Hogan, Nastasi, Pressley. 2010. Discourse Patterns and Collaborative Scientific Reasoning in Peer and Teacher - Guided Discussions

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Discourse Patterns and

Collaborative Scientific
Reasoning in Peer and TeacherGuided Discussions
Kathleen Hogan , Bonnie K. Nastasi & Michael
Pressley
Published online: 07 Jun 2010.
To cite this article: Kathleen Hogan , Bonnie K. Nastasi & Michael Pressley (1999)
Discourse Patterns and Collaborative Scientific Reasoning in Peer and TeacherGuided Discussions, Cognition and Instruction, 17:4, 379-432, DOI: 10.1207/
S1532690XCI1704_2
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S1532690XCI1704_2
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COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION, 17(4), 379432

Copyright 2000, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Discourse Patterns and Collaborative

Scientific Reasoning in Peer and
Teacher-Guided Discussions
Kathleen Hogan
Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Millbrook, NY
Bonnie K. Nastasi
Institute for Community Research
Hartford, CT
Michael Pressley
Department of Psychology
The University of Notre Dame
In this study we examined the discourse components, interaction patterns, and reasoning complexity of 4 groups of 12 Grade 8 students in 2 science classrooms as they constructed mental models of the nature of matter, both on their own and with teacher
guidance. Interactions within peer and teacher-guided small group discussions were
videotaped and audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed in a variety of ways. The key
act of participants in both peer and teacher-guided groups was working with weak or
incomplete ideas until they improved. How this was accomplished differed somewhat
depending on the presence or absence of a teacher in the discussion. Teachers acted as
a catalyst in discussions, prompting students to expand and clarify their thinking without providing direct information. Teacher-guided discussions were a more efficient
means of attaining higher levels of reasoning and higher quality explanations, but
peer discussions tended to be more generative and exploratory. Students discourse
was more varied within peer groups, and some peer groups attained higher levels of
reasoning on their own. Ideas for using the results of these analyses to develop teachers and students collaborative scientific reasoning skills are presented.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Kathleen Hogan, Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Box R
(Route 44A), Millbrook, NY 125450178. E-mail: Hogank@ecostudies.org
380
HOGAN, NASTASI, PRESSLEY
In this study, we examined the nature and sophistication of peer groups collaborative scientific reasoning with and without teacher guidance. Specifically, we documented the naturally occurring reasoning of eighth-grade students and teachers in
two classes engaged in an instructional unit on building mental models of the nature
of matter. By closely examining the verbal interchange in these classrooms, we
tracked the nature and development of scientific reasoning, collaborative cognition, and intellectual norms. Because the teachers in these classrooms engaged in
thoughtful dialogue with students (Bliss, Askew, & Macrae, 1996; Duschl &
Gitomer, 1997; Hogan & Pressley, 1997; Polman & Pea, 1997; van Zee & Minstrel,
1997), the discussions also revealed the effects of noviceexpert interaction on the
management of ideas, use of thinking tactics, and adherence to intellectual standards such as clarity and coherence.
Both task structure and social setting distinguish this study from studies of students scientific reasoning that focus on discrete logical hypothetic co-deductive and
inductive causal reasoning skills of individuals in laboratory contexts (e.g., Dunbar,
1993; Klahr & Dunbar, 1988; Koslowski, 1996; Kuhn, Amsel, & OLoughlin, 1988;
Kuhn, Garcia-Mila, Zohar, & Andersen, 1995; Lawson, 1993; Schauble, 1996). Students reasoning within less structured problem domains has been relatively unexamined (Champagne, 1992), although there have been some studies of students
reasoning about social or controversial issues that are highly familiar and interesting to
them (Kuhn, 1991; Resnick, Salmon, Zeitz, Wathen, & Holowchak, 1993; Shachar &
Sharan, 1994). However, students verbal interactions and cognitive processing are
likely to be different when talking with their peers about an issue that they have strong
opinions about and familiarity with, as well as when they work on a well-structured
problem that has a single right answer, than when they work together for a number of
days on trying to synthesize the results of several science labs into a coherent explanatory model.
There is an emerging recognition that discourse during such scientific inquiry
pursuits is distinctly different from everyday conversations and routine schoolwork discussions and reflects a unique form of socially situated reasoning and
knowledge building (Cobb & Yackel, 1996). We, thus, use students discourse as a
primary source of data to examine their scientific reasoning, namely their
coconstruction of explanations, arguments, and models from their own observations and data within classroom contexts.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
We drew from several theoretical traditions in shaping this study. Like other researchers who believe that theoretical pluralism is essential for a complex, applied
discipline such as education (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1996; Cobb, 1994; Sfard,
DISCOURSE AND SCIENTIFIC REASONING
381
1998), our approach is pragmatic. Our ultimate goal is to generate knowledge that
can lead to improvements in classroom practice, so our use of theoretical tools reflects the needs encountered in that practical endeavor. Eventually, cohesive educational theories can arise from such eclectic beginnings.
Cognitive and sociocultural theories together constitute the framework for
this study. There is a tremendous amount of activity among educational researchers seeking to blend these perspectives into a coherent educational theory.
Some, for instance, are forging relations between situated learning and information processing theories (Derry, DuRussel, & ODonnell, 1998), whereas others
are combining socioculturalism with cognitive constructivism (Cobb & Yackel,
1996). Understanding the growth of scientific knowledge in terms of both cognitive and social processes also is gaining prominence in studies of the history,
philosophy, and sociology of science (e.g., Cole, 1992; Thagard, 1994), influencing science educators to view science classrooms as scientific communities
in which enculturation and personal knowledge construction are intertwined
(e.g., Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994; Kelly, Carlsen, &
Cunningham, 1993).
In this study, we examined cognition primarily as it is situated in interpersonal
interactions, rather than as situated in broader social institutional and cultural settings. We recognize that examining the interpsychological plane does not constitute a full sociocultural analysis (Wertsch, 1991). However, given the view that
both scientific reasoning practices and scientific concepts are in part cultural constructions (Driver, Asoko, et al., 1994), we approach a broader plane of analysis
when describing the teachers role as inducting students into the norms of science.
Yet, we also rely on ideas that are central to studies of cognition, such as
metacognition and depth of processing of information through elaboration and
synthesis, to fully describe the processes and products of students and teachers
reasoning.
In contrast to many social constructivist analyses that focus on individual students construction of identities and understandings within a social context of
learning, this analysis foregrounds group processes and knowledge products. The
primary source of data is interactive protocols (Hogan & Fisherkeller, in press).
Whereas think-aloud protocols capture verbalizations of an individuals thinking
processes that normally would not be expressed aloud, interactive protocols are the
result of purposeful communication. They are records of communicative events
rather than reports of private sense making. Although we assume that individuals
experience cognitive growth during group discourse, our analysis does not attempt
to make claims about the shift in the knowledge of individuals, or about individuals competencies as scientific reasoners. The interactional analyses used in this
study do not lead to claims about individual cognition separate from a social context and collaboratively shared knowledge objects.
382
EMPIRICAL FOUNDATIONS AND

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Much of the recent research using discourse to characterize scientific meaning
making in classrooms is framed by a view of science learning as acculturation into
the linguistic norms that are integral to the practice of science (Brown & Campione,
1994; Gallas, 1995; Greeno, 1992; OLoughlin, 1992; Palincsar, Anderson, & David, 1993; Reddy, 1995; Rosebery, Warren, & Conant, 1992; Roth, 1995;
Scardamalia, Bereiter, & Lamon, 1994; Wells & Chang-Wells, 1992). Many of
these researchers report on model programs in which teachers succeed in fostering
students ability to engage productively in community discourse. Through discussions, students generate and evaluate evidence to confirm or enhance their understanding. An important unit of analysis in these studies is the classroom community.
However, when the focus has been on the smaller unit of analysis of peer-group
discussions, the portrait of collaborative dialogue in math and science classrooms
has been less positive. Fine-grained analyses have shown that students can spend
much of their time figuring out how to complete a science task rather than gaining
higher order understandings about it. Discussions can be limited in depth and
breadth, and individual understandings can be unrelated to the groups understanding or to an individuals participation in the group (Bianchini, 1995). Cognitive
conflicts that emerge over mathematics problems can degenerate into social conflicts resolved through social dominance or teacher intervention (Nastasi,
Braunhardt, Young, & Margiano-Lyons, 1993). Also, not all children are equally
engaged in group tasks in part because their level of motivation, engagement, and
understanding is linked to the behaviors of the group leader (Basili & Sanford,
1991; Gayford, 1989; Richmond & Striley, 1996). Lower status and minority children participate less in cognitively challenging activities such as building explanations in science classrooms than do majority children of higher socioeconomic and
academic status (Anderson, 1994). Students do not always spontaneously develop
hypotheses, reason, explain, elaborate, and justify through their verbal interactions
during activity-based science, and they do not clarify their own or their peers understandings (Basili & Sanford, 1991; Bennett & Dunne, 1991; Roth &
Roychoudhury, 1992). Childrens talk about abstract ideas is less frequent and certain than their extensive and fluent talk associated with action and design. They
use imprecise language, often uttering short sentences or single words, which
hampers their ability to communicate ideas effectively (Bennett & Dunne, 1991).
They also often talk at cross-purposes and invoke conclusions without articulating
adequate warrants and backings to support their arguments (Eichinger, Anderson,
Palincsar, & David, 1991).
Clearly much remains to understand about the sociocognitive behaviors that
support and inhibit collaborative reasoning, despite evidence that small group in-
383
teractions in classrooms can promote cognitive gains (Nastasi & Clements, 1991).
Thus, in this study, we sought to understand the following:
What are the patterns of verbal interaction within peer and teacherstudent
scientific sense-making discussions?
Are there relations between discourse patterns and sophistication of scientific reasoning in peer and teacherstudent discussions?
Understanding knowledge building in classroom communities requires attention both to the natural progression of reasoning among novices (the students) and
to the role of the scientific expert (the teacher) in upholding standards that may be
unfamiliar within the peer culture. Thus, by analyzing teacherstudent discourse
and the associated socially distributed learning processes, we hoped to uncover
some of the limitations and potential of peer discourse as well as to explicate the
crucial role of the teacher in small group discussions. Ultimately, recommendations for melding peer and scientific cultures to optimize student motivation and
learning depend on understanding the dynamics of classroom discourse.
METHODS
Context
The context for this study was the natural setting of a complex, long-term activity
designed by a teacher for instructional purposes. The study took place in two classrooms of one eighth-grade teacher in a suburban school district in upstate New
York during a 12-week unit in which students constructed and tested mental models
of the nature of matter. A mental model is a verbal or image-based representation of
a complex phenomenon (Derry, 1996). Although the term usually refers to internal
mental constructions, in this instructional setting the term refers to students shared
knowledge objects, similar to the conceptual models that are the currency of practicing scientists interchanges.
The instructional unit had four phases. During Phase 1, students expressed prior
understandings as they did labs and demonstrations to gain experience with the
characteristics and behaviors of solids, liquids, and gases. During Phase 2, students worked in groups to construct and then present a model as a coherent set of
ideas and pictorial images that could explain and predict the phenomena they had
observed. During Phase 3, students participated in whole class discussions and investigations to test and refine their models. Finally, in Phase 4, students used their
models to explain new observations.
This instructional context was unique in its focus on theory building. Often in
inquiry-oriented science classes, emphasis is placed on experiment planning and
384
data-generating activities, rather than on building explanations from evidence.

