International Journal of Educational Research: Robyn M. Gillies, Asaduzzaman Khan

International Journal of Educational Research 47 (2008) 323–340
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International Journal of Educational Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedures
The effects of teacher discourse on students’ discourse, problem-solving

and reasoning during cooperative learning
Robyn M. Gillies *, Asaduzzaman Khan
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Article history: The study sought to determine if teachers who are taught specific communication skills
Received 11 September 2007 designed to challenge students’ cognitive and metacognitive thinking during cooperative
Received in revised form 12 May 2008 learning use more challenging and scaffolding behaviours to mediate students’ learning
Accepted 21 May 2008 than teachers who implement cooperative learning or small-group work who have
not been taught these skills. The study involved 51 teachers in three conditions
Keywords: (cooperative + communication conditions; cooperative condition, group-work condition)
Problem-solving activities and two groups of students from each of the above teachers’ classes. The results show that
Group-work condition the teachers in the cooperative + communication condition used significantly more
Communication challenging and scaffolding behaviours than teachers in the group-work condition but not
Cooperative
more than the teachers in the cooperative condition. The study also showed that the
children in the cooperative + communication condition provided significantly more
elaborative and help-giving behaviours to group members than peers in the other two
conditions and they obtained higher scores on the follow-up reasoning and problem-
solving activities than their peers in the group-work condition.
ß 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Promoting student discourse
Cooperative learning, where students work together on a group task, provides students with opportunities to give and
receive information, develop new understandings and perspectives, and communicate in socially appropriate ways. By
interacting with others in reciprocal dialogues, children learn to use language to explain new experiences and realities and,
in so doing, construct new ways of thinking and feeling (Barnes, 1969; Mercer, 1996). Although students benefit
academically and socially from well-structured cooperative learning experiences (Johnson & Johnson, 2002; Slavin, 1996),
Meloth and Deering (1999) found that students only rarely engage in high-level discourse or explanatory behaviour unless
they are explicitly taught to do so. Similarly, King (1999) observed that students generally do not elaborate on information,
do not ask thought-provoking questions, and do not spontaneously activate and use their relevant prior knowledge without
some external guidance. This is a concern because King found that the cognitive and metacognitive levels of group
discussions are positively correlated with students’ cognitive and metacognitive outcomes. In effect, task-related talk about
information, concepts, strategies, and thinking is very important to students’ learning yet it will not emerge unless students
are explicitly taught how to exchange ideas, provide explanations and justifications, engage in speculations, make
inferences, develop hypotheses, and draw conclusions; characteristics of high-level discourse that are known to promote
thinking and learning (King, 2002).
Unfortunately, in many classrooms, students are the passive recipients of learning rather than active participants in it. In a
study of teachers’ questioning behaviours in primary classrooms, Galton, Hargreves, Comber, Wall, and Pell (1999) found
* Corresponding author at: School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.
E-mail address: r.gillies@uq.edu.au (R.M. Gillies).
0883-0355/$ – see front matter ß 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2008.06.001
324 R.M. Gillies, A. Khan / International Journal of Educational Research 47 (2008) 323–340
that children are rarely asked cognitively challenging questions where they are required to think about the issues and justify
their responses. The channel of communication in these teachers’ classrooms tended to be one-way as the teachers talked at
students who were required to listen and respond, often reiterating information provided earlier by the teacher. Chinn,
O’Donnell, and Jinks (2000), in a study of fifth-grade science students, found that students do not engage in high quality
discourse unless they are required to provide reasons for their conclusions. Zuckerman et al. (1998), in an investigation of
elementary students’ ability to engage in persistent and systematic study in a science curriculum, observed that although
children’s curiosity is widely considered to be a natural resource for classroom inquiry, the numbers of children who
spontaneously ask and pursue questions about their natural interests in science are relatively few in number. In short, Galton
et al. (1999), Chinn et al. (2000), and Zuckerman, Chudinova, and Khavkin (1998) found that the children only rarely ask
cognitively challenging questions, often responding by reiterating what the teacher had previously stated, if they comment
at all.
This lack of spontaneity may, in part, be due to the transmission method of teaching that children have traditionally be
exposed to where the attitude tends to be that ‘‘teachers talk and students listen’’. It may also be due to the lack of training
that teachers provide to students in how to ask and answer thought-provoking questions. Zuckerman et al. (1998) argue that
the ability to ask and answer questions is stimulated by the adult so the answer supplied must act as an inducement for the
child to seek additional knowledge; in turn, often promoting further questions and inquiries. By challenging children to think
of how they may be able to find solutions, teachers have the potential to transform children’s thinking from seeking basic
knowledge to theoretical knowledge requiring metacognition.
1.1. Promoting student reasoning and problem-solving
Teaching students to engage critically and constructively with each other’s ideas, challenge and counter-challenge
proposals, and discuss alternative propositions before reaching agreement are important if students are to talk and reason
effectively together (Rojas-Drummond & Mercer, 2003). Mercer, Dawes, Wegerif, and Sams (2004) found that when students
were taught to talk and reason together and apply those skills in the study of science they made greater gains in measures of
individual reasoning than students who have not had such teaching. Learning to seek and to give high-level elaborations is an
important part of learning to dialogue and reason effectively together (Mercer et al., 2004; Rojas-Drummond & Mercer, 2003)
yet research demonstrates that students need to be taught how to provide help if such help is to be effective and learning is to
occur.
1.2. Types of effective helping behaviours
Webb and Mastergeorge (2003) argued that there are three categories of student behaviour that are critical for promoting
effective helping and learning during dialogic exchanges. For help-seekers, these behaviours include: learning to ask precise
questions, persisting in seeking help, and having the opportunity to apply the explanations received. For help-givers, they
include: learning to provide detailed explanations of the topic under discussion, helping recipients apply the help received,
and monitoring the recipient’s understanding of it. Like Meloth and Deering (1999) and Galton et al. (1999), Webb and
Mastergeorge (2003) found that students only give detailed explanations infrequently and that teachers need to train
students to provide effective explanations as part of the process of teaching them to be responsive to other students’ requests
during small-group learning experiences.
Discussing material and information with others helps students to clarify ideas, negotiate meaning, develop new
understandings, and create new knowledge with such discussions having the capacity to transform how students think
(Wittrock, 1990). However, helping children to engage in exchanges where they both give and provide explanatory help
requires a concerted effort on the part of the teacher to ensure that students are taught such dialoguing skills (Webb et al., 2004).
While there are numerous strategies designed to help children talk and reason effectively together such as reciprocal
teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1988), collaborative strategic reading (Vaughn, Klingner, & Bryant, 2001), and scripted
cooperation (O’Donnell, Dansereau, & Rocklin, 1987), most are designed to promote understanding and comprehension
rather than children’s higher-level, complex thinking. Two questioning approaches, though, which actively promote
children’s higher-level thinking and reasoning are the Ask to Think-Tel-Why model of transactive peer tutoring proposed by
Alison King (1997) and the Cognitive Tools and Intellectual Roles approach of Palinscar and Herrenkohl (1999, 2002).
In the Ask to Think-Tel-Why model (King, 1997), children are taught to ask each other a sequence of questions designed to
scaffold each other’s thinking and learning to progressively higher levels. The advantage of this type of sequence is that it
encourages children not only to focus on summarizing and elaborating information but it also helps children to ask
cognitively challenging questions that encourage them to draw on previous understandings and knowledge and connect it to
current information. In generating these types of connection questions, King (1999) maintains that the questioner needs to
think about how ideas in the task relate to each other and the responder must be able to generate a response that connects
the ideas together or provides rationales or explanations to justify his/her response. Because responders have been taught to
provide elaborated responses such as explanations, justifications, and rationales to the questions they are asked, they realise
the importance of explaining, justifying and rationalising how they have connected ideas and information to support their
responses. In so doing, students often develop new ways of explaining and arguing their points as new knowledge is often
generated and the quality of the discourse is enhanced. Furthermore, as partners engage in the question-asking-answering
R.M. Gillies, A. Khan / International Journal of Educational Research 47 (2008) 323–340 325
process that is typical of the interactions in the Ask to Think-Tel-Why model, they learn that each question posed is often
highly dependent on previous responses that have been given and that these, in turn, help to shape subsequent questions. In
this sense, partners are highly dependent on each other in these reciprocal dialogues for scaffolding and guiding each other’s
learning. King maintains that this reciprocity of questioning and answering creates a transactive process where the partners
are equal participants in providing mutual assistance and mutual learning, together promoting higher-level thinking and
complex learning.
In the Cognitive Tools and Intellectual Roles approach (Palinscar & Herrenkohl, 1999; Palinscar & Herrenkohl, 2002), children
learned to use and apply the strategies (or cognitive tools) of predicting, questioning, summarising, and clarifying from
Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1988) to interrogate a scientific problem and develop explanations about the
phenomena they were investigating. By working collaboratively in groups, students learn to focus on using the strategies to
develop explanations about their own group’s inquiry before they, in turn, use these strategies to provide feedback to other
groups on the presentation of their work. Hence, as groups present the outcomes of their work to the class, they receive feedback
on how well they had predicted and theorised their work, how succinctly they summarised and presented their results, and how
clearly they had related their predictions and theories to their results. Palinscar and Herrenkohl (2002) argue that both the
group context and the audience roles enable students to practice many thinking skills. It is this process of applying the cognitive
tools that they had been taught to the roles each group undertook that not only helped students to construct scientific
explanations about the phenomena under investigation but it also helped ensure students engaged with others in the classroom
to challenge their understandings. In so doing, children learned to think more clearly and deeply about the topic.
1.3. The teacher’s role in promoting student discourse
Teaching children how to dialogue together, to ask and answer questions, and to provide detailed feedback which can be
used by help-seekers requires a concerted effort on the part of the teacher to explicitly teach and model these skills during
their dialogic exchanges (King, 1999; Palinscar & Herrenkohl, 2002). While there is no doubt that teachers can model ways of
talking that facilitate problem-solving and reasoning in their interactions with children (Fuchs et al., 1997; Rojas-
