Chapter 15 page 351
In this discussion, both Sean and Leah present Jeremy with the alternative perspective that keeping the goose
is fundamentally different from having a dog because the dog is not penned up, whereas Amy has to lock the
goose up to keep it from flying away. Later in the discussion, Jacob shows that encounters with different
perspectives have led him to modify his ideas.
Jeremy Maybe she could like, ... let it go and be free, and then when it's a certain like month every
month, maybe she could teach it to come back to her and she'd have it like every month and it'd
still be free.Although Jeremy still wants Amy to have the goose, at least partly, he no longer wants to keep it
captive and penned up. Thus, encounters with alternative perspectives that challenged his own
perspective led Jeremy to change his ideas.
Recall that in Chapter 3 (Theories of Cognitive Development), you learned about Piagetian research
on conservation. Piagetian researchers have found that advances in conservation occur when nonconservers
(children who cannot yet conserve) work together with conservers on a problem (Perret-Clermont, 1980).
The advances arise because the conservers present the nonconservers with a new perspective that they had
not previously considered. For instance, consider a six-year old nonconserver who thinks that the amount of
water in a glass changes as it is poured from a tall narrow glass to a short wide glass. When working with a
peer who can already conserve on this problem, however, the conserver may say something like, “No, it’s
the same. Because if you pour it back, it’s just like before.” Encountering new ideas like this frequently
leads nonconservers to begin to conserve.
Students can learn from alternative perspectives even when no student’s initial perspective is correct!
Developmental psychologists Gail Ames and Frank Murray (Ames & Murray, 1982) conducted an
experiment in which they had pairs of nonconservers work together on conservation tasks. Based on
pretests, the researchers paired nonconservers who had opposite ideas. For instance, if one child believed
that the amount of clay in a ball increases when the ball is split into four smaller balls, the paired child
believed the opposite—that the amount of clay decreases in the same situation. Thus, the students both had
incorrect ideas, but they were opposite incorrect ideas. In comparison with nonconservers who did not
interact in pairs, these children made strong gains in understanding of conservation. When they encountered
conflicting perspectives, they were exposed to new ways of thinking that led them to see that neither initial
idea was correct. This led them to explore the idea that the amount of clay did not actually change. Thus,
alternative perspectives need not be correct to promote learning in groups (see also Schwarz, Neuman, &
Biezuner, 2000).
Uptake of Ideas
When you are observing groups, you want to see uptake of ideas. To take up a peer’s idea, students
must listen to the idea and then respond to it in some way. Three ways of responding to an idea are
acceptance, discussion, and rejection. These three responses are explained and illustrated in Table 15.2.
In a study investigating groups of sixth graders working on a challenging mathematics problem,
Brigid Barron (2003) compared successful groups, who were able to solve the problem, with unsuccessful
groups, who were not able to solve it. She focused on the three forms of uptake (acceptance, discussion,
and rejection) listed in Table 15.2. She found that successful and unsuccessful groups differed strikingly in
how they responded to their peers’ ideas. In successful groups, 48% of the peers’ accepted each other’s
ideas, 22% discussed each other’s responses, and 30% rejected their peers’ responses. These groups
showed a broad range of responses to peers’ ideas. In contrast, in unsuccessful groups, 76% of the
responses were reject responses! Here, students often rejected good ideas that were put forward by one of
their members. They failed to make progress because they rejected most of their peers’ ideas.