Also, reward structures in classrooms typically preclude engagement in effortful,
long-term comprehension activities. However, within the instructional unit for this
study, complex thinking was valued, and the teacher collaborated with students to
produce it. The students goal was to produce a coherent explanatory model that
could stand up to peer critique, and they were given realistic amounts of time to
achieve this objective.
The teacher consciously adopted a style of constructivist pedagogy for this unit
that is best described as a without the information given (WIG; Perkins, 1992) approach in which a teacher does not provide direct instruction or other exposure to
conceptual information but instead guides students direct experiences with phenomena. This approach contrasts with what Perkins called the beyond the information given (BIG) constructivist practice in which teachers provide basic instruction
to students but then present challenging activities that require them to manipulate,
apply, and refine the new information.
The teacher had adopted a WIG approach for this unit after repeatedly observing
how students thinking had shut down after they were given some relevant information that they took to be the right answer. To thwart students adeptness at playing
the typical game of school and their reliance on her as a scientific authority, the
teacher found that she had to take a radical stance of not telling so that students would
learn to refine their abilities to form and judge their own ideas based on evidence. She
did not expect students to induce the key tenets of kinetic molecular theory purely
from direct experience. Rather, she thought of this unit primarily as providing an experience in the process of building models and theories as scientists do, more than as
providing a solid conceptual foundation in the nature of matter.
However, after teaching the mental model building unit early each fall, the
teacher revisited the nature of matter throughout the school year with a variety of
learning activities, including some direct instruction. She found that the long, sometimes frustrating phase of not being provided with direct information during the
mental model building unit set students up to treat the process of knowledge building
and to attend to their own emerging models and other information that they encountered later on in ways that would not have happened through a more traditional instructional unit. This unit then, was embedded within a carefully considered year
long course of instruction in which the teacher made sure that students growth in
conceptual understanding was not compromised in the long run for the sake of getting a taste of authentic scientific inquiry early in their eighth-grade year.
Participants
Twelve students (6 girls, 6 boys; 10 White, 1 Black, 1 Asian) from two classrooms
of one eighth-grade teacher were selected as target students to represent the diver-
385
sity of students within the classrooms, relative to two characteristics presumed to

be relevant for coconstruction of ideas: science achievement level and level of verbal participation in whole-class and small group discussions (Table 1). Selection of
students was based on documentation of students prior achievement in science,
teacher judgment, and researcher observations of the students for several weeks
prior to choosing them. However, we recognized that these classifications were
only broadly discriminating because students act and achieve differently in different social and task contexts within the same classroom. These 12 students worked
in the same four heterogenous groups of three for several weeks when the majority
of the interactional data were collected.
The teacher had 25 years of teaching experience at the time of the study and was
regarded as a master science teacher within and beyond her district. She had collaboratively designed the mental model building unit with a university professor
several years prior to our contact with her for this study. She often spoke of the process of designing, teaching, and reflecting with the professor on the unit and on
students learning within it as having a major impact on her growth in using
constructivist pedagogy. She periodically gave workshops to other teachers about
the unit and collected her own data on students naive notions about the nature of
matter. Overall, she was a very reflective teacher who welcomed the opportunity
to participate in this study as a means of furthering her own insights into the nature
of the teaching and learning that occurred during the unit.
TABLE 1
Profile of Target Students
Achievement Level
Group and Student No.
Group 1
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Group 2
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Group 3
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Group 4
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
High
Medium
Verbal Participation Level

Low
X
X
High
Medium
Low
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
386
A male student teacher was observing and assisting in the classrooms during
the data collection period. Half of the samples of teacher-guided group discussions
used for the analyses were with the student teacher and half were with the teacher.
The teacher modeled and discussed her style of interacting with student groups
with the student teacher prior to and during the unit, and he picked up on and used
her style remarkably well. The point of the analyses reported here was not to compare the teachers and student teachers interactions with the students. Although
the repertoire of the student teachers discourse moves was narrower than the
teachers, the prompting behaviors that he did use in the discrete samples of interactions we analyzed were very similar to the teachers use of the same types of verbalizations. Therefore, the two are referred to in this article as the teachers except
for in a few instances when it seemed informative to distinguish between them.
Data Collection
The student groups and their classes were videotaped and audiotaped two to three
times per week over a 12-week period. Kathleen Hogan was a complete observer
rather than a participant in the classrooms, remaining on the sidelines to take notes
and manage taping equipment, interacting minimally with the students and teachers during class periods.
The main data for this study are transcripts of students interactions over several weeks during Phase 2 when they worked in their groups to: (a) build a mental
model of the nature of matter; (b) use their model to explain the characteristics of
solids, liquids, and gases and the results of 10 experiments; and (c) present and defend their model to the whole class. The students tasks during this phase of the
unit were framed by four questions that the teacher presented to them:
1. What would solids, liquids, and gases look like if you could magnify them
millions of times? (The resulting pictorial images and descriptions of each state of
matter were called the groups mental model.)
2. How can the model explain the characteristics of solids, liquids, and gases
that were explored in labs (e.g., solids have mass; liquids take the shape of their
container; the volume of gas depends on the volume of its container)?
3. How can the model explain the phase changes observed in labs (e.g., solid to
liquid, liquid to gas, gas to liquid)?
4. How can the model explain a variety of other phenomena observed during
labs (e.g., air blown into plastic bags can lift a heavy table; odors of solids can be detected even when each solid is in a cup covered with tissue paper; the mass of a
piece of ice stays the same once melted; sugar cubes dissolve more quickly in hot
than in cold water)?
387
Taping occurred for whole class periods during which the teachers moved in
and out of interaction with individual groups as they tackled these questions.
Therefore, data were gathered when the groups of target students were working
both with and without a teacher. Tapes of 16 group discussions (four groups for 4
days) amounting to approximately 10 hr of conversations were transcribed for
fine-grained analysis.
Videotaping and audiotaping created somewhat intrusive conditions. Students
reported that they tried to show their best thinking during taping, commenting on
this to one another while being taped and to the researcher during class sessions
and interviews. Therefore, we interpret the results of this study as reflecting what
students regarded as their best attempts to interact productively, which may not
have been their typical level of performance in everyday classroom work.
Steps of Analysis and Coding Schemes

An overview of the analyses is presented in Table 2. The sequence of analysis steps
was not predetermined but rather emerged inductively through interaction with the
data (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). In general, coding
schemes were gradually refined through interaction with several transcripts. Once
the codes could describe all of the data satisfactorily, the coding schemes were established and all of the transcripts were recoded using the final schemes. Each step
of analysis is described in detail within the following sections.
Macrocodes. The first step in analyzing the transcripts was to determine the
major modes of the groups discussions. The three modes that emerged were (a)
knowledge constructionpeer and teacher-guided (i.e., when the discussion topic
was scientific phenomena and ideas, without or with a teacher present); (b) logistical (i.e., when the discussion topic was concrete aspects of the task such as what
color markers to use for overhead transparencies); and (c) off task (i.e., when the
discussion topics had nothing to do with the science topic or task).
These categories became the macrocodes for the transcripts. The unit of analysis for the macrocodes was conversational turns. A turn began when a person took
the floor in a conversation and ended when another person took the floor.
Microcodes. The next step of transcript analysis was to construct a
fine-grained portrayal of the types of statements students and teachers made to one
another during knowledge construction discussions. Statement units, defined as a
codable unit of speech (i.e., a word, phrase, sentence, or sentences) within a turn,
were the units of analysis for microcoding.
388

TABLE 2
Overview of Analysis Steps, Units of Analysis, and Codes
Analysis Procedure
Unit of Analysis
Codes
Step 1: Code modes of

discourse
Conversational turns within

episodes: Transitions between
one speaker and the next within
a series of interactions
Knowledge construction (peer,

teacher-guided), logistical, off
task
Step 2: Code types of

statements
Statement units: The smallest

meaningful codable unit of
speech within a turn
Microcodes within conceptual,

metacognitive, questionquery
categories
Step 3: Create discourse

maps
Episode: One or more topic units

united by a common mode or
purpose
Knowledge construction (peer,

teacher-guided)
Step 4: Discern
interaction patterns
Interaction sequences: A series of

turns bounded by statements
that initiate a new level of focus
Consensual, responsive,
elaborative
Step 5: Create conceptual

proposition maps
Topic units: One or more

interaction sequences focused
on a single topic
Name of the topic (e.g.,

macroscopic properties of
solids, liquids, gases; phase
changes)
Step 6: Judge reasoning

complexity
Conceptual proposition map: A

diagrammatic reconstruction of
the conceptual flow of
discussion about a topic
Generativity, elaboration,
justifications, explanations,
logical coherence, synthesis
Step 7: Relate groups

patterns of interaction to
the reasoning complexity
they achieved
All interaction patterns and

reasoning products of each
group
Previously defined codes for

statement types, interaction
patterns, and reasoning
complexity
Through repeated readings of transcripts, three main categories of statements

