the most correct
responses. Due to the speed and competitive element between groups,
this could be seen more as a team building structure than a learning
structure.

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6. Find someone who…
Learners have a list of problems and have to find a different person in the
classroom who is able to solve each one. They then need to discuss with
that learner how to tackle the problem, rather than just the answer. When
learners return to their seats, the teacher can ask learners to nominate
someone who can answer each question and explain themselves how
they arrived at that solution. This structure to tackling problems
encourages learners to go beyond their normal groupings to find enough
learners to answer and explain. The way feedback is taken by the
teacher is crucial though to ensure learners understand the mathematics.

7. Mix n Match
Each learner is given a card and each card has a pair; either an
equivalent form or one card has a problem and the other one has a
possible solution. Learners mix around the room looking for the match to
their card. This structure links to Nune et al.’s (2009) suggestion that
learners need to understand relations in mathematics, here relationships
in terms of equivalence can be discussed.

8. Showdown
All members of the group write their answer to a given problem on their
mini-whiteboard. When teacher calls out “Showdown”, the group reveal
their answers. If all are correct they can be awarded maximum points, if
not they must coach the incorrect responders to get some points once the
incorrect responder can explain the correct answer. The better the more
knowledgeable learners coach the others, the more likely they are to
receive full marks for the next problem. The fact that those who
understand must coach those who do not understand not just to know the
answer but to be able to apply it to a similar problem could prevent the
correct responders just telling the answer.

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9. Inside Outside Circle
This structure has the same problems with coaching hints as Quiz Quiz
Trade. The difference is half the class stand in the inner circle facing out
and the other half stand in the outer circle facing in. The teacher says for
example “move 3 places to the right” and learners then ask their
questions to whoever ends up opposite. This has similar benefits to Quiz
Quiz Trade, however learners do not decide who to pair up with,
potentially enabling more diverse discourse.

10. Numbered Heads Together

Each learner in the group is allocated a number. A question is posed and
the class must discuss the answer ensuring all in the group understand.
The teacher then calls on a number to explain their answer to the rest of
the class. Learners are perhaps more likely to share their ideas and ask
their fellow group members for support as they do not know who will be
called upon to explain their ideas.

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Appendix 2 - Pre-Intervention Teacher Semi-Structured
Interview Schedule
“Thank you for agreeing to work on the development of group work with your class. Your
comments are confidential, so you will not be identified in the dissertation even if your
comments are used in the write up. You have the right to withdraw at any time.

Section 1 – Current approach to group work

Prompts

How often do you have learners working in pairs?

How often do you have learners working in small groups?

What do you think are the benefits to group work?

Do you use any particular activities which are specifically for pairs or groups?

Do you prepare pupils for working in groups? If so, how?

How do you set out your tables? What is your reasoning behind this?

Do you notice any change in pupil behaviour when working in groups?

Section 2 – Cooperative Learning Structures

Prompts: Can you name any Cooperative Learning Structures? (e.g. Kagan Structures or
similar)

Which of these have you used in your mathematics teaching?

In your opinion, what are the benefits of this technique?

Are there any drawbacks to this technique?

Which (if any) of the following structures do you know? Which have you used?

 Quiz Quiz Trade  Think Pair Share

 Collective Memory  Find my rule
 All Write Round Robin  Mix n Match
 RallyCoach  Showdown
 RallyRobin  Inside Outside Circle
 Find someone who…  Numbered Heads Together

Section 3 – Identification of Topics

Prompts: Is there a particular topic you would like to explore through group work?

What topics are coming up in April, May and June for the class?

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Appendix 3 – Final Learner Questionnaire
The purpose of this questionnaire is to find out about your experiences and
opinions of the small-group activities used in your mathematics lessons. It is
anonymous, so please do not write your name on it. The findings will be used to
support a study on the use of group work in mathematics.

Completing the questionnaire is voluntary and the information you are asked to
give does not identify you or your teacher. If you have any questions please send
me an email (jdenton@*******) or find me in person in WU06 in the **** building.