Drummond & Zaparta, 2004), research shows that it rarely occurs, possibly because many teachers have a propensity to talk
and transmit information through didactic teaching (Mercer, Wegerif, & Dawes, 1999; Rojas-Drummond, Mercer, &
Dabrowski, 2000) rather than engaging students in meaningful discussions.
There is no doubt that teachers’ questions do have the potential to generate minimal responses from students however, as
Rojas-Drummond and Mercer (2003) observed, they also have the potential to encourage students to make their thoughts,
reasoning, and knowledge explicit, model different ways of using questioning that students can appropriate for themselves,
and provide opportunities for students to share their understandings with others in their class. It seems that training
teachers to use the specific dialogic skills that encourage reciprocal interactions with students is critical for the development
of effective classroom discourse.
In a study that examined the effects of training elementary teachers in specific dialogic skills designed to promote
thinking and scaffold children’s learning, Gillies (2004) found that not only did the trained teachers engage in more verbal
behaviours designed to challenge children’s thinking and scaffold their learning, but they also asked more questions, and
made fewer disciplinary comments than their peers who had not been taught to use these skills. In turn, the children
recorded more elaborations, questions, and short answer responses, or verbal behaviours associated with productive helping
(Gillies, 2003a; Gillies & Ashman, 1998). An examination of the children’s responses indicated that many mirrored the
responses they gave their teachers, that is, they were detailed or elaborated. Gillies argued that when teachers are explicit in
the types of thinking they want the children to use, it encourages children to be more explicit in the types of help they
provide to others. In effect, the study demonstrated that teachers can be taught to use dialogic skills that guide and support
children’s thinking and promote learning.
Given that there are strategies available that can promote and challenge children’s thinking and learning (e.g., King, 1997;
Palinscar & Herrenkohl, 2002) and that teachers can be trained to use specific dialogic skills in their interactions with
children during small-group activities (e.g., Gillies, 2004), the purpose of this study is to see if teachers who implement
cooperative learning can be trained to use those communication strategies that are known to promote higher-order thinking
and problem-solving. This is in contrast to teachers who implement cooperative learning or small-group learning only who
have not been trained in these dialogic skills. The study also seeks to determine the effects, if any, of these specific
communication strategies on students’ discourse and their responses on follow-up reasoning and problem-solving activities.
The specific questions the study seeks to answer are:
1. Do teachers who have been trained to use specific communication strategies designed to challenge students’ cognitive and
metacognitive thinking demonstrate more verbal behaviours that challenge and scaffold students’ learning than their
untrained peers?
2. Do students who work in cooperative groups where their teachers have been trained to use these specific communication
strategies engage in more elaborative and help-giving behaviours than students who work in groups where their teachers
have not received such training?
3. Do students in the above teachers’ classrooms obtain higher scores on follow-up reasoning and problem-solving
activities?
The study extends previous research in two ways. First, it includes a control condition (i.e., the group-work condition) of
teachers who have not been trained to implement cooperative learning in their classroom curricula. The group-work
condition will act as a treatment-control for the cooperative + communication condition whose teachers were trained in
the specific communication strategies and the cooperative condition whose teachers were not trained in these
communication strategies. The Gillies (2004) study did not have a group-work condition that acted as a treatment-control
group. Rather, it focused on comparing two cooperative learning conditions with only one trained in specific
communication skills, hence, conclusions that might have been made about the additive benefits of training teachers in
specific communication skills to challenge children’s thinking and scaffold their learning during cooperative learning could
not be generalised to situations in which teachers typically use small groups (i.e., the group-work condition) (see
discussion in Section 2.1).
Second, the reasoning and problem-solving measures used in this study are more comprehensive than those used
previously that have focused on measuring the extent to which children build understanding and make connections between
known and newly acquired information (see Gillies, 2004). The measures in this study are designed to measure the extent to
which children are demonstrating higher-level complex reasoning, thinking and problem-solving based on their authentic
learning experiences (see discussion below).
2. Methodology
2.1. Study design
This is a comparative study of the effectiveness of training teachers to implement cooperative learning and specific
communication skills in comparison to teachers who implement cooperative learning or small-group learning only. The
study involved three groups of teachers: the cooperative + communication condition (condition 1), the cooperative
condition (condition 2), and the group-work condition (condition 3). This design had two purposes. First, it aimed to test for
differences between the cooperative learning conditions and the group-work condition (see discussion below). Secondly, it
was designed to examine the differences between the cooperative + communication condition and cooperative condition in
the language that teachers use to challenge children’s thinking and the elaborative and help-giving responses children, in
turn, demonstrate in these teachers’ classes (see discussion below).
The distinction between cooperative learning and group-work learning is important because it has been argued that
group-work learning has many of the characteristics of whole-class teaching where students are not linked
interdependently together so they often work independently on tasks to achieve their own ends. Hence, there is no
motivation to act as a group or to exercise joint efficacy to achieve a goal or accomplish a task (Johnson & Johnson, 2003).
Unfortunately, this type of grouping arrangement is quite common with Baines, Blatchford and Kutnick (2003), in an
investigation of grouping practices in classrooms in the UK, observing that children rarely worked together in groups
even though they were seated in small groups; most worked alone or with an adult attached to their group. Similar
observations have been made by Gillies (2003b) about grouping practices in Australian schools. In effect, teachers often
do not establish small groups for learning in their classes; rather, children commonly work independently on tasks by
themselves with little interaction with their peers so the benefits that students derive from interacting with others are
often not attained.
The study was also designed to test for differences between the cooperative + communication condition and the
cooperative condition because Gillies (2004) found that teachers who are taught to use specific communication skills as
they interact with students during cooperative learning engage in more mediated-learning interactions that challenge
children’s thinking and scaffold their learning than teachers who implement cooperative learning who have not been
taught these skills. A limitation of the Gillies study was that teachers were only trained in those communication skills
that helped them to probe and clarify issues, acknowledge and validate points, confront discrepancies and clarify
options, and tentatively offer suggestions when interacting with students, whereas the teachers in the
cooperative + communication condition in this study were provided with a comprehensive range of dialogic skills
designed to promote higher-level thinking and discussion in their students (see discussion in Section 2.4). In short, this
current study extends the range of communication skills provided to the teachers in the cooperative + communication
condition.
2.2. Teachers
Fifty-one teachers from grades 5–6 in 17 primary schools in Brisbane, Australia, volunteered to participate in the study
and embed a range of small-group learning strategies (discussed below) into their social science curriculum. The
participating teachers had 3–30 years of teaching experience; ten of the teachers were male and 41 were females, which is
broadly representative of the 1:4 ratio of male to female teachers in Australian schools. All teachers were highly regarded by
their school principals for their classroom management skills, their commitment to professional development, and their
willingness to try innovative and new ideas in their classrooms.
Teachers were randomly allocated by school to one of three conditions, cooperative + communication condition (n = 18),
cooperative condition (n = 16), or the group-work only condition (n = 17).
2.3. Students
Eight hundred and eighty-eight children (male = 404, female = 484; mean age = 10.65 years, S.D. = 7.78 months) from the
above teachers’ classrooms participated in the different, small-group learning activities that their teachers implemented as
part of the study. However, as only two groups of students were audiotaped in each classroom, complete group data are only
available on 97 groups. Students were randomly assigned by their teachers to four-person groups so that each group
consisted of one high-ability student, two medium-ability students, and one low-ability student. Teachers were asked to try
and ensure that groups were gender-balanced. In cases where teachers believed students would not work successfully in
groups (i.e., students with behavioural difficulties), they either worked in dyads with another student or individually by
themselves. Follow-up discussions with the teachers revealed that all children who were not originally included in a group
were involved in dyadic learning activities across the course of the study.
2.4. Establishment of the three conditions
Teachers who agreed to participate in the study were randomly assigned by school to one of three conditions; the
cooperative + communication condition, the cooperative condition, or the group-work only condition. All the teachers
participated in a 2-day workshop which provided them with the background for establishing small-group work in their
classrooms. The teachers in the cooperative + communication condition and the cooperative condition were introduced to
the key elements of cooperative learning and how to embed them into their classroom curricula. These elements included:
positive interdependence (i.e., tasks structured to ensure that all group members are required to participate; interpersonal
and small-group skills (i.e., students taught the social skills needed to enhance cooperation and resolve disagreements);
individual accountability (i.e., the requirements that all students contribute to the group’s goal or task); promotive
interaction (i.e., students contribute ideas and information and help others to do likewise); and, small-group processing (i.e.,
students monitor both how and what they have achieved as they work on their tasks) (Johnson & Johnson, 1990).
The workshop was experientially based so teachers worked in small groups to identify how they would structure task
interdependence, identify the interpersonal and small-group skills (i.e., what specific skills they would teach the children),
establish individual accountability, ensure students had opportunities to interact with each other (i.e., students sat in groups
of four facing each other), and promote small-group processing in the unit of work in which they were intending to embed
these elements that are indicative of structured cooperative learning. The small-group discussions enabled the teachers to
address issues of concern about the implementation of this pedagogical practice in their classrooms, reflect on the benefits
that could be obtained, and receive on-going support from their colleagues as they discussed these issues. The workshop also
provided the teachers with the background research and theoretical information on positive interdependence theory
(Johnson & Johnson, 1989) and social (Vygotsky, 1978) and individual constructivism (Piaget, 1950)—how children construct
meaning from interacting with others (Damon, 1984; Doise, 1990; Doise & Mugny, 1984).
In addition to the information that was provided on how to embed cooperative learning into their classroom lessons, the
teachers in the cooperative + communication condition received additional information on how to promote discussion
among students during their small-group activities. This included ensuring that students understood that discussion was
promoted when:
1. all relevant information is shared;