emerged as pivotal discourse moves for initiating, focusing, sustaining, and deepening dialogue. These were conceptual statements, metacognitive statements, and
questionsqueries. The conceptual statements took many forms, such as observations, ideas, conjectures, inferences, and assertions about the nature of matter; for
example, Okay, my theory on what happens with odors of the solids is that, um,
over a period of time, little particles, little clumps of atoms will break off from the
original object and they would put out in the air, and we would smell them.
Questions and queries comprise a single statement category because their function
was similar, but they differed somewhat in form and content. Questions were simple
and direct requests for information (e.g., What did you write for the answer to that lab
question?), whereas queries articulated unknowns as large issues to ponder rather
than as questions for an immediate answer (e.g., Is a smell a gas though?).
389
Metacognitive statements were of three types: regulatory statements that directed action on the task (e.g., Now lets do the second one were supposed to
do), evaluative statements that assessed the groups degree of progress or understanding (e.g., We dont get this one at all), and standards-based statements that
communicated the nature and goals of the task according to external criteria that
the groups process or product should meet (e.g., Every explanation you make has
to relate to the model).
A number of statement types within these three broad categories also were discerned. A complete list of microcodes is presented in Table 3. Development of
these codes proceeded recursively between inductive and deductive processes.
Some general labels of discourse statement types from the literature (e.g., Langer,
1991), as well as a search of the literature for mechanisms hypothesized to account
for cognitive gains through peer interaction, yielded a preliminary list of
microcodes. This list framed initial examination of the transcripts, which led to revisions of the list to better describe the data. The coding scheme also was refined
through interactions among the researchers and others, which helped to identify
ambiguities in definitions, overlap of categories, and so forth. The microcoding
TABLE 3
List of Microcodes
Statement Category
Statement Type
Conceptual
Presents idea
Presents partial idea
Presents information
Presents summary
Repeats self
Repeats other
Elaborates self
Elaborates other
Evaluates own idea
Evaluates others idea
Evaluates task difficulty
Reflects on standards
Reflects on positive understanding
Reflects on lack of understanding
Regulates action
Presents query
Requests information
Reacts agrees
Reacts neutral
Reacts disagrees
Digressions
Uncodable
Metacognitive
Questionquery
Nonsubstantive
Other
Microcode
PId
PPI
PIn
PSu
RpS
RpO
ElS
ElO
EvSI
EvOI
EvD
RfSt
RfU+
RfU
RgA
PQy
RIn
RA
RN
RD
DI
UC
390
scheme went through eight iterations. The final scheme was applied to 5 transcripts for fine-tuning and then used to code the remaining 11 transcripts.
Discourse maps. Discourse maps (cf. Frederiksen, Roy, & Chen, 1996;
Green & Wallat, 1981) that depict the chronological process and content of collaborative cognition were constructed from the transcripts to highlight the sequencing
of the three main statement types (i.e., conceptual, metacognitive, and questionsqueries) within episodes of peer and teacher-guided knowledge construction.
Excerpts from discourse maps are presented in Figure 1 (from a peer dialogue) and
Figure 2 (from a teacher-guided dialogue).
The substance of the discussion is displayed in the portion of the map called the
central interaction space. Conceptual statements appear in boxes, questions and
queries in hexagons, and metacognitive statements in ovals. The discourse moves
of each participant in the discussion are represented in columns adjacent to the interaction space. In the models of teacher-guided discussions, the teachers moves
appear on one side of the interaction space and the students moves on the other.
Arrows lead to and from the participant columns and interaction space to indicate
conversational flow, or who is contributing to and building on the substance of the
discussion. Finally, topic units and digressions are indicated in the outermost columns of the map. The maps, then, were a tool for portraying the dialogue data
graphically.
Interaction sequences and patterns. Although the discourse maps facilitated comparisons of peer and teacher-guided discussions, we needed an additional analysis tool to examine the nature of the interactions in more detail. Interaction sequences emerged as a productive intermediate unit of analysis between the
atomistic unit of statement types and the broad unit of discourse maps of entire episodes.
Interaction sequences are units of dialogue that begin when a speaker makes a
conceptual or metacognitive statement or poses a question or query. At least one
statement from another speaker must follow the initiating statement to comprise an
interaction sequence. The interaction sequence ends when a speaker steps back
from the flow of the interaction by posing a new question or query; by making a
metacomment that regulates, focuses, or evaluates the action; or by introducing a
conceptual statement that refocuses discussion away from a metacognitive sequence.
Every time a new query or question is posed, a new interaction sequence begins
because these statements always indicate a pulling back from the flow of the dialogue. However, not all conceptual and metacognitive statements initiate new interaction sequences. This is because both of these statement types can occur
391
FIGURE 1 Sample peer discourse map. Boxes contain conceptual statements, ovals contain metacognitive statements, and hexagons contain
questionsqueries.
392
FIGURE 2 Sample teacher-guided discourse map. Boxes contain conceptual statements, ovals contain metacognitive statements, and
hexagons contain questionsqueries.
FIGURE 3
pattern.
393
Consensual interaction
multiple times in an interaction sequence without initiating a new level of focus for
the interchange. Level of focus is a key distinction. Many new ideas or several
metacognitive statements can be introduced in a segment of dialogue, yet together
comprise just a single interaction sequence. It is only when the focus of the interaction switches among conceptual, metacognitive, or questionquery-based levels
that new interaction sequences are defined. The boundaries of sample interaction
sequences are defined by the dotted lines in Figures 1 and 2.
Three patternsconsensual, responsive, and elaborativeemerged as the
most parsimonious way to characterize the essence and flow of knowledge-building dialogue in both peer and teacher-guided groups. Brief (i.e., two to
four turns) interactions that were off task, yet not prolonged enough to constitute
an entire off-task discussion, were coded as nonconceptual.
Interaction sequences were coded as consensual when only one speaker contributed substantive statements (i.e., conceptual, metacognitive, or questionsqueries) to the discussion (Figure 3). Another speaker responded to the initiating
speaker by (a) simply agreeing with the statement, (b) passively or neutrally acknowledging the statement, (c) actively accepting what was said and thereby encouraging the speaker to continue, or (d) repeating the preceding statement
verbatim. Thus, in consensual sequences one speaker carried the conversation,
with one or more speakers serving as a minimally verbally active audience. Although consensual sequences often lasted only a few turns, sometimes a single
speaker contributed many ideas to the discussion with all of the intervening statements by other speakers being nonsubstantive. The following sequence is an example of a consensual interaction:
16 Student 1: Alright, when a liquid is heated it turns into a gas, and then
when a liquid is like frozen it gets cold and stuff, it turns
into a solid.
17 Student 2: I know.
18 Student 1: Okay.
394
FIGURE 4
pattern.
Responsive interaction
Within responsive interaction sequences, both questions and responses of at

least two speakers contributed substantive statements to the discussion (Figure 4).
Although the roles of the questioner and responder differed, both participants were
equally responsible for contributing to the substance of the discussion. Responsive
patterns often were only a few turns in length. They became longer than a few turns
when several agreements or neutral comments were embedded within the sequence or when a teacher posed a question and two or three students responded to
it in turn without building on one anothers responses. The following sequence
was an example of a responsive interaction:
141 Student 1: The hotter a substance gets, the lighter it is. You know that,
it has to, ya. Doesnt it go into the gas?
142 Student 2: It depends on what you get. I just know its a heavy kind of
liquid.
In the third and final type of interaction sequence, elaborative patterns, all
speakers contributed substantive statements to the discussion, as in the responsive sequences. However, the speakers in elaborative sequences made multiple
contributions that built on or clarified anothers prior statement (Figure 5). Elaborations were coconstructive additions (linking a new idea to someone elses
idea or partial idea), corrections (correcting someones statement with a simple,
undisputed statement), or dialectical exchanges (disagreeing with the prior statement and offering a counterargument). An elaborative interaction sequence follows.1
21 Student 1: So in other words they look the same. Is that a gas, a liquid
heated?
22 Student 2: Thats what I was talking about yesterday. If you looked at
a drop of water, if you looked at a tiny drop of water/
23 Student 3: //maybe thats what gas is, just like/
24 Student 2: //thats what it is, its a liquid, but in a (base of)/
1A single slash indicates the point where a statement is interrupted by another speaker and double
slashes indicate the start of the interrupting statement. Parentheses enclose overlapping statements.
25
26
27
28
Student 3:
Student 2:
Student 3:
Student 2:
29
30
31
32
33
Student 3:
Student 2:
Student 3:
Student 1:
Student 3:
395
//(heated?)
Yeah, its heated.
Yeah/
//Yeah, if you look at moisture, on like your hand, if you put
it over anything like boiling water, you can get water out of
your hand, and it just looks like normal water/
//but thats not a gas though.
But it was a gas.
No it wasnt, it couldnt be. You cant see gas.
Yeah.
So its maybe like heated to a point where it kind of separates and goes in.
Reasoning complexity. To assess the quality of groups thinking, we created a summary portrayal of discussions about each topic, using conceptual proposition maps (cf. Novak, 1990; West, Fensham, & Garrard, 1985) of each topic unit
derived from the discourse maps (Figure 6). The conceptual proposition maps restructured the sequential flow of the conversations into a conceptual flow. Redundancies and nonsubstantive moves (e.g., simple agreements) were ignored, and
ideas that obviously were implicit in the conversation were added as explicit components of the map (cf. Resnick et al., 1993). These modifications of the discourse
maps yielded a representation that was concise and accessible for analyzing the
content of the discussion.
The sophistication of students thinking about a given topic as represented in
the conceptual proposition maps was judged with a reasoning complexity rubric
FIGURE 5 Elaborative interaction pattern.
396
FIGURE 6
Sample conceptual proposition map.
(Table 4). The categories of the rubric emerged inductively as the most salient
descriptors of the data but also were shaped by various existing frameworks that
describe the essential components of scientific reasoning. The first two criteria of
the rubric, generativity and elaboration, specify the amount and type of ideas and
elaborations of ideas within a topic unit. The second two criteria, justifications and
explanations, specify the structure of students reasoning, meaning how their ideas
are supported and explained. Finally, the logical coherence and synthesis criteria
specify the quality of the students thinking. Together the six criteria comprise a
judgment of reasoning complexity. More detailed definitions of each criterion are
presented in Table 5.
It is important to note that judgment of reasoning complexity in this study
does not equate with judging the canonical correctness of students ideas. We
did not focus our analyses on depicting the nature of students alternative conceptions of the nature of matter, which have been thoroughly documented elsewhere (Andersson, 1990; Driver, Squires, Rushworth, & Wood-Robinson, 1994;
Lee, Eichinger, Anderson, Berkheimer, & Blakeslee, 1993). Although we recog-
Criteria
397
TABLE 4
Reasoning Complexity Rubric
0
Generativity
No observations
or ideas
One to two
observations or
confirmed
generalizations
Three or more
observations or
confirmed
generalizations
One to two own

conjectures, ideas,
or assertions
Three or more own

conjectures, ideas, or
assertions
Elaboration
No elaboration
One to two
elaborations of one
idea
One to two
elaborations of
more than one idea
Three or more
elaborations of one
idea
Three or more
elaborations of more
than one idea
Justifications
No justifications
Single justification of
one idea
Single justifications
of more than one
idea
Multiple justifications
of one idea
Multiple justifications of
more than one idea
Explanations
No explanations
Single mechanism of
one phenomenon
Single mechanism of
more than one
phenomenon
Multiple or chained
mechanisms of one
phenomenon
Multiple or chained
mechanisms of more
than one phenomenon
Logical coherence
No logical
connections
invoked
Nonsensical
connections made
Vague, underspecified
connections making
superficial sense
Clear and reasonable

connections, but
lack support
Solid, principled, and

coherent connections
Synthesis
No contrasting
views emerged
Two counter ideas

coexist separately
and unresolved
Two counter ideas

explicitly combined
without deeper
conceptual resolution
One counter idea

prevails through
support given for it
Two or more counter

ideas synthesized
into a more complex,
coherent idea
398

TABLE 5
Definitions of Reasoning Complexity Criteria
Criteria
Operational Definition
Generativity
Judged by the number of subtopics brought forth within the discussion. A

distinction is made between lower level reiteration of observations or
confirmed generalizations and students own ideas, conjectures, or propositions.
Elaboration
A gauge of the amount of detail that is added to the subtopics that are brought up.
Justifications
There are two types of justifications of ideas or assertions: evidence-based and

inference-based. Scores are based on the number of justifications per idea.
Explanations
The presentation of mechanisms that account for a phenomenon. The more

mechanisms proposed, the greater the score.
Logical coherence
Logical coherence is judged only when a justification or explanation is evoked.

