Investigating learners’ participation in an astronomy quiz.
Date
2012-09-05
Authors
Koloko, Mpolai Anacletta
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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate how learners work collaboratively during their astronomy quiz preparation. Research has been conducted extensively on cooperative and collaborative learning, however not much has been done to investigate learners preparations in quizzes. There has been very little research done on learners‟ interactions and behaviour but more on comparing learners‟ performance individually with when they work collaboratively. The subjects of this study were five schools from the Gauteng West district comprising of teams made up of four learners. These five teams were observed and two members per team interviewed. The teams were observed in order to understand how they interact with each other and the roles assumed by each member and the teacher. The use of interviews was to get more understanding of the benefits of the team and also find out if the quiz contributed in their astronomy content gain.
The results show that all teams had an understanding of their roles and responsibilities as members, however only two teams displayed more commitment to attain the goal by advancing to further rounds of the astronomy quiz. In view of the findings I concluded that collaborative testing is an effective strategy for improving learning and potentially for the retention of content.
Keywords
Collaborative learning
Collaborative testing
Peer collaboration
Astronomy quiz