Social networks and academic performance in physics: Undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving

For several decades, scholars have studied the role of cooperation and its outcomes in educational contexts. Yet we lack a complete understanding of how different instructional strategies impact the relationship between cooperation and learning. In this paper we present results from a field experime...

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Autores principales:	Javier Pulgar, Cristian Candia, Paul M. Leonardi
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Physical Society 2020
Materias:	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/b980e32070fc41a6a016f56e16782e22
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:b980e32070fc41a6a016f56e16782e222021-12-02T15:28:55ZSocial networks and academic performance in physics: Undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.0101372469-9896https://doaj.org/article/b980e32070fc41a6a016f56e16782e222020-06-01T00:00:00Zhttp://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.010137http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.010137https://doaj.org/toc/2469-9896For several decades, scholars have studied the role of cooperation and its outcomes in educational contexts. Yet we lack a complete understanding of how different instructional strategies impact the relationship between cooperation and learning. In this paper we present results from a field experiment with 82 first-year students in an introductory physics course showing how different instructional strategies led to different social configurations in the classroom and to differences in individual academic performance. Surprisingly, we found that students who actively sought out information from multiple peers were less likely to perform well on well-structured problems as compared to those who did not seek help, whereas, for ill-structured (real-world-like) problems, this effect depended on the features of the learning environment. We observed that good performance on ill- and well-structured problems was sensitive to different social network configurations. In a highly clustered network (which contains redundant information), students performed better on well-structured problems than ill-structured problems. By contrast, students with access to network structural holes (which enable access to more diverse information) performed ill-structured problems better than well-structured problems. Finally, ill-structured problems promoted creative thinking, provided that instructors guided the problem-solving process and motivated students to engage in the appropriate cognitive demands these problems entailed. Our results suggest that teaching and instructional strategies play an important role in cooperative learning; therefore, educators implementing cooperative learning methods have to accompany them with adequate instructional strategy.Javier PulgarCristian CandiaPaul M. LeonardiAmerican Physical SocietyarticleSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691PhysicsQC1-999ENPhysical Review Physics Education Research, Vol 16, Iss 1, p 010137 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
spellingShingle	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999 Javier Pulgar Cristian Candia Paul M. Leonardi Social networks and academic performance in physics: Undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving
description	For several decades, scholars have studied the role of cooperation and its outcomes in educational contexts. Yet we lack a complete understanding of how different instructional strategies impact the relationship between cooperation and learning. In this paper we present results from a field experiment with 82 first-year students in an introductory physics course showing how different instructional strategies led to different social configurations in the classroom and to differences in individual academic performance. Surprisingly, we found that students who actively sought out information from multiple peers were less likely to perform well on well-structured problems as compared to those who did not seek help, whereas, for ill-structured (real-world-like) problems, this effect depended on the features of the learning environment. We observed that good performance on ill- and well-structured problems was sensitive to different social network configurations. In a highly clustered network (which contains redundant information), students performed better on well-structured problems than ill-structured problems. By contrast, students with access to network structural holes (which enable access to more diverse information) performed ill-structured problems better than well-structured problems. Finally, ill-structured problems promoted creative thinking, provided that instructors guided the problem-solving process and motivated students to engage in the appropriate cognitive demands these problems entailed. Our results suggest that teaching and instructional strategies play an important role in cooperative learning; therefore, educators implementing cooperative learning methods have to accompany them with adequate instructional strategy.
format	article
author	Javier Pulgar Cristian Candia Paul M. Leonardi
author_facet	Javier Pulgar Cristian Candia Paul M. Leonardi
author_sort	Javier Pulgar
title	Social networks and academic performance in physics: Undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving
title_short	Social networks and academic performance in physics: Undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving
title_full	Social networks and academic performance in physics: Undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving
title_fullStr	Social networks and academic performance in physics: Undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving
title_full_unstemmed	Social networks and academic performance in physics: Undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving
title_sort	social networks and academic performance in physics: undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving
publisher	American Physical Society
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/b980e32070fc41a6a016f56e16782e22
work_keys_str_mv	AT javierpulgar socialnetworksandacademicperformanceinphysicsundergraduatecooperationenhancesillstructuredproblemelaborationandinhibitswellstructuredproblemsolving AT cristiancandia socialnetworksandacademicperformanceinphysicsundergraduatecooperationenhancesillstructuredproblemelaborationandinhibitswellstructuredproblemsolving AT paulmleonardi socialnetworksandacademicperformanceinphysicsundergraduatecooperationenhancesillstructuredproblemelaborationandinhibitswellstructuredproblemsolving
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Social networks and academic performance in physics: Undergraduate cooperation enhances ill-structured problem elaboration and inhibits well-structured problem solving

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