Scores increase according to the soundness of the justification or explanation
for a phenomenon. High scores do not necessarily imply that ideas are
canonically correct, but rather judgments of coherence depend on the
speakers assumptions and premises.
Synthesis
A measure of how and if opposite views were accounted for, which is a

hallmark of dialectical and higher order thinking.
nize that the content and processes of scientific thinking are thoroughly interdependent (Hodson, 1992; Millar & Driver, 1987; Mintzes, Wandersee, & Novak,
1998), we have found that the thinking of students who hold equally naive notions about scientific phenomena can be more or less deep and generative.
Therefore, we used reasoning complexity as an alternative gauge of the quality
of students learning that highlights their ability to elaborate and justify the understandings they have, rather than judging their thinking solely by comparing
their knowledge base to that of experts (Brewer & Samarapungavan, 1991; Hogan & Fisherkeller, 1996).
Reliability and Credibility

Given the first authors prolonged engagement in the study setting and intensive
immersion in the data, she was the expert judge in coding and analysis. The coauthors were an analytic audience whose role was to question judgments at all junctures in the development and application of coding schemes. These interactions resulted in more refined, rational, and warranted judgments. This process of analytic
collaboration was not reducible to tallies or percentages but rather acknowledged
the necessity for deep contextual knowledge in making reliable and valid interpretations of the data.
399
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Differences in Modes of Discussion

Among the Focal Groups
To paint an overall portrait of how four focal groups in two classrooms allocated
their time and attention while working on an identical scientific model building
task, the total number of turns each group spent in each of the four major discussion
modes (peer knowledge construction, teacher-guided knowledge construction, logistical, and off task) was tallied. The percentage of conversational turns each
group spent in each discussion mode during four class periods when they were
building their conceptual models of the nature of matter is shown in Figure 7.
Group 1 focused 62% of its conversational turns in the peer knowledge construction mode. Groups 2 and 3 represent the middle of the spectrum of turns
spent in peer knowledge construction, with 40% and 11%, respectively, whereas
Group 4 dedicated only 2% of its turns to that mode. Group 4 received an extremely high amount of attention from the teachers relative to the other groups,
with 71% of its turns spent in the teacher-guided knowledge construction mode.
FIGURE 7 Percentage of turns in different modes by group. Total number of turns is 1,339 for
Group 1; 773 for Group 2; 971 for Group 3; and 937 for Group 4.
400
Although the group did not directly control how much time the teachers spent
with them because they dedicated more of their self-guided discussion to logistical and off-task modes than to peer knowledge construction, it can be inferred
that this group was not very capable of sustaining knowledge coconstruction on
its own. Indeed, the teacher and student teacher tended to spend more time with
groups that they perceived were having the most difficulty in building knowledge together.
There was great variability, then, in the amount of time teachers spent with different groups as they circulated around a classroom in a given class period. Focal
groups also differed in the amount of conversation they dedicated to knowledge
construction on their own. Because the overall task and the total amount of time allotted for group work were identical for all groups, this difference points to differences in the characteristics of the groups themselves (e.g., prior knowledge,
conceptualization of the task, goals, sociocognitive skills, interpersonal relations,
tenacity, etc.) rather than to broad contextual differences. A differentiating characteristic of groups that we explore next is the nature of their coconstructive discourse.
Microanalysis of Statement Types Within

Peer Knowledge Construction Discussions
The frequencies and percentages of statement types that occurred during the four
groups peer knowledge construction discussions are presented in Table 6. Because
Group 4 dedicated so few turns to peer knowledge construction (n = 21) there were
not sufficient data to determine an overall pattern in their use of statement types, so
the following comments focus on comparing several elements differentiating the
coconstructive discourse of Groups 1, 2, and 3.
Digressions. Digressions were rare for Groups 1 and 2. These two groups were
extremely focused on the business of making sense of data and building an explanatory
model. In contrast, 27% of Group 3s statements were digressions, constituting the
largest proportion of their statements within the peer knowledge construction mode.
Digressions were isolated remarks embedded within knowledge construction episodes, so they did not constitute sustained off-task conversations that would have been
coded as off-task discussions at the macrocoding level. Their digressions were social
commentary about other people, events in other classes, peoples clothing, and so on as
well as sarcastic remarks to one another about their science-related ideas. Given that
Group 3 spent a low total amount of turns in peer knowledge construction relative to
Groups 1 and 2 (see Figure 7), it is plausible that even isolated digressions could have
undermined the sustained coconstruction of ideas.
401

TABLE 6
Number and Percentage of Microcodes in Four Groups
Peer Knowledge Building Discussions
Group 1
Microcodes
No.
Presents (idea, partial idea, information, summary)

Repeats (self, other)
Elaborates (self, other)
Evaluates (own, other, task)
Reflects (standards, understanding)
Regulates action
Presents query
Reacts (agrees, neutral)
Reacts (disagrees)
Digressions
Uncodable
255
30
252
4
38
78
47
29
207
34
2
7
26
3
26
0.4
4
8
5
3
21
3
0.2
0.7
Total
983
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
No.
No.
No.
86
6
84
2
21
37
12
28
57
32
15
2
23
2
22
1
5
10
3
7
15
8
4
1
23
11
23
1
5
8
0
6
11
6
34
0
18
9
18
1
4
6
0
5
9
5
27
0
5
1
4
0
0
1
0
4
4
0
2
0
24
5
19
0
0
5
0
19
19
0
10
0
382
128
21
Queries. Missing completely from Group 3s discourse were queries, whereas

5% of Group 1s and 3% of Group 2s statements were queries. Often queries were
students acknowledgment of what they did not know. Paraphrased summaries of
sample queries raised by Groups 1 and 2 include the following:
Whats inside the space between atoms? Does it weigh anything? If it is a
gas, then is it made of atoms?
Is an atom a solid, liquid, or gas?
Do atoms get bigger in a gas, or does the space between them get bigger?
If a liquid doesnt have a definite shape, does that mean that liquid atoms are
amorphous rather than round like atoms that make up a solid?
What connects atoms? What happens to connectors when matter changes
state?
These and other queries reflect documented areas of students difficulties with
understanding the nature of matter (Andersson, 1990; Driver, Squires, et al., 1994;
Lee et al., 1993) manifest in beliefs such as that molecules have air or solid strands
between them, that molecules expand, and that individual molecules have properties of the macroscopic substance they comprise. However, the queries that students shared revealed that many of these notions struck them as problematic.
Rather than offering the naive notions up as glib or pat explanations, they grappled
with them, seemingly because they struck them as not being quite satisfactory. The
402
following excerpt from Group 1s discussion illustrates this point. The students are
trying to explain how it was possible to smell substances (e.g., cinnamon, garlic,
baby powder) in paper cups covered with tissue paper. Queries are articulated in
turns 185, 196, 197, and 204.
178 Student 1:
179183
184 Student 1:
185 Student 2:
186 Student 3:
187 Student 1:
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
Student 2:
Student 3:
Student 2:
Student 1:
Student 2:
Student 3:
Student 1:
Student 3:
Student 2:
Student 1:
Student 3:
Student 1:
Student 2:
Student 3:
Student 1:
203
204
205
206
207
208
Student 2:
Student 1:
Student 3:
Student 2:
Student 1:
Student 2:
209 Student 3:
210 Student 1:
211 Student 2:
Okay, umm, odors of solids.

[They remember and describe the lab activity.]
Ooo, I know why, cause little particles like came off the/
//yeah, but what does that have to do with that? [She points
to their drawings of the molecular structure of solids, liquids, and gases.]
Yeah, so
Maybe the particles came off of it [he laughs as he points to
the drawing].
Well, is that
Its not going through any change, so its not
No, were only dealing with solids
Yeah, so
Were dealing No, its not a gas.
Yeah, cause this is all solid, so
Well actually
We shouldnt
Is it a gas, would you be dealing with a gas though?
What is a smell?
I dont know
No, when you smell something, you like, intake
But its in the air
Oh yeah, thats true
No, when you smell something you intake like little particles of a
But if its in the air
Would that be like a gas?
I dont think the
I dont think the particles itself
So the air
would be a gas, but I think the air is a gas so the particles
go in it.
Yeah.
The particles go in it, in the air.
So in other words, the particles from the solid, we dont
know how that happened yet, goes up through and then follows the air?
403
212 Student 3: I think the particles, if were talking about atoms, I think the
particles are gonna be too big to relate to atoms because the
particles are gonna be made up of atoms.
213 Student 1: Yeah. They might be a lot more than one atom.
214 Student 2: So we cant
215 Student 3: Yeah.
216 Student 1: So maybe we should just like
217 Student 3: Let me ask her if we still have to relate it to the model. [He
leaves to find the teacher.]
The students are not sure whether an odor is a solid or a gas, and they are not
completely sure about relative sizes of grains of cinnamon for instance, and atoms
and molecules. They leave these issues unresolved but come back to them several
more times in subsequent discussions.
Although relatively infrequent overall, queries such as the ones embedded within
the preceding excerpt seemed to be pivotal in coconstruction episodes because they
prompted students to think more deeplyto bring forth, dwell on, elaborate on, and
connect ideas. Groups that shared more queries also spent more turns in the peer
knowledge construction mode (see Figure 7). How many queries students generated, how often students returned to discussing unresolved queries, and how they
dealt with the competing emotions of discomfort and wonderment elicited by queries were indicators of how the groups grappled with the complexity of their task.
Reactions. Another interesting pattern in groups statement types was the

relative amount of each groups agreements or neutral reactions (e.g., em hmm)
versus disagreements with one another. Group 1 had seven times more agreements
with and neutral reactions (21%) to one anothers ideas than disagreements (3%).
Within Groups 2 and 3, students agreed or reacted neutrally with one another only
about twice as much as they disagreed. Because Group 1 was the most successful in
sustaining peer knowledge construction discussions across 4 days of group work
(see Figure 7), then overtly agreeing, affirming, and accepting peers remarks is associated in their case with the prolonged discussion of ideas. The association between consonant discourse and sustained focus on conceptual issues does not, however, indicate anything about the quality or progress of a groups reasoning; we
examine those features of the students discussions later.
Microanalysis of Statement Types Within

Teacher-Guided Knowledge Construction Discussions
Although the teachers statements also can be described using labels from the
microcoding scheme used for student statements, the nature of the teachers state-
404
TABLE 7
Teacher Moves in Guiding Students Knowledge Construction
General Moves
Specific Moves
Checks status
Probes to next level
Probes into new territory
Calls for crystallization
Requests language clarity
Prompts reflection
Directly
Using rhetorical questions
Repeats and elaborates
Restates verbatim
Restates with clarity
Restates with inference
Summarizes
Elaborates own statements
Reacts
Accepts or confirms students statements

