CAREER: Costs and benefits of problem solving in small groups: An integrated plan for research and education

拟议的研究计划探讨了群体规模对解决问题的影响。研究者将系统地观察个人的工作过程和结果，以及二人组和三合组在参与科学问题解决活动时的合作，在这些活动中，本科生被要求在完整心理学课程中对数据、证据和理论进行推理。通过这种方式，研究者的研究计划与她的教育和计算机科学研究方法课程的课堂教学计划相结合。研究者还建议进行一套平行的基于实验室的研究，着眼于板块构造和火山的推理，试图将这些发现推广到不同的领域和主题。该项目的中心目标是确定协作环境中哪些方面会带来学习收益，哪些方面不会。根据社会心理学的文献，研究者确定了解决群体问题的四个方面与生产力的损失有关：动机和努力的变化，评估和冲突的潜力，任务协调和表现，资源汇集。研究者希望为设计有效的合作活动提供指导方针，这些活动不仅应该促进她自己班级的学习，而且应该在教育的一系列领域和主题中产生影响。研究者的教育计划包括利用她自己的研究来完善她目前的心理学方法本科课程，并将其应用于她的计算机科学和教育方法课程。作为荣誉学院的顾问，她还计划在她的实验室招募一群本科生作为研究人员。

The proposed program of research explores the effects of group size on problem-solving. The investigator will systematically look at the processes and outcomes of individuals working along as well as colloborations by dyads and triads as they engage in scientific problem solving activities in which undergraduates are asked to reason about data, evidence, and theories in intact psychology classes. In this manner, the investigator's research program is integrated with her classroom instruction plans for her courses on research methods in education and computer science. The investigator also proposes to conduct a parallel set of laboratory-based studies looking at reasoning about plate tectonics and volcanoes in an attempt to generalize the findings across domains and topics. The central goal of the project is the identification of the specific aspects of collaborative contexts that lead to learning gains and those that do not. Drawing on the literature in social psychology, the investigator has identified four aspects of group problem solving that are implicated in a loss of productivity: changes in motivation and effort, potential for evaluation and conflict, task coordination and representation, pooling of resources. The investigator hopes to produce guidelines for the design of effective collaborative activities that should not only foster learning within her own classes, but have implications across a range of domains and topics in education. The investigator's educational plan includes using her own studies to refine her current undergraduate courses in methods in psychology, and adapting them for use in her course in Computer Science and educational methods classes. In her role as an advisor in the Honors College, she also plans to engage a group of undergraduates as researchers in her lab.