Scaffolding Reshapes Dialogic Engagement in Collaborative Problem Solving: Comparative Analysis of Two Approaches

TL;DR

This study investigates how different scaffolding levels influence dialogic engagement and behaviors during collaborative problem solving among K-12 students, revealing nuanced effects on engagement, scripting, and social behaviors across phases.

Contribution

It applies HINA and SPM methods to analyze the structural effects of scaffolding on CPS phases, providing new insights into scaffold design and student engagement patterns.

Findings

Maximal scaffolds increase engagement but lead to overscripting.

Minimal scaffolds promote problem solving and social behaviors.

Behaviors rarely transition directly between problem solving phases.

Abstract

Supporting learners during Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) is a necessity. Existing studies have compared scaffolds with maximal and minimal instructional support by studying their effects on learning and behaviour. However, our understanding of how such scaffolds could differently shape the distribution of individual dialogic engagement and behaviours across different CPS phases remains limited. This study applied Heterogeneous Interaction Network Analysis (HINA) and Sequential Pattern Mining (SPM) to uncover the structural effects of scaffolding on different phases of the CPS process among K-12 students in authentic educational settings. Students with a maximal scaffold demonstrated higher dialogic engagement across more phases than those with a minimal scaffold. However, they were extensively demonstrating scripting behaviours across the phases, evidencing the presence of overscripting. Although students with the minimal scaffold demonstrated more problem solving behaviours and fewer scripting behaviours across the phases, they repeated particular behaviours in multiple phases and progressed more to socialising behaviours. In both scaffold conditions, problem solving behaviours rarely progressed to other problem solving behaviours. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for scaffold design and teaching practice of CPS, and highlights the distinct yet complementary value of HINA and SPM approaches to investigate students' learning processes during CPS.