Makes neutral statements
Enculturates
Communicates task expectations

Communicates about science practice
Enculturates self into student world
ments within many of the categories was qualitatively different from the students
statements. Table 7 contains the statement types used by the teachers as they interacted with student groups. The following subsections focus on the prominent ways
that teachers use of different statement types differed from how students used the
statements.
Requests information. Typically the teachers began a dialogue with a student group by checking the status of students thinking with a question such as,
Tell me what youve come up with so far. They then probed to the next level with
a question such as, So what distinguishes solids from liquids? At times they challenged students to apply concepts to new situations, for instance with the question,
Now how would that explain the dissolving of solids in water?
An important type of question the teachers used to request information was one
that crystallized the issue at hand, in essence by asking, So do you think (this) or
(that)? An example of this discourse move is, So you think the atoms are lighter,
or you think theyre spread out? The teachers also communicated standards for
scientific discourse by requesting that students clarify their language by saying, for
example, What do you mean by connectors? or What is it that gets taken
away? Finally, they prompted reflection directly with questions such as, Would
405
that support your idea? and Does (this) explain (that)? and indirectly with rhetorical questions such as, Do all gases rise? or How sensitive would a balance
be to microscopic pieces?
The teachers requests for information established a pattern that was radically
different from teacherstudent interaction patterns in recitation-based classrooms.
They formed their questions in response to students statements, rather than according to their own preestablished agenda. They made the most of the raw material for thinking that students gave them to work with. They stayed with the same
topic for several turns, prompting students to think about the issue more deeply,
rather than evaluating their responses and moving on to new topics. The teachers
also held together the threads of the conversation, weaving students new statements with their prior statements to help them link ideas and maintain a logical
consistency, for example by saying, If you said (that) before, can you say (this)
now? Their statements indirectly prompted students to evaluate their own thinking and to discover fallacies in their reasoning.
The following excerpt illustrates some of the teachers various ways of requesting information. The excerpt begins just after a group of students has drawn a representation of what they think they would see if they could magnify a solid
millions of times.
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
Teacher: Okay, now what would a liquid look like if you could magnify it millions of times?
Student 1: Probably the same thing.
Student 3: Yeah, just like
Student 1: Because we thought atoms are probably the basics, the
smallest things.
Teacher: So the liquid would look exactly the same?
Student 2: I thought it was kind of like/
Student 1: //Well, maybe the atoms had to be different.
Student 3: Maybe like spread out more, not like exactly a round shape.
Student 1: Err, and they may not be stuck together, the atoms may not
be stuck together, they may be free floating.
Teacher: Draw me a picture of what you think youll see. [They
draw.]
Student 2: So theyd just be kinda like, theyd lose their definite shape.
Student 1: Yeah, theyd lose their
Teacher: So youre going to have the molecules having kind of different shapes?
Student 2: Yeah.
Student 1: Yeah, and not being stuck together as much as solids.
Teacher: Okay, now he is sticking them together though (refers to a
student working on the drawing).
406
207 Student 2: Yeah, I think theyre stuck together, well it depends, if its
like in a crowded container, theyd probably be together,
its just like/
208 Student 1: //Theyd have to be together, cause what else would there
be?
209 Student 2: Yeah, theyd be
210 Student 1: so theyd always have to be together.
211
Teacher: So what would distinguish a solid from a liquid if they have
to be together?
212 Student 3: I think the solids would be like more tight in the circles?
213 Student 1: Well, maybe the liquid (inaudible)/
214 Student 2: //I dont know if an atom has a definite shape though, it has
like/
215
Teacher: //Wait, see what youre doing is youre making that decision, youre deciding what you want it to be, thats what
this is all about, what do you want it to be that will explain
all of those things up there (points to a poster listing the labs
and questions).
Again, students are exhibiting naive conceptions about matter by suggesting
that the shapes of atoms and molecules reflect the shapes of the substances they
comprise. The teacher simply keeps asking them questions to probe the coherence
of their ideas and mirrors their thinking back to them. Through her questioning,
and more directly in the final turn, she encourages the students to keep creating and
refining ideas.
Repeats and elaborates. One dialogue tactic the teachers used was restating students words verbatim, as in the following exchange:
231
Teacher: Now is a gas the same, how is the gas, we know gases are
lighter than liquids, how would they be different from liquids?
232 Student 1: Maybe theyre, theyre separated, spread apart.
233
Teacher: So youre saying the atoms are separated.
They also sometimes elaborated on students statements after repeating them
verbatim, shaping the statements into more sophisticated ideas that still reflected
the students own words. They also restated students statements with added
clarity by using more concise language than students used. Sometimes the teachers added an inference to a restatement, which took the form of, So if youre
saying (this), then you must also mean (that). Teachers both repeated and re-
407
shaped students statements to clarify, emphasize, or prompt reflection on what

the students were saying.
After listening to different students in a group articulate their ideas, the teachers
sometimes summarized what everyone had said, often pointing out discrepancies
among different viewpoints. Finally, the teachers also elaborated on their own
statements. When students did not understand a teachers question or were at a loss
for how to answer it, the teachers added more details to their question or restated it
in a new way.
Reacts. Teachers interchanges with students were peppered with neutral reactions. They said okay or uh huh as students talked to communicate that they
were listening to, receiving, and following what the students were saying. They
also prefaced their own comments with a verbal acknowledgment of the students
prior statement. When they agreed, accepted, or confirmed students statements,
they did this in a low-key way, such as in line 557 of the following excerpt:
552 Student 1: [Looking at their diagram of the molecular structure of a
gas.] But whats right in the middle, like in between these
atoms?
553
Teacher: What is in between those atoms? What do you think would
have to be between those atoms?
554 Student 1: Ahh nothing?
555 Student 2: Theres gotta be something though.
556 Student 3: Couldnt be a gas, cause thats what it is.
557
Teacher: Thats a good thought. You think about that.
Enculturates. The teachers enculturated students into a community of scientific sense making in part by communicating expectations and standards for their
work, such as that their oral presentation of their models be coherent to the audience. They also linked students work to that of scientists, such as by explaining
what scientists expect models to do. For example, after explaining to the whole
class how scientists use models, the teacher said to one group after they showed her
their model, This is what I mean by a model. Now, the only way well know how
good this is is as you go through each of those characteristics of solids, liquids, and
gases (and see) whether or not its successful in explaining these things. In this
way the teacher set students up to judge the success of their models as scientists do,
rather than through typical school-based modes of evaluation based on a teachers
authority.
A third type of statement coded as enculturation was the teachers enculturation
into the students culture. The teachers accomplished this through adopting stu-
408
dents language, such as by using the word dots for particles and connectors for
bonds if those were the words that the students used.
Comparing the Types and Functions of Peers and

Teachers Contributions to Group Discussion
The previous two sections of results summarized the microanalysis of four groups
discussions, with and without teacher participation, across 4 days of mental model
building activity. We shift now to presenting a range of analyses comparing the single longest peer and teacher-guided knowledge construction discussions for each
group. However, Group 1 remained in the knowledge construction mode for an entire class periodmuch longer than any of the other samples. So for Group 1 we
chose a knowledge construction discussion closer to the median length of the other
groups discussions. The primary data for the following analyses, then, were eight
discussions focused on knowledge construction, four among peers and four with
teachers. Each of the eight discussions within this subsample was mapped using the
discourse mapping technique described in the Methods section. Although eight discussions formed the basis for the remaining analyses, all of the transcribed and
taped discussions, as well as field notes recorded throughout the 12-week period,
were consulted as a secondary data source. The purpose was to seek confirming and
disconfirming evidence of the patterns that emerged (Miles & Huberman, 1994).
The discourse maps tracked the flow of conceptual contributions, questionsqueries, and metacognitive contributions within discussions, with nonconceptual moves
such as agreeing, restating, and repeating as well as digressions noted tangentially
within the maps. Table 8 presents data on the three main categories of discourse that
were tracked within the discourse maps.
The discourse maps also made it possible to determine one type of function of
each contribution to the discussions, namely how each was used to initiate interacTABLE 8
Number and Percentage of Three Types of Statements Contributed by Students and
Teachers in Peer and Teacher-Guided Discussions
Peer Discussions
Student Statements
Student Statements
Teacher Statements
Statement Type
No.
No.
No.
Conceptual
Questionquery
Metacognitive
Total
124
34
34
192
65
18
18
142
8
15
165
86
5
9
3
90
18
111
3
81
16
409
TABLE 9
Percentage of Initiating Statements of Each Statement Type in
Peer and Teacher-Guided Groups
Initiating Statement Type

Conceptual
Questionquery
Metacognitive
Peer Groups
Teacher-Guided Groups
26
47
27
3
84
13
TABLE 10
Percentage of Transition Statements of Each Statement Type in
Transition Statement Type
Conceptual
Questionquery
Metacognitive
Peer Groups
63
13
25
6
75
19
tion sequences. Table 9 presents the relative frequencies of each type of contribution that initiated interaction sequences in peer and teacher-guided discussions.
A subset of initiating statements were those that initiated whole new topic units
within a discussion, as opposed to those that initiated interaction sequences within
topic units. These statements marked transitions to new topics. Whereas how dialogue is sustained and deepened is reflected in the overall frequencies of initiating
statements, transition statements indicate how dialogue is expanded in new directions. The percentage of statement types that initiated new topic units in peer and
teacher-guided discussions is presented in Table 10. The following subsections refer to Tables 8, 9, and 10 to describe the nature, quantity, and function of three core
components of the group discussions.
Conceptual contributions. Students conceptual contributions dominated

their peer knowledge construction discussions and also were their most prevalent
contribution to teacher-guided knowledge construction discussions. Out of a total
of 145 original conceptual contributions made during teacher-guided knowledge
construction discussions, 142 were contributed by students. The three bits of conceptual information contributed by a teacher to these discussions were tangential
facts about smoke and nitroglycerin that were offered in response to a students direct questions, rather than conceptual information related to particulate models of
matter. Otherwise, teachers reiterated students conceptual statements rather than
directly providing them with new ideas. Thus, the discourse map data characterize
410
and confirm the intended pedagogical approach of the teachers during this unit.
They did not impart conceptual information to students but rather supported them
to construct their own mental models based on direct experience with phenomena
encountered in carefully planned and sequenced labs and demonstrations.
In teacher-guided discussions few conceptual statements initiated interaction
sequences (see Table 9) or transitions to new topics (see Table 10) relative to the
initiating function of conceptual statements in peer discussions. Within peer
groups, students initiated new topics with conceptual statements more often than
with queries or metacognitive statements about new topics (see Table 10), so the
statement of new ideas was an important means of entering into new conceptual
territory for students.
Questionsqueries. There were substantial differences in the amount of

questions and queries that teachers and students contributed to teacher-guided
knowledge construction discussions. Of the teachers contributions, 81% were
questionsqueries, whereas only 5% of students contributions were in this category. Students shared more than three times as many questions and queries within
peer discussions than within teacher-guided discussions (18% compared to 5%),
indicating that the structure of those two modes of discussion was quite different,
with students expressing more variety of cognitive activity when they worked together without teacher input.
Qualitative differences in how teachers and students used questions and queries
also distinguish the peer and teacher-guided modes of discussion. The teachers
tended to pose questions, whereas the students more often articulated queries. This
is indicative of the relative roles of teachers and students in the knowledge-building groups. The teachers were not equal participants in the dialogue because they possessed their own sophisticated models of the nature of matter,
whereas the students had relatively unformed and naive models. The teachers
questioned students from the stance of experts trying to assess and advance the status of a novices knowledge. The teachers overriding personal question was not
What is the nature of matter? but rather, What are these students thinking
about the nature of matter and how can I help them improve their reasoning and
understanding? An excerpt from a teacher-guided discussion is illustrative. The
teacher had just asked the students what they thought they would see if they could
magnify matter billions of times. One student (Student 3) said Bacteria, another
said Atoms, and another said Molecules.
12
Teacher: Now what would they look like, atoms and molecules?
When you say that, I dont know what you mean by that,
you have to tell me what you mean.
13 Student 1: Lots of billions of circles.
411
14 Student 2: Yeah, lots of circles.