1. What is your gender? (Please tick)

Male Female

2. Which year group are you in? (Please tick)

Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11

For questions 3-15, please tick the box to show whether you strongly disagree,
disagree, agree or strongly agree with each statement (some questions have a
‘neither agree nor disagree’ option):

3. I enjoy working in a group.

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

4. I feel comfortable working in a group

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

5. Being in a group has helped me become more successful in mathematics

Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

6. I feel comfortable asking my fellow group members questions

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

7. I am more likely to ask my group members questions before asking the teacher
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

8. I find my group members to be helpful

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

9. I feel I have a better understanding of mathematics when I work on my own

Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

119
10. I have enjoyed Quiz Quiz Trade
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

11. I have enjoyed Collective Memory

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

12. I have enjoyed All Write Round Robin

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

13. I have enjoyed Rally Robin

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

14. I have enjoyed Think Pair Share

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

15. I have enjoyed Jigsaw

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

16. Please use this space to add anything which you would like to say about the
group work in mathematics you have experienced this term:
_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire. Please return this form
to either your form tutor, the admin office or directly to me in the envelope
provided by 30 June 2014.

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Appendix 4 - Post-Intervention Teacher Semi-Structured
Interview Schedule
Section 1 – Developing from Cooperative to Collaborative
 Describe your understanding of what constitutes a cooperative or collaborative
approach?

 Did you find the structures effective in implementing group work?

Prompts:
 In what way?
 What types of group work did the different tasks produce?

 In your opinion what were the strengths and barriers of the first phase (Collective
memory, Rally Coach and Quiz Quiz Trade)?
Prompts:
 Did the simple structures in the first phase to increase participation (e.g.
involvement of all pupils in doing mathematics and discussing mathematical
concepts)?
 Do you think this was as a result of the group structures or just that it was a new
way of working?
 What learning do you think took place?

 In your opinion what were the strengths and barriers of the second phase (All Write
Round Robin, Think Pair Share and Jigsaw)
Prompts:
 What learning do you think took place?
 What do you think was different compared to phase 1?
 During small group discussion, how can you be sure that all group members
understand?
 Do you feel that all group members were listened to by their peers

 Do you feel the first two phases have made you and your class more prepared for more
open and rich tasks?
Prompts:
 In what way?
 Has the relationship between you and the class changed in any way?

Section 2 – Impact of Intervention

 Have your opinions on using group work changed since the start of the summer term?
Prompts:
 If so, how is this reflected in your practice?
 Describe any impact beyond the participant class?

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Appendix 5 – Original Pilot Learner Questionnaire

The purpose of this questionnaire is to find out about your experiences and
opinions of the small-group activities used in your mathematics lessons. It is
anonymous, so please do not write your name on it. The findings will be used to
support a study on the use of group work in mathematics.

Completing the questionnaire is voluntary and the information you are asked to
give does not identify you or your teacher. If you have any questions please send
me an email (jdenton@*******) or find me in person in WU06 in the **** building.

1. What is your gender? (Please tick)

Male Female

2. Which year group are you in? (Please tick)

Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11

For questions 3-21, please tick the box to show whether you strongly disagree,
disagree, agree or strongly agree with each statement:

3. I enjoy working in groups.

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

4. I feel comfortable working in groups

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

5. I feel comfortable asking my group members questions

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

6. I am more likely to ask my group members questions before asking the teacher
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

7. I find my group members to be helpful

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

8. I feel I have a better understanding of mathematics when I work in a group

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

9. Being in a group has helped me become more successful in mathematics

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

122
10. I have enjoyed Quiz Quiz Trade
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

11. I have enjoyed Collective Memory

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

12. I have enjoyed All Write Round Robin

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

13. I have enjoyed RallyCoach

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

14. I have enjoyed RallyRobin

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

15. I have enjoyed Find Someone Who

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

16. I have enjoyed Think Pair Share

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

17. I have enjoyed Find the Rule

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

18. I have enjoyed Mix n Match

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

19. I have enjoyed Showdown

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

20. I have enjoyed Inside Outside Circle

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

21. I have enjoyed Numbered Heads Together

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

Thank you for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire. Please return this form
to either your form tutor, the admin office or directly to me in the envelope
provided by 30 June 2014.

123
Appendix 6 – Revised Pilot Learner Questionnaire

The purpose of this questionnaire is to find out about your experiences and
opinions of the small-group activities used in your mathematics lessons. It is
anonymous, so please do not write your name on it. The findings will be used to
support a study on the use of group work in mathematics.

Completing the questionnaire is voluntary and the information you are asked to
give does not identify you or your teacher. If you have any questions please send
me an email (jdenton@*******) or find me in person in WU06 in the **** building.