2. the group strives to reach agreement;
3. the group accepts responsibility for its decisions;
4. students are expected to provide reasons for their decisions;
5. students accept challenges to their reasons or ideas;
6. alternative ideas or answers are discussed before a decision is made; and,
7. all group members are encouraged to speak by others in the group (Mercer et al., 1999).
Other ways of promoting discussion among group members that were discussed with the teachers in the
cooperative + communication condition included: how to ask good questions (Ask to Think-Tel-Why, King, 1997); how
to use different cognitive tools and adopt different intellectual roles (Palinscar & Herrenkohl, 2002); and how to use different
cooperative learning and communication strategies to probe, clarify, and confront children’s thinking and suggest
alternative ideas (Gillies, 2004).
These dialoguing strategies were very comprehensive and teachers needed to spend time discussing how they would
implement them in the small-group activities. For example, the Ask to Think-Tel-Why approach requires children to learn to
scaffold higher-level complex thinking in each other by learning to sequence questions that move beyond checking basic
comprehension to those that require students to make connections between information and then be able to explain their
reasons or provide an explanation for their thinking (i.e., metacognitive thinking).
The cognitive tools and intellectual roles approach (Palinscar & Herrenkohl, 2002) uses the skills of Reciprocal Teaching
(Palincsar & Brown, 1988) such as predicting, summarising, and relating information to the results obtained (cognitive tools)
to enable group members to adopt different intellectual roles as they provide feedback on the presentation of the different
groups to the whole class (i.e., assuming that the groups are reporting on a science study). This feedback includes the extent
to which the rationale and hypotheses for the study are clearly articulated, the presentation of the findings is well stated, and
the links between the group’s predictions, theory, and findings are discussed. In short, the students in the groups who were
not presenting (i.e., they were in the audience) were actively involved in thinking about how they would provide feedback on
the presentations of other groups.
The cooperative learning and communication strategies approach (Gillies, 2004) was designed to help teachers mediate
children’s thinking by asking a series of questions that are designed to probe and clarify thinking, acknowledge and validate
effort, confront discrepancies to clarify options, and tentatively offer suggestions. These are strategies that are designed to
challenge and scaffold children’s thinking.
While the teachers in the cooperative + communication condition discussed the different dialoguing strategies, the
teachers in the cooperative condition spent the same length of time working with each other and the first author on
explicating how they could embed the different key elements of cooperative learning into their lesson plans. The key
elements discussed included how they would establish the small groups so all children participated (positive
interdependence), were individually accountable for their contributions, understood the importance of promotive
interaction (i.e., working constructively to help others), were taught the interpersonal and small-group skills that facilitate
cooperation (i.e., how to ask for help, how to provide help to others, how to share ideas and resources, how to resolve conflict,
how to ensure that group decisions were democratic), and knew how to participate in helping the groups to monitor their
progress (Johnson & Johnson, 1990). The lessons where then discussed with all the teachers in the cooperative condition.
Included in the discussion were issues of resources needed for planning these lessons, curriculum materials, and ways of
evaluating both the learning process and outcomes.
Meanwhile, the teachers in the group-work condition (treatment-control) received information during the 2-day
workshop on a range of strategies for promoting effective learning and teaching in students. This included information on
peer tutoring (Fuchs, Fuchs, Bentz, Phillips, & Hamlett, 1994; McMaster & Fuchs, 2002; Topping, 1992), peer collaboration
(Foot, Morgan, & Shute, 1990), collaborative strategic reading (Vaughn et al., 2001) and scripted cooperation (O’Donnell,
1999). Additionally, the teachers in this condition received information on the role of multiple intelligences in teaching
students (Gardner, 1993), ways of including children with disabilities in small-group activities (Putnam, 1998), and the
resources that could support these strategies. However, while teachers discussed different ways of grouping students to
enhance their learning, they were not given specific training in how to embed cooperative learning into their curriculum
units. The authors believed that it was important to provide the teachers in the group-work condition with a 2-day workshop
that gave them the opportunity to learn about a range of strategies that are known to promote students’ learning; in effect,
ensuring that they were not disadvantaged by not participating in the workshops offered to teachers in the other two
conditions. However, while the workshops for the cooperative + communication condition and the cooperative condition
focused on introducing participating teachers to ways of structuring cooperative learning, the teachers in the group-work
condition did not receive this training. Rather, they obtained information on a range of strategies that could be used to
promote students’ learning in small groups.
2.5. Small-group activities
The teachers in the cooperative + communication and cooperative conditions were given guidelines on how to establish
cooperative group activities in their classrooms. These guidelines included ensuring that the tasks were structured so that
group members were: linked interdependently around the task; accountable for their contributions to the group; taught the
interpersonal and small-group skills required to promote cooperation; and, used group processing skills to evaluate the
group’s progress after each session (Johnson & Johnson, 1990). The teachers were asked to ensure that the small-group
activities were complex and discovery-based so there are no correct answers and they were required to cooperate as they
discussed how to proceed as a group (Cohen, 1994).
In addition to the guidelines on how to establish cooperative groups, the children in the cooperative + communication
condition were given cards to prompt their use of the different types of questions that are designed to scaffold higher-level
complex thinking (King, 1999) during group discussions. Additionally, the teachers were asked to scaffold the children’s use
of the cognitive tools and intellectual roles approach (Palinscar & Herrenkohl, 2002) to provide feedback to other groups
during their class presentations. This latter approach has been shown to challenge children’s thinking and reasoning and
facilitate their learning.
The cooperative group activities were embedded into one unit of work (4–6 weeks duration) once a term for two terms.
Teachers in the group-work only condition were asked to establish the small groups as they would normally do and no
requirements were made as to the type of tasks the children were to undertake, apart from ensuring that the children would
have opportunities to engage in group discussion.
All teachers in the three conditions were asked to ensure that their small-group activities were embedded in their social
sciences program. In elementary schools, many other subjects such as English, drama, social studies, science, and art are taught
as integrated themes rather than explicitly different subject content. Hence, it is not unusual to see teachers teaching a unit of
work on ‘‘The conservation of water’’ where they incorporate aspects of science, social studies, English, drama, and art as a way
of helping the children to gain a broader and deeper understanding of the content under discussion and its effects on society.
All teachers used the Studies of Society and Environment Years 1–10 Syllabus (Queensland Schools Curriculum Council,
2000) as a guide to the units of work they chose to develop. This syllabus is not prescriptive but rather provides a framework
for planning learning experiences and assessment tasks through which students have opportunities to demonstrate what
they know and can do in years 1–10 in this learning area. The syllabus incorporates the cross-curricula priorities of literacy,
numeracy, life skills, and has a futures’ perspective so that any unit of work has an integrated curricula approach. Thus, while
the teachers designed their own units of work (i.e., they were not explicitly told what content to teach), they all used the
same principles of planning for the learning experiences they designed for their students.
2.6. Measures
2.6.1. Teachers’ verbal behaviours