15 Student 3: Yeah.
16
Teacher: Bunches of little circles. So you think that, so with this bacteria idea, what was it that ?
17 Student 3: Well, I thought you could see bacteria, but I guess it would
be too big?
18
Teacher: Bacteria is too big?
19 Student 3: Yeah.
20
Teacher: So how do you think atoms and molecules are related to
your bacteria?
21 Student 3: I dont know. I think theyd probably just be around, probably [shakes his head back and forth].
22
Teacher: Im just curious when you said bacteria and then you said
atoms and molecules and you (looks at the other two students) went with atoms and molecules, what would you envision when he said bacteria, how would that be related to
this concept of atoms and molecules, because bacteria is
something.
23 Student 1: Bacteria is like everywhere so
24
Teacher: How is it related to atoms and molecules?
25 Student 1: Because atoms and molecules make up bacteria and they
make up us and they make up a lot of things.
26
Teacher: So you think bacteria itself is made up of these atoms and
molecules?
27 Student 3: Yeah.
Although the roles of teacher as questioner and student as answerer are similar to
those found in traditional recitation-based classroom interchanges, the crucial differentiating feature of this questionanswer exchange is the lack of evaluative
statements by the teacher, a point taken up again in the next section.
In contrast, the students task when talking with one another without the teacher
present was not explicitly to probe one anothers understanding, but to generate an
adequate model. The students did not take on the role of tutors responsible for
moving along a peers thinking through strategic questioning. Students shared
more queriesthe genuine statements of puzzlement described earlierthan
teacher-like questions that probed others ideas.
Questions and queries initiated most of the interaction sequences in both peer and
teacher-guided discussions but dramatically more so in groups when the teacher was
present (see Table 4). The initiation of interaction sequences was more varied in peer
groups than in teacher-guided groups, with conceptual and metacognitive statements each initiating interaction sequences for about a quarter of the total sequences
in peer discussions, and questions and queries initiating about half of the sequences.
412
Metacognitive contributions. Students made twice as many metacognitive

contributions to peer discussions (18%) as they did to teacher-guided discussions
(9%), indicating that teachers took on some of the regulatory and reflective roles
when they joined students groups. Teachers and students both made metacognitive
statements that focused and regulated action, such as suggesting what topic to tackle
next. In addition, teachers imparted metacognitive knowledge about the nature of
the task, such as by telling students that model building is an essential activity of
professional scientists. The teachers also communicated standards and expectations with statements such as The purpose of this is not to look things up. I could
have you read a book. What were trying to do is make sense of matter, and The
model can be anything you decide it is, so long as it can explain all of the results of
your labs. The teachers standards-based metacognitive moves were means of
enculturating students into certain practices of science, as described earlier. Students standards-based metacognitive statements echoed the more task-specific
statements of the teacher, most commonly reminding their peers that their model
had to explain their lab results.
Another type of students metacognitive statements expressed concern about
the scrutiny of knowledge claims by other student groups who would be judging
their models. In the following excerpt, the students are rehearsing how they will
explain the phenomenon of dissolving to the class in terms of their molecular
model. In the metacognitive statements in lines 268, 270, and 272, the student suggests that so long as they defend their model as their own construction rather than
as absolute truth, then the other students cannot give them a bad evaluation.
264
265
266
267
268
Student 1:
Student 2:
Student 1:
Student 2:
Student 1:
269
270
271
272
Student 2:
Student 1:
Student 2:
Student 1:
This is the liquids [she is making a drawing],

Yeah
These are the little solids,
Yeah
One of them comes in contact with thatwe can say that to
us, we think
Okay.
Cause they cant say, they cant mark us bad if we dont/
//Yeah, thats true.
Yeah, were not saying this is a fact, were saying we think.
Metacognitive awareness of others possible reactions to their models and explanations propelled some groups to examine critically their own ideas and continue to
improve their knowledge claims collaboratively.
Metacognitive evaluations of students ideas were virtually absent from teachers statements. On the few occasions when teachers did offer an evaluation, their
statements were general and positive, and they were directed at the whole group,
such as It looks as though youve done some good thinking here, or You seem
413
to be on the right track. Students also did not often step back to evaluate ideas explicitly, although they occasionally commented that either personally or as a group
they did or did not understand something. They rarely directly evaluated another
persons idea as good or bad but instead proposed counterevidence to challenge
each others ideas when they disagreed with what had been stated. In this way they
revised their ideas more by implicit judgment and conceptual interchange than by
explicit evaluation and subsequent revision.
Metacognitive contributions initiated a greater proportion of interaction sequences and transitions to new topics in peer discussions than in teacher-guided
discussions (see Tables 9 and 10). Teachers did not move students thinking along
so much through metacognitive statements as through directly questioning their
ideas.
Relative Participation of Students and Teachers in

Group Discussions
So far we have compared the types and functions of discursive contributions of
peers and teachers to knowledge-building discussions. We now look at the sheer
amount of talk teachers and students contributed to discussions by presenting a tally
of the number of turns taken by each participant in both peer and teacher-guided
groups (Table 11).
Only in Group 1 did all three students participate relatively equally in peer discussions. Group 2 had the most dramatic imbalance of participation among group
members, with the third member contributing barely a word to the discussion.
Groups 3 and 4 each had two dominant members, with the third member participating about half as frequently.
In all of the teacher-guided discussions, one student made far fewer contributions than the other two students. In all but Group 1, the student who spoke the
least in peer groups also spoke the least in teacher-guided groups despite teachers
and sometimes peers attempts to draw him or her into the discussions, suggesting
that the person was socially or sociocognitively reticent, confused about the concepts being discussed, or motivationally disengaged. That near-equal participation
of all three group members with the teacher did not occur may be due to the difficulty of simultaneously facilitating the participation of three students in verbal
sense making, even when the sense making was aimed at a common external intellectual product (a model) rather than at individual knowledge representations.
Some of the responsibility rests with the students themselves, however, because
they differed in their ability and willingness to articulate their thinking even when
directly invited to do so.
Although the teachers actively contributed to all four teacher-guided discussions, it was only in Group 2 that the teachers participation considerably out-
414
TABLE 11
Number and Percentage of Turns per Person in Peer and Teacher-Guided Groups
Peer
Group and Student

Group 1
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Teacher
Group 2
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Teacher
Group 3
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Teacher
Group 4
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Teacher
Teacher-Guided
No.
No.
58
52
63
34
30
36
11
37
24
34
10
35
23
32
83
87
1
49
51
0.6
10
10
4
21
22
22
9
47
22
25
13
37
42
22
46
38
24
39
31
26
16
27
6
6
3
40
40
20
36
26
3
41
34
25
3
39
weighed that of any individual student. Also, in all but Group 2, the teachers spoke
far less than all of the other students in the group combined. The students in Group
2 seemed especially shy and wary of judgment in interactions with the teacher. In
the absence of their elaborations on each others responses, the teacher intervened
after nearly every student turn to keep the discussion moving forward. The more
equal turn-taking between teacher and students in the other three groups is consistent with other indicators of more distributed discussions in those groups. Although the teachers may have controlled the direction of the discussions, they did
more listening than talking overall.
Patterns of Interaction in Peer and
To complement the prior examinations of individual statement types and number
of contributions to discussions, in this section we examine patterns in sustained
interactions among dialogue participants. The three types of interaction patterns
identified within this study were described in the Methods section as consensual,
415
responsive, and elaborative. How did the relative frequencies of these three
types of interaction sequences in peer and teacher-guided sessions compare? Table 12 presents the percentage of the total interaction sequences within both peer
and teacher-guided episodes that were coded as each pattern type.
Consensual patterns were the least frequent pattern in both peer and teacher-guided episodes but were more than twice as frequent in peer episodes as in teacher-guided episodes. This reflects teachers making very few statements to which students got by with
simple, nonsubstantive responses. Also, teachers nonsubstantive remarks (e.g., Uh
huh, Okay) did more than just encourage one speaker to continue a monologueother students often chimed in to elaborate, as in the following excerpt:
541 Student 1: The temperature does something like maybe to the solid,
because we think that liquids arent intact, but theyre like,
but theyre pretty close, so we said like, but they have not
definite shape, thats why they can take the shape of the
container.
542
Teacher: Emm hmm
543 Student 2: Yeah [then says something inaudible].
544 Student 1: Something happens to the outside, then it would, it could
just become/
545 Student 3: //like we were saying before, the temperature/
546 Student 2: //and then when they get to the gas theyd be like spread out.
Two variations on consensual patterns occurred in peer groups. In one type, one
student took center stage to think through an idea while another made a few passive or encouraging remarks. In another variation, a second student was prompted
by the speaker to utter agreement with prompts such as Are you listening? and
Do you know what Im saying? Consensual patterns occurred most frequently in
the two peer groups that had little to no participation from their third group member. Perhaps this pattern is more characteristic of one-to-one exchanges than of interactions in groups in which more speakers participate.
TABLE 12
Percentage of Interaction Sequences of Each Pattern Type in Peer and
Teacher-Guided Knowledge Construction Episodes
Interaction Patterns
Consensual
Responsive
Elaborative
Nonconceptual
Peer Groups
19
23
48
10
8
54
34
4
416
In direct contrast to the relative frequencies of consensual patterns, the responsive pattern occurred about twice as often in teacher-guided groups than in peer
groups, consistent with the teachers primary role as that of questioner. In three of
the four student groups, only one student at a time responded to the teacher, and the
teacher responded with another question that probed the students response. In the
fourth group, all group members tended to respond to a teachers question, resulting in more consensual (when the teacher uttered acceptance of each response and
when the students did not build on each others ideas) or elaborative (when students built on each others responses) than responsive patterns. The following example shows five sequential, two-turn responsive patterns from a teacher-guided
episode:
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
Teacher: Okay, theres the picture of your solid, and what happens to
it so you can smell. What do you think is happening to the
solid that you manage to get the smell?
Student 1: Pieces of the solid are breaking off so we can smell it.
Teacher: So pieces of this are breaking off?
Student 1: Well I mean like tiny little itty bitty tiny pieces, really
small.
Teacher: You mean theres something smaller than these? What are
the words youre using for these pieces?
Student 2: Molecules.
Teacher: Molecules. There is something smaller than molecules that
break down?
Student 1: Well, I dunno hmm
Teacher: So what do you think is happening here?
Student 1: Ahh hmm [long pause]
In peer groups, the responsive patterns often began with a simple conceptual
statement, as in the following example:
122
123
124
125
Student 1:
Student 2:
Student 1:
Student 2:
Alright, the next one. Odors of solids.

Its diffusion.
Odors of solids.
Its diffusion by gas. Solids have little molecules of scent or
something like that.
Questions or queries also initiated responsive patterns in peer groups, such as in the
following examples:
46 Student 1: And so in other words, how did we describe a solid using
the, using how did we describe a solid?
47
48
49
50
153
154
155
Student 2:
Student 3:
Student 2:
Student 3:
Student 1:
Student 2:
Student 1:
417
Ah
Umm
Atoms?
Atoms, yeah.
Oh my God, that only came to you now?
No, I knew that.
Get with it!
The tone of the responsive patterns in teacher-guided groups was somewhat