1. What is your gender? (Please tick)

Male Female

2. Which year group are you in? (Please tick)

Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11

For questions 3-21, please tick the box to show whether you strongly disagree,
disagree, agree or strongly agree with each statement:

3. I enjoy working in a group.

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

4. I feel I have a better understanding of mathematics when I work on my own

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

5. I feel comfortable working in a group

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

6. I feel comfortable asking my fellow group members questions

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

7. I am more likely to ask my group members questions before asking the teacher
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

8. I find my group members to be helpful

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

9. Being in a group has helped me become more successful in mathematics

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

124
10. I have enjoyed Quiz Quiz Trade
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

11. I have enjoyed Collective Memory

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

12. I have enjoyed All Write Round Robin

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

13. I have enjoyed RallyCoach

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

14. I have enjoyed RallyRobin

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

15. I have enjoyed Find Someone Who

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

16. I have enjoyed Think Pair Share

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

17. I have enjoyed Find the Rule

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

18. I have enjoyed Mix n Match

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

19. I have enjoyed Showdown

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

20. I have enjoyed Inside Outside Circle

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

21. I have enjoyed Numbered Heads Together

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

Thank you for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire. Please return this form
to either your form tutor, the admin office or directly to me in the envelope
provided by 30 June 2014.

125
Appendix 7 - APPLICATION FOR ETHICAL APPROVAL
Name of student Joanne Denton

Course MSc Mathematics Education

Dissertation/Project title Making Small Groups Work: Overcoming Barriers to

Collaborative Learning in the Mathematics Classroom

Supervisor Andrea Pitt

Participants: (if children, specify age range) AND ATTACH A COPY OF YOUR CRB
CLEARANCE
Four mathematics teachers and 4 classes from Years 7 to 10 (Aged 11-15)
 Four mathematics teachers from The Federation of Glenmoor School and Winton
Arts and Media College to be pre-interviewed (semi-structured) and then joint plan
of upcoming lessons using structured group activities.
 Approximately 120 students from Years 7 to 10 (aged 11-15) will be in the
observed lessons working on the group tasks. All participating students to
complete a questionnaire, but they will be given the opportunity to choose for it
not to be included in the dissertation analysis.

Consent - will prior informed consent be obtained?

From participants? YES

From others? YES

Explain how this will be obtained. If prior informed consent is not to be obtained, give
reason:
 Consent will be obtained from the Executive Principal to conduct the study and
give consent for the students to be observed and given questionnaires in loco-
parentis.
 Teachers selected will be explained of the purpose of the study and how
observational data and information given by them in semi-structured interviews will
be used. They will be assured of the voluntary nature and confidentiality of
participation.
 Prior consent of students will not be obtained for lessons as they are not being
filmed or identified in any way, although I will verbally explain to each class the
purpose of my observations. Information at the top of the student questionnaires
will explain the purpose of the study and how information collected will be
confidentially used. There will be a statement informing that the return of the
questionnaire is voluntary so students can simply choose not to hand it in. The
questionnaire will be conducted in class so that I can be assured that the students
understand this information.

Will participants be explicitly informed of the student’s status? YES

126
Confidentiality
Will confidentiality be assured? YES

How will confidentiality be ensured?

Teachers will be referred to as Teacher X etc. in the write up. Students will be referred
to as Student A etc. from any observations recorded. No space for names will be
given on the questionnaire sheet to students. Questionnaires will be collected in
anonymously in a large envelope.

Protection of participants
How is the safety and well being of participants to be ensured?

 Participant teachers will be assured that any observations are to capture the
conversations between students and not to judge or grade their teaching.

Is information gathered from participants of a sensitive or personal nature? NO

If yes, describe the procedure for

a) ensuring confidentiality
n/a

b) protecting participants from embarrassment or stress

n/a

Observational research
If observational research is to be carried out without prior consent of participants,
please specify
a) situations to be observed
 Lesson observations will be with prior consent of teachers but only notification of
students.
 Student-student and student-teacher dialogue will be scribed.

b) how will privacy and cultural and religious values of participants be taken into
account?
 No names or identifiable features given in the write up.

Signed (Student): J L Denton Date: 17/03/2014

Signed (Supervisor): A M Pitt Date: 18/3/14

Action: Once both you and your supervisor have signed this form take it to your course
administrator. If there are any queries, these will be logged and the form sent back to
you for amendment and resubmission. Otherwise the form will be signed by your
course leader and you will be able to collect a signed copy from your course
administrator. The signed copy should be included as an appendix into your
assignment/thesis.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

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COURSE LEADER TO COMPLETE

 Approved
 Approved with modification or conditions – see below
 Action deferred. Please supply additional information or clarification – see below

Course Leader Name: Andrea Pitt

Signed: A M Pitt Date: 18/3/14

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