The observation schedule of the teachers’ verbal behaviours was originally developed by Hertz-Lazarowitz and Shachar
(1990) and further modified by Gillies (2004, 2006). The schedule identifies 22 types of teacher verbal behaviour that are
coded into six categories: control (i.e., instructing, lecturing, providing mechanical reinforcement to students – ‘‘that’s right,
keep going’’, reinforcement expressing comparisons between students’ performances, initiative, or behaviour – ‘‘that’s good,
you’re doing it like these two here’’); discipline (i.e., discipline comments directed at individuals, groups, or the whole class);
mediates (i.e., paraphrases to assist understanding, prompts, uses open questions in a tentative manner to prompt thought
about an issue the student is focused on, mediates (i.e., scaffolds and challenges) learning between students to encourage
interest about an issue); encourages (i.e., praises, student, group, and class efforts, encourages interactions among students,
and expresses spontaneous emotion); and, maintenance interactions (i.e., helps the student during learning, refers to
technical problems in carrying out the task, language needed to maintain the activity—‘‘pass the folders to the others’’).
Teachers’ verbal behaviours were coded according to frequency across each recorded class session and represent 100% of
each teacher’s talk during that session. A total of 76.5 h of teachers’ verbal behaviours (i.e., 51 teachers were taped twice for a
period of 45 min.) across the two time periods (i.e., the two units of work) was collected. Two raters, blind to the purposes of
this study (although they had had extensive experience coding audiotapes previously), coded a common 3 h of audiotape
and inter-observer reliability ranged from 93% to 100% for the categories coded.
2.6.2. Students’ verbal behaviours

The schedule for the students’ verbal behaviours was originally developed by Webb (1985, 1992) and modified by Gillies
(2004, 2006) and was designed to gather information on the types of verbal behaviours that students used during the
recorded small-group sessions. The schedule identifies 13 types of verbal behaviours that are coded into six categories:
Elaborations (i.e., provides solicited and unsolicited explanations, extends another student’s response, provides detailed
help); questions (i.e., open and closed); short responses (i.e., provides solicited and unsolicited short responses);
engagement (affirms another student’s response, makes a statement on the topic to extend the discussion, and engages in
sustained exchanges on the topic); interruptions (i.e., attempts to butt-in and interrupt the speaker in a forceful manner,
negative interruptions); and directions (i.e., gives directions, disciplines another student to focus attention. Student verbal
behaviours were coded according to frequency across the recorded group session. A total of 145.5 h of students’ verbal
behaviours (i.e., 97 groups were taped twice for a period of 45 min) across the two time periods was collected. The same two
raters coded 3 h of the students’ interactions and inter-observer reliability ranged from 85% to 100% for the categories coded.
2.6.3. Students’ reasoning and problem-solving measures

Teachers were provided with exemplars and criteria that would be used to assess the extent to which the students were
making connections and building understandings between information presented and discussed during the small-group
learning activities. The criteria used for assessing the students’ problem-solving and reasoning skills were informed by
Anderson et al. (2001) revision of Bloom’s original taxonomy of educational objectives that illustrates the relationship
between complex kinds of knowledge and cognitive processes and by Alison King’s (1997) Ask to Think-Tel-Why approach
that helps students to scaffold higher-level complex learning in their peers. While the former focused on what types of
knowledge were important for students to know and the specific cognitive processes involved, the latter focused on how
students could sequence specific types of questions to elicit higher levels of thinking from each other.
Teachers were provided with exemplars of two reasoning and problem-solving activities, What is my problem activity and
Thinking about a problem concept map, to assess students’ application of reasoning and problem-solving skills to the unit of
work the students had been involved in studying during their small-group activities. It is argued that these assessment
activities have high validity and reliability because they are based on the authentic learning experiences the children had in
their groups where they were required to solve complex, real-life problems involving multiple solutions (Herrignton &
Oliver, 2000; Gulikers, Bastiaens, & Kirschner, 2004). In short, these were problems that tested their capacities to think and
reason.
Students’ responses to their problem-solving tasks were evaluated on the basis of both the highest level knowledge
response they were able to generate and the cognitive processes demonstrated (Krathwohl, 2002). For example, on the What
is my problem activity the dimensions of knowledge covered included: Knowledge review (recall of basic facts, specific
details, terminology); Conceptual knowledge (understanding the interrelationships between basic elements in the problem
and understanding the need to solve or deal with the problem, cause and effect relationships, positives and negatives of the
problem, potential solutions to the problem); Connecting (more complex understanding of cause and effect, making links
between thoughts and feelings, connecting ideas); Procedural knowledge (applying known information to possible practice
or ideas); and, Thinking about thinking (generating additional information relevant to the problem based on connecting new
ideas and constructing new knowledge, generating questions to seek more information relevant to the problem). The
cognitive processes involved in each of the above dimensions of knowledge covered a range of actions including being able to
remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, and create responses. Hence, the cognitive processes demonstrated
depended on the problem the students were required to solve.
In the second reasoning and problem-solving activity, the Thinking about a problem concept map, students were asked to
respond to a problem by constructing a concept map that addressed the following aspects: identified a minimum of two
possible solutions and the positive and negative consequences of those solutions; identified the best solution and identified at
least one reason as to the appropriateness of that solution; and finally, the students had to think about how they would
communicate their main message through a logo or poster. This latter task required the children to think about their thinking to
date and combine their various understandings into the logo or poster that would help to convey their well-reasoned message
to its audience. Once again, students responses were assessed on the basis of the highest level knowledge response they were
able to generate and the cognitive processes demonstrated (Krathwohl, 2002). For example, the requirement that students
identified a minimum of two possible solutions to the problem and their consequences included both Knowledge review (i.e.,
recall basic facts) and Conceptual knowledge (i.e., understanding the need to solve the problem). Requiring students to identify
the best solution and provide at least one reason for their solution involved Connecting (i.e., making links between information)
and Procedural knowledge (i.e., applying information to practice) while asking them to coalesce their knowledge and
understandings to generate a message through a logo or poster required them to think metacognitively about their thinking.
Each teacher used the above reasoning and problem-solving exemplars to construct activities that would enable them to
assess how the students were using their reasoning and problem-solving skills to solve problems that were based on the unit
of work they had been discussing in their small groups. Each activity was checked by two teachers in the research team and
the first author to ensure they were valid measures of the unit of work (i.e., they covered equivalent content and an
appropriate range of material in the unit of work and reflected the five-dimensions of knowledge and the cognitive
processes) the students had completed during their small-group experiences. One of the teachers in the research team
marked the students’ responses to the reasoning and problem-solving activities. Scores were then checked by the second
teacher and the first author. Inter-rater agreement on the marking was 100%. The classroom teachers did not mark the
students’ responses.
Students were assigned a score of 1–5 for their responses to one or each of the reasoning and problem-solving activities
they were asked to complete. A score of one indicated that the student had recorded a response that was located at the
knowledge review level, a score of three indicated they were connecting information to develop more complex
understandings, and a score of five indicated that they were thinking metacognitively about the problem. The advantage of
using this type of assessment tool was that it enabled teachers to construct reasoning and problem-solving measures that
were authentic and relevant to the unit of work the students had completed. While some of the classes were able to complete
both of the reasoning and problem-solving activities after each unit of work, many classes were only able to complete one for
each unit of work. Consequently, it was decided that only one reasoning and problem-solving score would be recorded for
each unit of work. If two scores were obtained then the higher score would be recorded as representing the student’s
response to the reasoning and problem-solving activity.
2.6.4. Application of the cooperative condition