tense with the implicit requirement for students to meet the challenge of displaying
and refining knowledge in the presence of an authority figure. In peer groups the
tone of responsive patterns was more relaxed. Questions or statements posed by
peers that led to simple responsive patterns typically were less demanding and
comprehensive than questions posed by the teachers. Also, teachers typically initiated several responsive sequences in a row, whereas students often dropped the
questioning after a single response by a peer.
The elaborative pattern also occurred more in peer groups than in
teacher-guided groups, although the comparative percentages differed less
dramatically than for the other two pattern types. Elaborative interaction sequences during teacher-guided discussions occurred more often in groups in
which more than one student responded to questions posed by the teacher by building on a peers response to the question. In contrast, some groups behaved during
teacher-guided small group discussions more like they behaved in whole-class discussionsby waiting to be addressed directly by the teacher rather than spontaneously participating in the discussion. A second variation on the elaborative pattern
when the teacher was present occurred when the teacher summarized or clarified
students statements, rather than posing a series of questions as in the responsive pattern. This caused students to continue to expand on their idea, as in the following example of a single elaborative sequence in which students are trying to articulate their
idea that there is a physical structure, such as a strand of material, that holds molecular particles together. The teacher facilitates their thinking by trying to get them
where they want to go with their own model rather than trying to steer them in a new
direction, knowing that later students might change their theories when they try to
muster evidence to support them.
53 Student 1: It is held together isnt it? I dont know, maybe theres some
like force attracting them together.
54
Teacher: Okay, so there might be something holding them together.
55 Student 1: Yeah.
56 Student 2: They had those little thing-a-ma-gigies, those little lines
connecting those those videos we had when everyone
was on those field trips to the museum.
418
57
Teacher: The geometric shapes in nature.
58 Student 1: Yeah.
59 Student 2: Oh yeah.
Elaborative interaction sequences in peer groups tended to be more scattered,
piecemeal, and confusing than in teacher-guided groups, yet generative nonetheless. In contrast to teacher-guided interactions, elaborative peer interactions usually did not have a person at the center who anchored and continually focused the
elaborations. In peer groups, students were participating on the border between
what they knew and did not know, without the benefit of a more scientifically
knowledgeable participant who could guide and clarify contributions to the
knowledge construction process. The following example presents a typical peer
group elaborative sequence:
162 Student 1: You guys, you guys, if liquid definitely has mass, then
where does all the mass go when you change it to a gas?
163 Student 2: What?
164 Student 1: Where does all the mass go? When you change it (into a)/
165 Student 2: //(No), we said, we said liquid has volume and mass.
166 Student 1: Yeah, you know how liquid changes into a gas
168 Student 1: Where does all the mass and stuff go?
169 Student 2: It has the same mass.
170 Student 1: It has the same amount of mass, its just spread out more.
171 Student 2: Wait, it says gas has no volume, but gas has mass.
172 Student 1: Oh, I thought you said it had no
173 Student 2: No.
174 Student 1: Oh, okay.
175 Student 2: Gases have volume, havent a definite shape or volume,
and gas has mass.
176 Student 1: Gas doesnt have the same mass as when but I know
why.
177 Student 3: It has to.
178 Student 1: Oh I know why the gas goes. It spreads out a lot faster, and it
spreads out like uncontrollably.
179 Student 3: Like probably the atoms, because we lost whatever were
holding the atoms together.
Although some issues remained contradictory and unresolved in the previous excerpt, the students generated two important ideas in the final two turns. The route to
forming these ideas would most likely have been more coherent within a
teacher-guided elaborative sequence.
419
Finally, as would be expected, nonconceptual interactions were more than

twice as frequent in peer groups than in teacher-guided groups, but overall they
were relatively infrequent. The few nonconceptual sequences that did occur in a
teacher-guided group were during an episode led by the student teacher, who was
a much less authoritative presence than the teacherstudents seemed comfortable going off task briefly in front of him. However, the overall small number of
nonconceptual sequences is an indication of the high level of conceptual continuity within both peer and teacher-guided knowledge-building discussions.
Comparing the Quality of Reasoning in Peer and

Teacher-Guided Knowledge Construction Discussions
Whereas the prior sections presented analyses of the discursive processes of students reasoning with and without teacher guidance, ultimately science educators
are concerned with the overall quality of the thinking that students do in groups. So,
we now turn to examining the reasoning complexity achieved in peer and
teacher-guided groups, then relate judgments of the quality of groups reasoning
back to several dimensions of the discourse associated with varying levels of cognitive sophistication.
The total possible number of points that could be achieved on each criterion
scale of the reasoning complexity rubric (see Table 4) depended on the number of
topic units within a discussion. Discussions in which the participants discussed
more topics could have a higher total possible score. The total number of topic
units within the four targeted peer group discussions was 12, and within the four
teacher-guided discussions it was 20. Therefore, to compare the reasoning complexity scores of peer and teacher-guided discussions, scores are presented as percentages of the total possible points that could have been attained on each criterion
of the reasoning complexity rubric (see Table 13).
Overall, reasoning levels within topic units were not exceptionally high on
any of the reasoning complexity criteria, which would be expected for a complex task with which students had little prior experience. However, peers disTABLE 13
Percentage of Total Possible Points Achieved on Each Criterion of the
Reasoning Complexity Rubric for Peer and Teacher-Guided Groups
Group Type
Peer
Teacher guided
Generativity
Elaboration
Justifications
Explanations
Logical
Coherence
Synthesis
52
36
58
45
25
13
31
39
60
61
40
21
420
cussions were more generative and elaborated than discussions with teachers.
The discussions in peer groups tended to be more far ranging, as students threw
out ideas more freely with peers than when in the presence of teachers. Perhaps
the students greater reticence with the teachers was because they wanted to
avoid being asked to explain and defend their ideas, the inevitable result of suggesting an idea in front of these particular teachers within the mental model
building instructional context. Also, whereas students freely added to one anothers ideas in peer groups, in teacher-guided groups they more often stood
back to allow interchange between the teacher and one student at a time. This
demonstration of politeness when in the presence of the teacher (cf. Person,
Kreuz, Zwaan, & Graesser, 1995) may have held students back from exploring
the full potential of their collective ideas. Idea generation and refinement was
much more of a free-for-all in peer groups.
Peer groups attained a higher percentage of possible points for justifications of
their ideas than teacher-guided groups, but teacher-guided groups attained slightly
higher scores for explanations. Teachers tended to push students to provide mechanisms that explained their assertions more than to justify their ideas. In contrast,
students interactions led them to justify their ideas. Overall, however, the percentages of scores obtained for justifications and elaborations are the lowest of all the
criteria for peer groups and among the lowest in the teacher-guided groups. This
could be due in part to the difficulty of constructing scientific arguments that are
bolstered by justifications and explanations.
Both peer and teacher-guided groups achieved a fairly high and nearly equal
percentage of total possible points for logical coherence, perhaps due in part to the
inherent demands for clarity and mutual understanding in group communication.
However, synthesis of ideas was about twice as high in peer groups than in
teacher-guided groups. Although teachers often would point out conflicts in the
ideas presented by one or more students, they did not always lead students to resolve these conflicts. Sometimes they would accept two students contrasting
statements as two plausible possibilities, urge the students to think more about
them, and then move on to a new question or topic area. When alone, however,
students often had to establish some kind of resolution to their differences before
they could move on.
Despite the fact that students attained a higher percentage of the total possible
scores on nearly all of the criteria in peer groups than in teacher-guided groups as a
whole, not all groups reasoned better overall without the teacher. Table 14 shows
the percentage of total possible points for reasoning complexity that each group
achieved in both peer and teacher-guided groups. Groups 3 and 4 achieved higher
levels of reasoning with a teacher, whereas Groups 1 and 2 achieved higher levels of
reasoning alone. Two aspects of peer and teacher-guided groups that could account
for the level of reasoning they attained, which we consider next, are the amount of
dialogue they exchanged and their patterns of interaction.
421
TABLE 14
Percentage of Total Possible Points for Reasoning Complexity
Received by Each Group in Peer and Teacher-Guided Episodes
Group No.
1
2
3
4
Peer
Teacher Guided
57
40
15
17
49
26
35
31
TABLE 15
Average Number of Turns per Topic Unit at High, Medium, and
Low Reasoning Complexity Levels
Group Type
Peer
Teacher guided
Low Reasoning Level
Medium Reasoning Level
High Reasoning Level
14
37
83
14
29
20
Relating amount of talk to level of reasoning. One way to analyze the relation between discursive interaction and the sophistication of cognition is to ask if the
sheer amount of talk within a group relates to the groups reasoning sophistication. In
other words, do groups that talk more about a topic reason better? One gauge of the
amount of dialogue that occurred within each group is the average number of turns
taken per topic unit. Table 15 contains the average number of turns per topic unit scored
at low (scores 1 to 8), medium (scores 9 to 16), and high (scores 17 to 24) levels of reasoning complexity across all groups in peer and teacher-guided conditions.
For peer groups, the more they talked with one another, the higher their reasoning
complexity. In teacher-guided groups however, a greater number of turns was not necessary for achieving higher levels of reasoning. There was less overall discrepancy
among number of turns across the levels of reasoning complexity in teacher-guided
groups than in peer groups. However, more turns were taken on average at medium
levels of complexity than at high levels in teacher-guided groups. This suggests that
reasoning with the teacher can be more efficient than peer reasoningit takes students
more turns to shape their thoughts when reasoning without the teacher. Because discussions in peer groups are not necessarily more equally distributed than in
teacher-guided groups (see Table 11), the differences in number of turns in the two
conditions was not due merely to more students taking turns in peer groups.
Indeed, as mentioned earlier, students statements in peer groups tended to be
more piecemeal and underarticulated than their statements in the presence of the
teacher. Also, the teachers tended to crystalize the essence of an issue quickly,
422
whereas students often were unable to stand back and recognize what they needed
to clarify. For instance, in the following single turn the teacher brought a key issue
into focus for the students:
200
Teacher: So when you say broke them up, you mean individual
molecules themselves broke into smaller pieces, or several
molecules broke apart, or what do you mean?
Students responses to such questions moved their thinking along more quickly than
when they were immersed in the messy process of shaping ideas without the benefit
of an expert who could point out issues that needed refinement or clarification.
Relating patterns of interaction to reasoning complexity. How did patterns of interaction relate to the reasoning levels groups achieved? Table 16 summarizes the percentage of total interaction sequences classified as consensual, responsive, and elaborative that occurred within topic units scored at low, medium,
and high levels of reasoning complexity for both peer and teacher-guided groups.
In peer groups, the responsive mode was not the most productive pattern for
achieving higher levels of reasoning, as it represents a smaller percentage of the total interaction sequences within topic units as reasoning level increases. Also, the
highest percentage of interaction sequences within topic units scored at the low
reasoning complexity level were responsive. Responsive patterns in peer groups
that fell within topic units scored at low reasoning levels often consisted of a provocative statement or question posed by one student, followed by a nonproductive
or avoidant response, as in the following example:
97 Student 1: They [molecules] dont just disappear. If you heat a liquid,
theyre gonna be in the air. If you freeze it, theyre gonna be
there.
98 Student 2: Well, maybe we should ask Mrs. _ [the teacher].
TABLE 16
Percentage of Interaction Patterns at Each Level of Reasoning Complexity in
Low Reasoning Level
Interaction Pattern
Consensual
Responsive
Elaborative
Medium Reasoning Level
High Reasoning Level
Peer
Teacher Guided
Peer
Teacher Guided
Peer
Teacher Guided
20
47
33
8
59
32
21
29
50
7
58
35
21
15
64
20
20
60
423
In contrast, the highest percentage of interaction sequences scored at medium

