Browsing by Subject "diskursiivinen psykologia"

Previous research has shown that working in a peer group and studying according to principles of Inquiry Learning can offer possibilities for the construction of agency. Research has also shown that success in collaboration has a positive effect on the learning of pupils. The purpose of this study is to build understanding of collaboration among pupils and of the means with which they discursively construct agency in a setting where a teacher is mostly absent. This study examines the construction of agency in the collaboration of a peer group working on an Inquiry Learning project. Agency is defined as the taking and assigning of responsibility in joint action. The study sees interaction from a socio-cultural viewpoint, which emphasizes the shared importance of an individual and his/her surroundings in learning and interaction. Conversations between pupils were approached from the standpoint of discursive psychology, which sees mind and interaction as inseparable and thus demands that they be examined together. The case study centers on two fourth-grade pupils working on a shared project. The data of the study had been collected by videotaping the pupils as part of the research project Learning Bridges. The data consisted of six videotaped lessons. The collaboration of the two pupils was analysed using positioning analysis developed in the field of discursive psychology. It sees persons as forming an image of themselves and others and positioning each other relative to others by discursive means. The main result of the study is that the focus students took and assigned responsibility to each other relative to three positions: as experts, as pupils and as collaborators. These positions formed the dimensions of a pupil's agency. Another finding was that the agency was constructed both on an individual level and on a collective level. The results are in line with findings from previous research and suggest that working in a peer group is important for the construction of individual and collective agency.