Structuring peer interaction to promote high-level cognitive processing

THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT KINDS of peer learning, and, as other articles in this issue attest, it is important to match the peer learning approach a teacher selects to the requirements of the learning task. One distinction among learning tasks that is relevant to this matching process is the nature of the cognitive processing demanded by the task.

High-Level Cognitive Processing

Some peer learning tasks, such as review and comprehension tasks, require primarily recall and repetition of material or simple application of concepts learned. Such tasks promote mastery of skills and content and may entail students working together to review math facts, learn spelling words, or check each other's comprehension of science concepts. In contrast, there are other peer learning tasks that demand a higher, more complex, level of cognitive processing. Examples of these tasks include: working together to solve ill-structured problems and problems with several possible solutions, peers analyzing and integrating ideas to go beyond presented material to build new knowledge, group decision making, peer assessment of learning products, and peer tutoring. These more complex learning tasks require high-level cognitive processing; that is, critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making.

The focus of this article is on the kind of peer learning that demands high-level cognitive processing. High-level cognitive processing involves making inferences, drawing conclusions, synthesizing ideas, generating hypotheses, comparing and contrasting, finding and articulating problems, analyzing and evaluating alternatives, monitoring thinking, and so on. Peer learning tasks that require critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making can be challenging for both the teacher and students. However, there are ways to structure peer learning to ensure that learners engage in high-level cognitive processing.

Peer Interaction Influences Cognitive Processing

From a Vygotskian perspective (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978), learning is socially constructed during interaction and activity with others. Research on peer learning (Cohen, 1994; O'Donnell & King, 1999; Webb & Palincsar, 1996) has shown that the interaction between and among the learners in a group influences the cognitive activity that is occurring, and it is this cognitive activity that accounts for the learning that takes place.

Different types of interaction facilitate different kinds of learning. Peer-assisted rehearsal (e.g., repetition) of material is usually sufficient for learning factual material. Therefore, group interaction that consists of merely requesting and providing information promotes review and mastery of skills and other such comprehension tasks. In contrast, for high-level complex learning to take place, the thinking and interaction within the group must also be of a high cognitive level, characterized by the exchange of ideas, information, perspectives, attitudes, and opinions (Cohen, 1994). This kind of discussion generates thought-provoking questions, explanations, speculations, justifications, inferences, hypotheses, and conclusions. Yet, research (Pressley, McDaniel, Turnure, Wood, & Ahmad, 1987; Vedder, 1985; Webb, Ender, & Lewis, 1986) has shown that this kind of thoughtful interaction usually does not occur spontaneously. Without teacher intervention to structure the group interaction in some way, students working in groups do not elaborate on material or ask many thought-provoking questions during discussion. In fact, unless the teacher intercedes with explicit guidance in how to interact, students working in groups appear to be more focused on finding the right answers than on learning. The question, then, becomes how can more thoughtful interaction be promoted?

Structuring interaction

Recent research has shown that peer interaction within a learning group can be structured in ways that guide and support high-quality thinking and discussion (Cohen, 1994). Moreover, different kinds of learning tasks are best guided by structures specifically designed to support those particular kinds of task. The focus in those research studies has been on structuring the interaction so students are forced to follow a particular pattern of talk in the group, thus controlling the nature and quality of their discussion and learning.

A number of peer-learning approaches have been developed that use question-asking and answering to structure interaction at a high cognitive level for a variety of learning tasks. These include "Strategic Questioning," a set of strategic questions for effectively structuring group problem solving (see King, 1991, for a full description of this approach), "Pairs Squared," an approach for developing skills of reasoned argument (King, 1995), and several models of peer tutoring (King, 1993, 1997; King, Staffieri, & Adelgais, 1998). The remainder of this article presents another of these structured approaches, "Guided Reciprocal Peer Questioning." This approach is illustrated within a specific peer-learning scenario accompanied by an example of the resulting group interaction indicating progression toward task completion.