reasoning complexity in teacher-guided groups were responsive patterns. Responsive patterns initiated by teacher questions could lead to student answers that made
important contributions to the overall progression of reasoning about the topic.
Such responsive patterns contributed to the 58% of teacher-guided interaction sequences scored at medium levels of reasoning complexity. However, just as high a
percentage of responsive patterns were included in topic units scored at low levels
as at medium levels of reasoning complexity in teacher-guided groups. Therefore,
although responsive interactions with the teacher had potential to move the dialogue toward higher reasoning levels, they also could be less productive for overall
reasoning. The productivity of the responsive mode depended on the readiness of
the student to construct a sophisticated response to a teachers questions as well as
on the ability of the teacher to ask the right question at the right level to elicit an integrated response from students.
The most productive pattern of interaction in both peer and teacher-guided
groups was elaborative. More elaborative patterns occurred in topic units scored at
high levels of complexity than at low or medium levels. Also, most of the interaction sequences within the high reasoning complexity category were elaborative.
When participants in a discussion built on one anothers contributions, the reasoning sophistication increased. Although multiple consensual or responsive sequences could also build toward higher forms of reasoning, these seemed to be less
productive patterns than expanding on ideas within a focused interaction sequence.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In this study, we sought to characterize the dynamic processes of interpersonal
knowledge construction in science classrooms where the task of building mental
models of the nature of matter created a context for sustained and complex
thinking. The lead teacher trusted that her students could participate in a sophisticated social practice such as collaborative scientific knowledge building before
possessing expert knowledge and abilities (Greeno, 1997). In choosing to study
this particular instructional context, we attempted not only to meet a pressing
need to open up the black box of teacher and student interactional processes during group learning (McCaslin & Good, 1996), but also to illuminate how these
processes unfold in learning environments that reflect the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) call for teachers to support
students to shape and judge new knowledge within classroom communities of
inquiry.
Despite having an identical taskto construct a model of matter that could explain the results of their prior labsfour peer groups in two classrooms differed
424
markedly in the amount of conversation they dedicated to discussing the nature of

matter. Because all of the groups made comments that expressed a clear desire to
design models for public presentation that would impress their peers and teacher,
there were not gross differences in motivation among the groups that could account for how they allocated their time. Rather, some groups were more able than
others to engage in productive dialogue. An important element of sustained peer
knowledge construction seemed to be the sharing of queries that served to articulate and clarify what the group did not know. Presenting provocative ideas articulately, being able and willing to ask for clarifications, and then interpreting and
building on peers ideas, and a consonant tone marked by overt acceptance of one
anothers ideas also characterized the dialogue of groups that focused more on
conceptual than on logistical or off-task discussions.
Digressions such as sarcasm, joking, distractibility, and impatience were prevalent in groups that engaged less in peer knowledge construction discussions. When
group members failed to acknowledge and engage with one anothers ideas, their
dialogue was disjointed and unproductive. When collaborative productivity was
low, volition (Corno, 1994) also was low, with students looking to the teacher for
assistance rather than persevering to create their own ideas.
In addition to describing these differences among peer groups sociocognitive
engagement and discourse, we also compared the elements and patterns of interactions of all student groups with and without a teacher present. When working
alone, students tended to initiate new avenues of discussion by making a conceptual contribution, such as sharing a new idea, rather than by asking one another
questions. When a teacher was present, however, new conceptual territory was
opened primarily by the teachers direct requests for information.
When with a teacher, most of students contributions to a discussion were conceptual. This reflects the predominance of the teachers role as questioner and the
students role as respondents in teacher-guided groups. When working without a
teacher, however, students discourse, and thus their roles, were more varied. They
articulated not only conceptual statements when working together, but also a fair
number of questions, queries, and metacognitive statements.
The teachers were clearly in control of discussions with students but did not
dominate the interactions in terms of number of turns taken. Their role when interacting with the students was to create situations that caused them to expand and
clarify their own thinking. They prompted and clarified ideas, usually through
questioning, and brought salient issues into focus. There was an absence of explicit
evaluation of ideas by the teachers (although repeated questioning may have
served as an implicit evaluation, indicating that an idea needed development), so
questions and answers built up without the closure of an evaluation, leaving synthesis up to the students.
After characterizing the elements and patterns of peer and teacher-guided discussions, we examined the quality of reasoning attained in each of the two con-
425
ditions. Overall, peer groups scored higher than teacher-guided groups on most
criteria of the reasoning complexity rubric. The social structure of peer groups
was more conducive to idea generation and elaboration as well as to justifications of ideas. Also, synthesis of ideas was attained more highly among peers
than in teacher-guided groups. Only explanations were more likely to emerge at
higher levels during teacher-guided discussions. Not all groups reasoned better
alone than with a teacher, however, with teacher guidance being more essential
to progression in groups that had confusion or lack of synergy among their
members.
Discourse with a teacher was often a more efficient means of attaining higher
levels of reasoning than peer discourse, meaning that it took fewer turns to reach a
satisfactory resolution of ideas. Discussions were more scattered and far-ranging
in peer groups than with the teacher. The comparatively formal tone of
teacher-guided groups and students tendency to wait until being addressed directly by the teacher before speaking up may have prevented some idea generation
and intellectual risk taking. However, the tone differed somewhat from teacher to
teacher and from group to group.
It was no doubt valuable for students to participate in reasoning with an adult
who crystallized key issues to move their thinking along. However, attainment of
high levels of reasoning through an inefficient, exploratory process in a greater
number of turns required intellectual perseverance within peer groups, which is a
valuable scientific habit of mind. The more peers talked about conceptual issues,
the higher the reasoning levels they achieved. For groups that did not have such
persistence, teacher intervention was especially critical to attain higher levels of
reasoning.
It is important to keep in mind that the relation between teacher guidance and
student reasoning was judged only within teacher-guided discussions. However,
many of the issues that emerged, became clear or became problematic within
teacher-guided episodes carried over to subsequent peer episodes where reasoning
about them continued. Likewise, some of the thinking displayed in teacher-guided
episodes had already emerged in peer episodes. Therefore, comparing the reasoning that occurred within peer and teacher-guided groups did not provide an indication of the entire influence or outcomes of the interactions. The comparisons did,
however, yield some insights into the online reasoning of students with and without a teacher.
In summary, the key act of the participants in both peer and teacher-guided
groups was working with weak or incomplete ideas until they improved. In
teacher-guided groups this was accomplished largely by the teachers progressive questioning and probing for thoughtful student responses. In peer groups,
intellectual tenacity helped the groups continue to confront difficult and unresolved issues. These groups kept ill-formed ideas alive and in view until new
connections were made. In both peer and teacher-guided groups, the willingness
426
and ability of group members to elaborate on one anothers ideas was associated
with more sophisticated reasoning than was building ideas across multiple consensual or responsive interchanges. Thus, the key process for maximizing and
expanding cognitive resources was connected discoursewhat some researchers
have called transactive dialogues (Azmitia & Montgomery, 1993; Kruger,
1993)in which participants acknowledged, built, and elaborated on others
ideas.
Implications for Social Constructivist Curriculum,

Teaching, and Research
At the heart of this study are practical questions of how best to facilitate students
interactional knowledge building. Teachers frequently use small group methods in
science class and want to know how to ensure that students interactions with each
other are as productive as possible as well as how to ensure that their own interactions with students provide effective guidance.
The first contribution that this study can make to these questions is to recognize
that the interactions of teachers and students are embedded within a task context.
In our study, working to create original conceptual models, much as scientists do,
promoted coconstructive rather than hierarchical or division-of-labor group interactions that are typical when students work together on worksheets and other traditional academic tasks that have single correct answers (Webb & Palincsar, 1996).
Teachers interactions with the students also were tied to this setting, namely to
their goal of providing students with an experience of designing a model and judging its success based on its explanatory power.
The lead teacher had settled on a style of pedagogy for this unit in which she refrained from providing explicit conceptual information to students, based on her
understanding of students penchant for being cognitive economists (Klaczynski,
1997) who conserve their own reasoning efforts when a teacher is forthcoming
with information. Given such complex cognitive and motivational interactions, we
cannot predict how students reasoning might have progressed had the teachers
provided more direct information to students to feed their reasoning. Nonetheless,
examples of thoughtful dialogue such as the teacherstudent interactions that were
recorded in this study could be useful to include in a new generation of print and
multimedia curriculum guides to help teachers focus on verbal interaction as a way
to stimulate students thinking.
The mode of verbal interaction for promoting student thinking that best characterizes the style of the teachers we studied is Socratic questioning. Paul (1995) defined Socratic questioning as follows:
427
This consists in teachers wondering aloud about the meaning and truth of students responses to questions. The Socratic teacher models a reflective, analytic listener. One
that actively pursues clarity of expression. One that actively looks for evidence and
reasons. One that actively considers alternative points of view. One that actively tries
to reconcile differences of viewpoint. One that actively tries to find out not just what
people think but whether what they think is actually so. (p. 297)
Such teacher behaviors embody and communicate a perspective on science as the

exploration and substantiation of ideas, making Socratic questioning a worthwhile
dimension of instructional scaffolding (Hogan & Pressley, 1997; Wood, Bruner, &
Ross, 1976) and cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989) in
science classrooms. However, in developing tools to help teachers implement such
practices, it is important to communicate that this style alone is unlikely to suffice
for achieving the many and diverse objectives for a school year of science learning,
as the teacher who designed the mental model building curriculum recognized.
It is likely that students as well as teachers could benefit from examining samples of exemplary sociocognitive interactions. Class discussions about the
strengths and weaknesses of group interactions captured on videotape, for instance, could highlight important discourse processes such as elaborating ideas,
posing queries, and evaluating progress. Raising students metacognitive awareness about the elements of collaborative cognition and providing instruction in
cognitive coconstruction skills would complement the emphasis on prosocial behaviors that are at the core of the cooperative learning interventions with which
most teachers are already familiar.
This study also has implications for how groups are formed for collaborative
knowledge building. The high challenge level of a task such as building a mental
model of the nature of matter could easily be so overwhelming that it squelches all
motivation to engage in it (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). However, a challenge shared
by several people is less daunting so long as at least some of the group members
have confidence, ideas, and strategies for tackling the challenge. The ability to sustain intellectual work during times when it seems like no progress is being made is
crucial. Therefore, groups should be constructed to be heterogeneous with respect
to intellectual dispositions such as tenacity as well as with respect to prior knowledge and thinking skills.
As for research implications, the value of this study is in explaining how student
groups, both when working alone and with a teacher, were more and less successful at reasoning. What remains to be explained is why there is variation in success
both within and between groups. A satisfactory explanation would have to integrate personal, interpersonal, and cultural planes of analysis (Rogoff, 1998). However, as Wertsch (1991) pointed out in noting that Vygotskys own empirical
worked focused mostly on the interpersonal plane, such integration is not easy to
accomplish, especially in single studies.
428
The Interdependence of Everyday and

Classroom Norms for Thinking
Many of the students in the classrooms we studied adapted readily to the model
building challenge and were able to prod and support their groups to meet the tasks
implicit and explicit standards for scientific reasoning. The groups successes in
reasoning both with and without teacher assistance could be related to the compatibility of the norms of scientific reasoning with modes of reasoning that many of
these students encounter in their everyday lives. In addition, the students exhibited
a general respect for the authority of the teachers, a cooperative attitude, and fairly
high intellectual and external (e.g., parents, grades) motivation. Also, on the whole,
students were quite articulate, reflective, and insightful about their group interactions. These social and contextual factors played key roles in students knowledge
building.
Clearly, groups of middle school students have the potential to engage in sustained and complex scientific reasoning. Whether they can do so in the absence of
the larger contextual factors that were present in this study is an empirical question. Because the culturally patterned modes of intellectual and interpersonal interactions that students bring with them to school influence their learning
(John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996), science educators often confront a range of norms
that may or may not be compatible with traditional scientific norms. The challenge, then, is to remain sensitive to a diversity of cultural practices that could potentially yield productive scientific thinking and interactions while ensuring
equity of access by all students to the dominant norms that characterize the culture
of science.
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