The cooperative learning observation schedule (Gillies, 2004) was used to determine whether the teachers in the three
conditions had implemented this pedagogical practice in their classrooms during their small-group activities. This
observation schedule was informed by the key elements that identify cooperative learning (Johnson & Johnson, 1990) and
include the following five dimensions: (a) uses a range of cooperative learning strategies and orchestrates their use
according to the stage of curriculum development; (b) uses language that reflects the fact that cooperative learning is being
employed (e.g., family group, expert group, roles); (c) facilitates students use of cooperative learning (i.e., encourages
students to work together, reduces teacher-centred teaching); (d) reinforces the students use of language strategies (e.g., use
of encouragement, use of praise, reflection sheets); and (e) develops interdependence in the students (e.g., shared tasks,
attention to grouping students).
Two research assistants rated each dimension using a Likert scale from 1 to 5 to indicate whether the behaviour was not
observed at all (1) to whether it was almost always observed (5). These dimensions were then used to inform an overall
rating of 1–5 that was assigned to the implementation of the cooperative learning approach in the lesson being observed.
Teachers who obtained a rating of 4–5 were observed to have systematically implemented cooperative learning in their class
lesson whereas those who obtained a rating of 3 or less did not systematically implement cooperative learning into their
small-group teaching. Teachers were observed twice during the course of the study, once during each unit of work in which
they had agreed to implement cooperative, small-group activities. The observers each observed the same four lessons and
the inter-observer agreement on the application of the cooperative condition was 100%.
2.7. Procedure
The first author discussed the preliminary testing, the assignment of students to groups, and the data collection process
with the teachers prior to the commencement of the study. During the 2-day workshop (discussed above) the teachers
received additional information on the purposes of the research and the different procedures for establishing one of the
conditions (cooperative + communication, cooperative, or group-work) in their classrooms. Once the study commenced, all
teachers received a regular email newsletter that kept them up-to-date with the progress of the study as well as providing
them with information on different types of peer-mediated learning strategies that they could use to enhance students’
cooperation. The email correspondence was necessary because the teachers requested that they would like to be kept up to
date with the study. Furthermore, the education authority that approved the study was also very keen to ensure that the
authors remained in contact with the teachers and provided them with information on the study and any relevant resources
they could use in their teaching.
The participating teachers were audiotaped once during each of the two units of work in which they had agreed to embed
the different small-group strategies for their condition. The audiotaping occurred towards the end of each unit of work. The
teachers wore an audio-microphone and were taped for the full 45 min of the class period in which the children worked on
their small-group activities. Samples of the children’s discussions in two of the small groups in each class were also collected
by placing a cassette recorder on the table for the duration of the small-group activity. An observer sat at the back of the room
and discreetly completed the cooperative learning observation schedule (described above). Samples of the children’s
responses to the reasoning and problem-solving activities (described above) were completed individually by each student at
the completion of each unit of work.
3. Results
3.1. Statistical analysis
The overall effects of intervention over three conditions across two time points were evaluated using repeated measure
multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), which examines both the between- and within-subject effects. Further to
examining whether there were significant differences between the three conditions at two time points in the verbal
behaviour of teachers and student groups, a separate MANOVA was carried out at Time 1 and Time 2. For significant
differences among the between-subject conditions, post hoc pair-wise comparisons were made to identify pairs that
significantly differ. While using MANOVA on teacher data, participating teachers were considered as between-subject
variables, while the set of verbal behaviour at Time 1 and Time 2 was considered as within-subject variables. For students’
group data, student groups and their group behaviour at Time 1 and Time 2 were respectively considered as between- and
within-subject variables.
Before conducting MANOVA, collinearity of the dependent measures was assessed. Although we cannot claim that the
measures were truly independent, none of the correlation coefficient was considerably high (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001).
Assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance underpinning the use of MANOVA were investigated. Normality was
investigated by examining the variables for skewness and kurtosis, and homogeneity of variance was assessed using the Box
M test. The majority of the variables met the normality and homogeneity requirements with a few variables with modest
violation of assumptions. Given that the samples are not small, this violation of assumptions to a lower extent is unlikely to
affect the validity of the results (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001).
As described in earlier sections, a unique feature of the data on students’ reasoning and problem-solving (RP-S) activity
scores was the hierarchical two-level structure where students were nested within teachers. Furthermore, students’ RP-S
activity scores were collected at two time-points (Time 1 and Time 2) and as such the observations could not be regarded as
independent of each other. Therefore multilevel statistical methods were required to allow for the non-independence of the
data (Goldstein, 2005). Failure to allow for the structure of the data can lead to the misleading parameter estimates and also
to an exaggeration of the significance of results. As the continuous RP-S activity scores are expected to vary over students and
teachers, we used the random intercept model (Rabe-Hesketh & Skrondal, 2005) of multilevel modelling to determine if there
were significant differences in students’ RP-S activity scores across the three conditions and whether the scores changed
between Time 1 and Time 2. This two-level random intercept modelling approach assumes that unobserved variations
between students and teachers are random rather than fixed quantities. Interaction between time and conditions was
examined to see if the changes in RP-S scores between Time 1 and Time 2 varied for different conditions. All test of
hypothesis were performed at the 5% level of significance.
3.2. Teachers’ verbal behaviours
A repeated measure multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed no significant difference between Time 1 and
Time 2 (F1,47 = 0.18; P = 0.67; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.99; h2 = 0.004), and across the three conditions (F2,47 = 2.22, P = 0.12) with
respect of teachers’ verbal behaviour (Table 1). The interaction between time and condition was also found to be insignificant
(F2,47 = 1.30; P = 0.28; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.95; h2 = 0.005).
A separate MANOVA was conducted at Time 1 to determine if there were significant differences in the verbal behaviours
of teachers across the three conditions. There was no significant difference between the conditions for teachers’ verbal
behaviour (F12,86 = 1.44; P = 0.16; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.69; h2 = 0.17) at Time 1. Another MANOVA conducted at Time 2
identified significant differences between the three groups in the verbal behaviours of the teachers (F12,86 = 1.96; P = 0.038;
Wilks’ Lambda = 0.62; h2 = 0.21). Analysis of each dependent variable showed that the three conditions differed in terms of
Table 1
Results of repeated measures MANOVA testing for difference between different conditions over time in teachers’ verbal behaviour
Source of variations Wilks’ Lambda F d.f. P Partial Eta-square
1. MANOVA at Time 1 and 2

Conditions (between-subject) 2.22 2.47 0.12 0.086
Time (within-subject) 0.996 0.18 1.47 0.67 0.004
Time by conditions 0.948 1.30 2.47 0.28 0.059
2. MANOVA at Time 1
Conditions 0.693 1.44 12.86 0.16 0.168
3. MANOVA at Time 2
Conditions 0.617 1.96 12.86 0.034 0.214
Dependent variables
Control 2 2.61 2.48 0.084 0.098
Discipline 2 0.14 2.48 0.874 0.006
Mediate 2 5.41 2.48 0.008 0.184
Encourage 2 0.03 2.48 0.972 0.001
Question 2 2.27 2.48 0.114 0.086
Maintenance 2 1.38 2.48 0.262 0.054
Post hoc comparisons

Condition 1 and 2 0.665 2.26 6.27 0.067 0.335
Condition 2 and 3 0.853 0.75 6.26 0.615 0.147
Condition 3 and 1 0.544 3.91 6.28 0.006 0.456
mediating behaviours (F2,48 = 5.41; P = 0.008, h2 = 0.18). Follow-up post hoc comparisons showed that there were significant
differences between the cooperative + communication condition and the group-work only condition (F6,28 = 3.91; P = 0.006;
h2 = 0.46), but no other pair-wise comparison was found to be significant. The analysis also showed that compared to the
group-work only condition, teachers in the cooperative + communication condition were more proactively engaged in
mediating (F1,33 = 10.9; P = 0.002; h2 = 0.25), controlling (F1,33 = 5.55; P = 0.025; h2 = 0.14), and questioning (F1,33 = 5.45;
P = 0.026; h2 = 0.14).
3.3. Student groups’ verbal behaviours
A repeated measure MANOVA identified no significant differences between Time 1 and Time 2 (F1,93 = 2.45; P = 0.12;
Wilks’ Lambda = 0.97; h2 = 0.03) with respect to students’ group verbal behaviour (Table 2); however, such behaviours were
significantly different for the three conditions (F2,93 = 24.06; P < 0.001; h2 = 0.34). Follow-up post hoc comparisons showed
significant differences between the cooperative + communication condition and the group-work only condition (P < 0.001),
followed by significant difference between the cooperative condition and the group-work condition (P = 0.003) and between
the cooperative + communication condition and the cooperative only condition (P = 0.011) in terms of student groups’ verbal
behaviour. The interaction between time and condition was insignificant (F2,93 = 2.90; P = 0.07; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.94;
h2 = 0.059).
A separate MANOVA at Time 1 showed that there were significant differences in the verbal behaviours of the student
groups across the three conditions (F12,182 = 5.31; P < 0.001; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.55; h2 = 0.26). Analysis of each dependent
variable showed that the three conditions differed in terms of elaboration (F2,96 = 20.24; P < 0.001; h2 = 0.30), questioning
(F2,96 = 12.19; P < 0.001; h2 = 0.20), and short responses (F2,96 = 8.54; P < 0.001; h2 = 0.15). Follow-up post hoc comparisons
identified that the group-work condition was significantly different from the cooperative + communication condition
(F6,64 = 9.16; P < 0.001; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.54; h2 = 0.46) and the cooperative condition (F6,54 = 5.36; P < 0.001; Wilks’
Lambda = 0.63; h2 = 0.37) with respect to student groups’ verbal behaviour. There also exists moderate difference between
the cooperative + communication condition and the cooperative condition (F6,59 = 2.53; P = 0.03; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.80;
h2 = 0.20). The analysis also showed that students in the cooperative + communication condition provided significantly
more elaborative responses than their peers in either of the other two conditions (P < 0.001). They also asked more questions
than their peers in the cooperative only group (P < 0.001) and gave more short responses than students in either of the other
two conditions (P < 0.001).
A further MANOVA at Time 2 found significant differences in the verbal behaviours of the student groups across the three
conditions (F12,176 = 7.27; P < 0.001; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.45; h2 = 0.33). Analysis of individual dependent variables identified
five of them to be significantly different for the three conditions: elaboration (F2,93 = 33.12; P < 0.001; h2 = 0.42), questioning
(F2,93 = 6.08; P = 0.003; h2 = 0.12), short responses (F2,93 = 5.66; P = 0.005; h2 = 0.11), engages (F2,93 = 3.87; P = 0.024;
h2 = 0.08), and directs (F2,93 = 3.88; P = 0.024; h2 = 0.08). Follow-up post hoc comparisons revealed significant differences
between each of the three pairs of conditions. The students’ verbal behaviour in the cooperative + communication condition
was significantly different from that of the cooperative condition (F6,57 = 6.08; P < 0.001; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.61; h2 = 0.39)
and the group-work condition (F6,63 = 14.09; P < 0.001; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.43; h2 = 0.57). Also, the cooperative condition was
Table 2
Results of repeated measures MANOVA testing for difference between different conditions over time in students’ group verbal behaviour
Source of variations Wilks’ Lambda F d.f. P Partial Eta-square
1. MANOVA at Time 1 and 2

Conditions (between-subject) 24.06 2.93 <0.001 0.341
Time (within-subject) 0.974 2.45 1.93 0.12 0.026
Time by Conditions 0.941 2.90 2.93 0.06 0.059

Condition 1 and 2 6.88 1.60 0.011
Condition 2 and 3 15.90 1.54 0.003
Condition 3 and 1 46.36 1.66 <0.001
2. MANOVA at Time 1
Conditions 0.549 5.31 12.182 <0.001 0.259
Dependent variables
Question 1 12.186 2.96 <0.001 0.202
Shortresponse 1 8.535 2.96 <0.001 0.151
Engages 1 2.751 2.96 0.069 0.054
Interrupts 1 1.174 2.96 0.314 0.024
Directs 1 0.148 2.96 0.863 0.003
Elaborate 1 20.238 2.96 <0.001 0.297

Condition 1 and 2 0.796 2.53 6.59 0.030 0.204
Condition 2 and 3 0.627 5.36 6.54 <0.001 0.373
Condition 3 and 1 0.538 9.16 6.66 <0.001 0.462
3. MANOVA at Time 2
Conditions 0.447 7.27 12.176 <0.001 0.331
Dependent variables
Question 2 6.075 2.48 0003 0.116
Shortresponse 2 5.660 2.48 0005 0.109
Engages 2 3.874 2.48 0024 0.077
Interrupts 2 0.377 2.48 0687 0.008
Directs 2 3.888 2.48 0024 0.077
Elaborate 2 33.12 2.48 <0.001 0.416

Condition 1 and 2 0.610 6.08 6.57 <0.001 0.39
Condition 2 and 3 0.717 3.36 6.51 0.007 0.283
Condition 3 and 1 0.427 14.09 6.63 <0.001 0.573
significantly different from that of group-work condition (F6,51 = 3.36; P = 0.007; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.72; h2 = 0.28). The
analysis also showed that the students in the cooperative + communication condition provided more elaborative responses
than their peers in either of the other two conditions (P < 0.001). The children in the cooperative + communication condition
asked more questions (P < 0.001), gave more short answer responses (P < 0.001) and offered more directions (P = 0.006)
than the students in the group-work condition.
3.4. Students’ reasoning and problem-solving activity scores
Random intercept model estimates and tests the significance of within- and between-subject effects. The analysis
showed that there was no significant difference between Time 1 and Time 2 in students’ RP-S activity scores; however,
there was significant difference between the three conditions (Table 3). In particular, students in the
cooperative + communication condition engaged in more RP-S activity compared with students in group-work only
condition (P = 0.042). This included making connections between information (i.e., ideas, understanding cause and
effect), applying information to practice, and generating new ideas and knowledge. The analysis could not find any
significant difference between the cooperative only condition and the group-work only condition. Interaction between
‘condition’ and ‘time’ was also found to be insignificant in the analysis. The intercept was 3.274, which stood for the
average RP-S activity score for all students in all teachers. However, the intercept as a random variable in the random
intercept model meant that the intercept could differ in particular teacher, and interval estimates, as opposed to point
estimates, would be appropriate to report. The 95% confidence interval of the intercept across teachers was from 2.758
to 3.789. The random intercept model had two variances of the intercept: variance at the student level and variance at
the teacher level. The student-level and teacher-level variances were separately estimated as 0.219 and 0.162,
respectively. Even though the variance components were fairly small, they together accounted for 35% of total
variability, supporting the use of random intercept modelling.
Table 3
Intervention effects for students’ reasoning and problem-solving activity changes at baseline (Time 1) and follow-up (Time 2) over three conditions
Independent variable
Fixed part b P-Value 95% CI
Intercept 3.274 <0.0001 2.758 to 3.789

Time
Time 1 vs. Time 2 0.024 0.875 0.323 to 0.275
Conditions
Com + Coop vs. group 0.498 0.042 0.017–0.980
Coop vs. group 0.426 0.244 0.291 to 1.142
Interaction
Condition Time 0.053 0.621 0.264 to 0.157
Random part VC (S.E.) 95% CI
Level 2 (teacher) S.D. 0.403 (0.070) 0.287–0.567

Level 1 (student) S.D. 0.468 (0.078) 0.339–0.648
S.D. (residual) 0.834 (0.044) 0.753–0.925
b: regression coefficient; CI: confidence interval; VC: variance component; S.E.: standard error.
3.5. Teacher discourse
In order to elucidate the types of verbal behaviours the teachers demonstrated, a vignette is provided of the discourse one
teacher (Damon) used (chosen randomly from the cooperative + communication condition) as he interacted with his
students during their small-group activities. This vignette is followed by an extract of one of the student groups from this
teacher’s class.
In the vignette below, the children have been discussing what items they would need to take with them if they were going
on a 6 h road trip. This activity is to help prepare the children for a discussion they are going to have in their small groups on
the types of items they would take with them if they were Vikings about to embark on a 7 days sea voyage. The children have
been studying a unit of work on ‘‘World Exploration’’ so this activity is designed to help them integrate the information they
have been reading and apply it to an activity that requires them to identify the items, prioritise them in discussion with
others, and justify their choices.
Teacher vignette
1. T. What we’re looking at now is prioritizing that list of things. If you could only take one thing what would it be? (T. asks
different students to identify their first priority). . . . Dexter, why would you choose water as your number one priority?
(T. is probing the student to justify his choice).
2. S. I get thirsty.
3. T. Yes, water is one of our basic survival needs and we can’t last long without it.
4. T. Let’s go back to the MP3. Why would you choose that, Sean? (T. probes student for a reason).
5. S. To stop being bored.
6. T. You don’t think you’d die of thirst? (T. challenges student to think of the implications of his choice).
7. S. You wouldn’t die of thirst in 6 h. (S. provides an explanation for his choice).
8. S. I’d take a book.
9. T. Why’s that? (T. expects student to justify his choice).
10. S. So I can read and not listen to my brother and sister. (S. provides reason with an explanation for his choice).
11. S. I’d take a pillow.
12. T. Why would you take that? (T. asks S. to justify his choice).
13. S. So I can sleep if I get tired. (S. provides explanation for his choice).
The lesson continues like this for a few minutes until the teacher informs the children that they are going to do a
similar type of activity based on their work with Vikings. The children are then instructed to think about what items they
would take on this sea voyage and prioritize them. They are told to identify a list of six things by themselves before they
pair up with another student to develop a common list and the reasons why they made those choices. Once they have
done this, they will pair up with another pair and make a square (i.e., four-person group) to agree on one group list. Each
group will then share their list with the rest of the class and justify their choices.
14. S. Do we have to think of things they (Vikings) had?
15. T. Yes, that’s a good question—think of what the Vikings had in their time. (T. acknowledges student’s question).
Before the students commenced this activity, the teacher helped the children to recall the reasons why the Vikings
were explorers. This is followed by a short revision of the social skill the groups are focusing on during this lesson, that is,
giving praise.
16. T. What might you say to someone to praise them? What might it look like and sound like’’ (T. probes students to think of
the different aspects of praise).
17. S. Great.
18. S. Good idea.
19. S. Positive talk.
20. S. Humour.
21. T. Yes, it could sound like fun.
22. T. What else might it sound like if you’re praising someone? (T. probes students for a description of what they would hear
if they praised someone).
23. S. Looking at each other.
24. T. Yes, that’s what it would look like.
25. S. Pleasant face, smiling (T. continues discussion with the students until they understand how they can praise each
other). The children then break into groups to discuss the task while the T. moves around the room interacting with the
different groups.
26. T. Have you all got a different one?
27. S. No, we all agreed on water.
28. T. What about your next one?
29. S. We have different things—we’ve got to work it out. (S. provides an explanation for the action the group must take).
30. S. What do you think for this one? (Student asks others to comment on choice) (Students discuss this choice).
31. T. Taylor, are the reasons they’re giving making sense?
32. S. They have to tell why . . . why they chose this. (S. reminds the group to provide explanations for their choices).
33. T. What do you mean by sleeping things?
34. S. To wear things . . . to be comfortable when they sleep. (S. provides explanation).
35. S. They didn’t have beds.
36. S. Yes – they had long things – sheets that you hang up . . . hammocks. (S. provides explanation).
37. S. They need weapons in case they get attacked. (S. provides reason for his choice).
38. S. Yes, that’s right. (S. acknowledges and validates suggestion).
39. S. They need medical equipment.
40. T. Would it be like our first aid kit? (T. challenges children to make links between what they’ve been reading with what
they know from experience).
41. S. No, they would have plants and lots of different things—like herbs and plants. (S. provides explanation).
42. T. What were the other things you thought? (T. challenges the group to consider other choices).
43. S. Gloves . . . to keep warm. They’d sailed in the artic to Greenland and it’s very cold. (S. provides reason for choice and
links information from other sources).
In the vignette above, the teacher demonstrates how to ask questions that probe children’s choices (Turns 1 and 4) and
challenge them to think of the implications of their choices (Turn 6). Interestingly, the children respond with explanations
for their choices with one even challenging the teacher’s suggestion that he might die of thirst by providing a reason as to
why this will not happen (see Turn 7). A similar pattern of teacher–student interaction continues from Turns 9 to 13 until the
teacher tells the children that they are going to work on a similar type of activity that focuses on Vikings.
This interaction is followed by the teacher acknowledging and validating the student’s good, thinking question in Turn 14.
This is important because from Turns 16 to 25, he focuses the children’s attention on how to give praise to each other before
they commence working in groups. The children continue to provide explanations (see Turns, 29, 34, 36, 37, and 41) in
response to questions from others until the teacher challenges the group to consider other choices (Turn 42). The student
who responds provides a reason for his choice by integrating information from different sources outside the context of the
current interaction (Turn 43): in effect, engaging in extended knowledge construction discourse or going beyond what has
been explicitly stated to connect ideas together and, in so doing, demonstrating high-level cognitive activity (King, 1999).
3.6. Student discourse
To illustrate what the students were doing in their groups, we provide a vignette of a continuous discussion that occurred
in one group, immediately after the interaction above. We chose this vignette at random from one of two groups that were
audiotaped during the above lesson. The vignette represents only a few minutes of interaction by the group members which
ended when the teacher decided to have a whole-class discussion with the small groups.
Student Vignette
1. S. Ok, do we all agree with number 4?

2. S. Yeah! Oh.
3. S. Would you rather have a pillow or a knife? (S. seeks decision).
4. S. Do we agree on number 4 is a pillow? (S. seeks agreement).
5. S. Who agrees on sleeping things next? (S. seeks agreement).
6. S. Let’s look at a book next or an activity? (S. asks other to consider choices).
7. S. Do you agree Jordan? (S. seeks agreement).
8. S. Yeah, I agree. An activity book or activity games?
9. S. Do we all agree? (S. seeks a decision from the group).
10. S. An activity game . . . maybe a card game?
11. S. What else do we need? (S. probes for ideas from the group).
12. S. Would you like to have your say?
13. S. Alright. OK. . . I had battle gear but that’s the one that gets up here (S. indicates it’s been mentioned previously).
14. What would you rather have toiletries or weapons to protect yourself? (S. challenges student to justify choice).
15. Weapons to protect myself. (S. provides explanation for choice).
16. How did they wash their clothes? (S. requests information from others).
17. In buckets. . .in the sea.
18. What do you think of putting in a food garden? (S. solicits opinion).
19. Foods important.
20. Would you rather be in wet clothes or be dead?
21. Would you rather be in dry clothes or be dead?
22. OK, Just put weapons.
23. Just put in battle gear.
24. Put in armoury, food. We need food and weapons. (S. synthesis the key points from the discussion).
25. Let’s put in one more.
26. Helmet?
27. Would that help?
28. Can you actually go without food? (S. probes others opinions).
29. You need to eat. (S. provides explanation).
30. Livestock—to provide food?
31. Cooking utensils.
32. Candles, torches.
33. Torches plus candles.
It is interesting to note that nearly 50% of the total interactions in the above vignette involve the children asking
questions; questions that range from those that solicit decisions, seek opinions, or information to those that challenge each
other to think (Turns 14 and 28). While the questions initially sought agreement or basic information (e.g., Turns 1, 3–7), they
became more complex as the interaction continued with ones that asked students to consider alternative propositions
(Turns 14, 20 and 21) or consequences (Turn 28). These latter questions were ones that required the questioners to
synthesise and evaluate the issues, and in all instances, respondents provided explanations with reasons or justifications for
their decisions (see Turns 15, 24 and 29). In short, the students modelled many of the mediating behaviours their teacher had
used as he interacted with the groups in the previous vignette. Moreover, they did this in a context that was enquiring and
task oriented yet supportive of each other.
4. Discussion
The present study had three aims. First, it sought to determine whether teachers who have been trained to use specific
communication strategies to enhance students’ cognitive and metacognitive thinking demonstrate more mediating
behaviours that challenge and scaffold students’ learning than teachers who have not been trained to use these skills. Second,
it investigated whether students who work in cooperative groups where their teachers have been trained to use these
specific communication strategies engage in more elaborative and help-giving behaviours than students who work in groups
where their teachers have not received such training. Finally, it sought to determine whether students in the above teachers’
classrooms score more highly on follow-up reasoning and problem-solving learning measures. The study was conducted
across two school terms and involved three groups of teachers and their students (cooperative + communication condition,
cooperative condition, and group-work condition). The participating teachers were required to establish either cooperative
learning or group-work learning in their classrooms for a unit of social science (4–6 weeks) once a term for two terms.
The results show that teachers in the cooperative + communication condition used significantly more mediating
behaviours than the teachers who implemented the group-work condition. This is not surprising given the group-work
teachers were not trained in the communication skills that challenge children’s thinking and were not sensitized to the
importance of these dialogic skills. Interestingly, there were no significant differences between the cooperative + commu-
nication and cooperative conditions. These somewhat mixed results may have occurred because, although the teachers in
the cooperative condition did not participate in the specific communication skills training, they were aware of the
importance of encouraging students to dialogue with each other. Additionally, they had received information on ways to
enhance students thinking and learning during small-group work so they may have seen value in incorporating some of
these dialogic skills into their teaching repertoire. Another possible explanation for the non-significant differences between
the experimental conditions may have occurred because research indicate that when teachers implement cooperative
learning where they are required to interact with small groups rather than large ones, concomitant linguistic changes occur
so their interactions with their students are more positive, helpful and pro-social and less authoritarian, directive, and
impersonal (Hertz-Lazarowitz & Shachar, 1990). Gillies (2006) likewise found that when teachers implement cooperative
learning in contrast to small-group learning, they use more mediated-learning behaviours or language designed to foster
learning in their students. It is this change in language, in part, which may explain the non-significant differences in
mediating behaviours between the cooperative + communication and cooperative conditions, with teachers in both
conditions mediating students’ learning.
Interestingly, the teachers in the cooperative + communication condition when compared to teachers in the group-work
condition engaged in more controlling and questioning behaviours. While controlling behaviours where teachers provide
clear and explicit guidelines for the task are important if students are to work effectively together in their groups (Gillies,
2003b, 2004; Johnson & Johnson, 1990), the questioning behaviours often only elicited expected short answer responses–
responses that are not usually associated with learning. However, Turner et al. (2002) argues that this type of behaviour can
be effective when used in combination with mediating behaviours that provide instructional scaffolding. The following
interaction between a teacher (T) and a small group of students (S) in her class illustrates this instructional scaffolding:
T: ‘‘What have you got there?’’ (Question designed to elicit short response).
S: ‘‘Our diorama’’.
T: ‘‘I wonder if you’ve considered using this information in your presentation?’’ (T. poses a tentative question to help
mediate students’ thinking) S: ‘‘We thought of that and we’re going to try and put it here. We think it’s better to show
it here with this so people can see what it means.’’
As can be seen by the above dialogue, the interaction of both the questioning and mediating behaviours set up a sequence
of reciprocal discourses between the teacher and her students that helped to focus the students’ attention on the task at hand
and generate a well-reasoned explanation to the teacher’s inquiry. Zuckerman et al. (1998) found that this type of interaction
encouraged on-going task engagement and stimulated further questions and inquiries.
A similar pattern of helping behaviours was observed among the student groups with the children in the
cooperative + communication condition providing more elaborations than the children in the cooperative and group-
work conditions. Given that the research on students’ helping behaviours indicates that when children work in cooperative
groups they provide more detailed explanations to other group members than children who work in groups where
cooperative learning has not been established (Gillies, 2006) and that students who work in cooperative groups where their
teachers have been trained to mediate students’ learning, provide more elaborations than their peers who work in
cooperative groups where their teachers have not participated in such training (Gillies, 2004), it was expected that the
children in the cooperative + communication condition would provide more elaborative and help-giving behaviours to
group members than their peers in the other two conditions. Indeed, this expectation was confirmed with the results
showing that the children in the cooperative + communication condition did provide more elaborations or engaged in those
behaviours that foster reciprocity. This, in part, may also have occurred because the children had been trained to engage in
Exploratory talk (Mercer et al., 1999) so they were taught to share information, interrogate sources, and provide reasons for
their decisions during small-group discussions. Furthermore, they were taught to ask and answer questions that were
designed to progressively promote complex, higher-level thinking (King, 1997). In short, they had been sensitized to the
importance of interacting in a focused way with their peers.
An examination of the children’s verbal behaviours in the cooperative + communication condition showed that they
adopted many of the higher-level thinking responses that their teachers had modelled and used them in their interactions
with each other. Comments such as the following are examples of the types of higher-level thinking behaviours the children
demonstrated in their groups: ‘‘If we put this here (graph of rainfall patterns), we can use it to help talk about the water
crisis’’(connecting new information with previous understandings); ‘‘We need to work out how to do this (present
information to the others in the class) so they know what we’re saying’’ (thinking about thinking); and ‘‘OK, we could tell
them that their results were clear and they linked to their hypothesis’’ (providing feedback to the group on how they
presented their results to the class).
It appears that when teachers are explicit in the types of thinking they want children to use, it triggers in children the
recognition that they need to provide more help and explanations to others (Gillies & Boyle, 2005). Rojas-Drummond and
Zaparta (2004) observed that when teachers explicitly teach children how to engage in exploratory talk where they are
expected to provide reasons for their decisions, they produce significantly more and better arguments than their comparison
peers. Moreover, their arguments are more cohesive and precise and they provide more links and supports to sustain their
opinions, thus making their reasoning more transparent. Similarly, Wegerif, Linares, Rojas-Drummond, Mercer, and Velez
(2005), in a study that compared children’s reasoning in the UK and Mexico, reported that when teachers explicitly teach
children how to engage in exploratory talk, the children demonstrated an increase over time in reasoned argumentation and
a decrease in uncritical and poorly reasoned talk. In short, teachers can promote the quality of students’ discourse by
explicitly teaching those communication skills that challenge and scaffold students’ higher-level thinking and learning
during their small-group discussions.
In this study, the teachers in the cooperative + communication condition were provided with information on different
approaches that are used to enhance students’ discussions during cooperative learning: Exploratory talk (Mercer et al.,
1999); The Ask to Think-Tel-Why approach to promoting complex, higher-level thinking (King, 1997); and the Cognitive
Tools and Intellectual Roles approach to enhance students’ abilities to engage in collaborative, problem-solving (Palinscar &
Herrenkohl, 2002). Additionally, the teachers were also taught how to use those communication strategies that helped them
to probe, clarify, and confront children’s thinking and suggest alternative ideas (Gillies, 2004). These types of interactions
challenge children to deal with the perturbing feedback they receive by reconciling different conceptual understandings
(Damon, 1984; Piaget, 1950) while simultaneously being scaffolded into co-constructing new ways of thinking and talking
(Damon & Phelps, 1989; Vygotsky, 1978). Teachers were asked to encourage children to use these strategies in their
interactions with each other as a way of promoting thinking, discourse, and learning. The reasoning and problem-solving
activities that the children completed at the end of each unit of work were designed to measure how they were making
connections and building understandings between information presented and discussed and how they were demonstrating
higher-level complex thinking during their small-group learning activities.
The results show there were significant differences between the conditions with the children in the cooperative + -
communication condition demonstrating higher reasoning and problem-solving skills than children in the group-work
condition but not more than the children in the cooperative condition. The difference between the cooperative + commu-
nication condition and the group-work condition is not surprising given that the children in the cooperative + communica-
tion condition were exposed to teachers who used more mediating behaviours to challenge and scaffold their learning and
the children, in turn, used more explanatory behaviour in their interactions with each other, or behaviours that involve both
reasoning and problem-solving and detailed helping. The lack of significant difference in the reasoning and problem-solving
activity scores for the children in the cooperative + communication condition and the cooperative condition may have
occurred, in part, because, as discussed earlier, the teachers in the cooperative condition demonstrated many of the
mediating behaviours that their peers in the cooperative + communication condition used to challenge children’s thinking
and scaffold their learning.
Teacher intervention in providing guidance in how to interact during group work appears to be critical to helping
students understand the importance of engaging in high-level thinking and providing detailed explanations or assistance to
others (King, 2002; Webb et al., 2004; Zuckerman et al., 1998). Indeed, it may be the lack of explicit and systematic teacher
intervention with the students in the cooperative condition that accounts for the non-significant differences between the
cooperative learning condition and the other two conditions on the reasoning and problem-solving measures.
4.1. Limitations
There are several limitations to this study. First, the teachers self-selected into the study (i.e., they volunteered) and were
not randomly selected from a pool of available teachers, hence, limiting the generalisations that can be made about teachers
willingness or ability to adopt the communication strategies that challenge and scaffold students’ higher-order thinking.
Secondly, there were only two observation periods of both the teachers’ and the students’ verbal behaviours, limiting
changes that may have been more obvious with more observations. Thirdly, there were no pre-intervention measures of the
teachers’ or students’ verbal behaviours during small-group work. Finally, the email newsletter which all teachers received
that provided information on peer-mediated learning and different strategies to promote cooperation may have
unintentionally sensitized those teachers in the cooperative condition to the importance of promoting discussion during
cooperative experiences, thus, contributing to some ‘‘contamination’’ of the results.
5. Conclusion
The study shows that when teachers are taught specific communication skills designed to challenge students’ cognitive
and metacognitive thinking during cooperative learning, they use more mediating behaviours to challenge and scaffold
students’ learning than teachers who implement small-group work who have not been taught these skills. However, there
were no significant differences in the verbal behaviours of the teachers in the cooperative + communication condition and
those in the cooperative condition, possibly because these teachers were aware of the purposes of the study and may have
decided to implement some of the specific communication strategies themselves as a way of promoting dialogue. However,
the children in the cooperative + communication condition provided more elaborations than their peers in the other two
conditions, and they obtained higher scores on the RP-S activities than their peers in the group-work condition. The results
provide support for the importance of training teachers to use those communication strategies that challenge children’s
cognitive and metacognitive thinking and promote learning.
Acknowledgement
This research was funded by a Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council.
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International Journal of Educational Research 47 (2008) 323–340

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Educational Research

The effects of teacher discourse on students’ discourse, problem-solving

1. Promoting student discourse

1.1. Promoting student reasoning and problem-solving

1.2. Types of effective helping behaviours

1.3. The teacher’s role in promoting student discourse

2.1. Study design

2.4. Establishment of the three conditions

1. all relevant information is shared;

2.5. Small-group activities

2.6.1. Teachers’ verbal behaviours

2.6.2. Students’ verbal behaviours

2.6.3. Students’ reasoning and problem-solving measures

2.6.4. Application of the cooperative condition

3.1. Statistical analysis

3.2. Teachers’ verbal behaviours

Source of variations Wilks’ Lambda F d.f. P Partial Eta-square

1. MANOVA at Time 1 and 2

Post hoc comparisons

3.3. Student groups’ verbal behaviours

Source of variations Wilks’ Lambda F d.f. P Partial Eta-square

1. MANOVA at Time 1 and 2

Post hoc comparisons

Post hoc comparisons

Post hoc comparisons

3.4. Students’ reasoning and problem-solving activity scores

Fixed part b P-Value 95% CI

Intercept 3.274 <0.0001 2.758 to 3.789

Random part VC (S.E.) 95% CI

Level 2 (teacher) S.D. 0.403 (0.070) 0.287–0.567

3.5. Teacher discourse

3.6. Student discourse

1. S. Ok, do we all agree with number 4?

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