Individual Differences in Dyadic Cooperative Learning

Journal of Educational Psychology 1998, Vol. 90, No. 1,153-161

Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-0663/98/$3.00

Individual Differences in Dyadic Cooperative Learning Elizabeth M. Horn, William G. Collier, Julie A. Oxford, Charles E Bond, Jr., and Donald R Dansereau Texas Christian University The impact of individual differences on the performance of 2 roles—learner and learning facilitator—was assessed during dyadic cooperative learning. Eighty university students, 40 men and 40 women, participated in same-sex groups of 4. Each student cooperatively learned a text passage with 1 partner and then learned a 2nd passage with another partner. In a later session, the students recalled the information contained within both text passages and completed several personality measures. A social relations analysis (D. A. Kenny & L. LaVoie, 1984} was used to partition the variability in recall for the passages into various sources. Variability in recall depended strongly on individual differences in learning ability and (to a lesser extent) on individual differences in the ability to facilitate others' learning. Differences in the ability to learn text passages were independent of individual differences in the ability to facilitate others* learning. Effective learners were high in verbal ability, whereas effective learning facilitators were low in public self-consciousness and in self-monitoring. The influence of cognitive and rapport factors on the performance of the learner role and the learning facilitator role is discussed.

Cooperative learning, in which two or more individuals take turns helping one another learn information, has been one of the many alternative instructional techniques explored in the academic learning literature (Dansereau & Johnson, 1994; Johnson & Johnson, 1989; O'Donnell & Dansereau, 1992; Slavin, 1983, 1996; Webb, 1982). The consensus from numerous field and laboratory investigations is that academic achievement (e.g., performance on a test) is enhanced when an individual learns information with others as opposed to when she or he studies alone (Johnson & Johnson, 1989; O'Donnell & Dansereau, 1992; Slavin, 1996; Totten, Sills, Digby, & Russ, 1991). The extent to which cooperative learning promotes an individual's acquisition and retention of learned material depends on many factors, some of which include prior training in group skills (e.g., Mesch, Lew, Johnson, & Johnson, 1986) and training in cooperative scripts (e.g., O'Donnell, Dansereau, Hall, & Rocklin, 1987), the nature of the social interaction (e.g., Battistich, Solomon, & Delucchi, 1993; Newbern Sc Dansereau, 1996), the presence of group and individual rewards (e.g., Slavin, 1983,1996), the type of learning task (e.g., O'Donnell & Dansereau, 1992; Slavin, 1983), and the individual learner's characteristics (e.g., O'DonneU & Dansereau, 1992; Webb, 1982, 1991). For example, students' achievement increases when they are rewarded for their cooperative efforts (for reviews, see Slavin, 1983, 1996). The type of learning task also affects individual performance (for a brief review, see O'Donnell &

Dansereau, 1992). For instance, easy tasks, such as learning to assemble a child's toy, promote task-specific outcomes. Some of the factors just mentioned have received minimal attention in the cooperative learning literature (e.g., the interaction), whereas others have been examined at length (e.g., group rewards, individual differences). However, the extent to which the performance of various roles (such as learning and facilitating others1 learning) is responsible for the variability in cooperative learning outcomes has not been adequately addressed (e.g., Hall et al., 1988; O'Donnell, Dansereau, & Rocklin, 1991). At minimum, each individual engaged in a cooperative interaction may play two roles: learner and learning facilitator. The learner role may involve processing, elaborating upon, and ultimately remembering information, such as nutrition facts or how to solve math problems. The learning facilitator role may involve teaching the material, serving as a "sounding board" for ideas, and providing a supportive emotional environment. Each individual may play only one role throughout the cooperative interaction or may enact both roles, alternating between the learner role and the learning facilitator role as needed. The purpose of the current investigation was to explore the impact of the learner role and the learning facilitator role in dyadic cooperative learning, in which an individual learns information with only one partner. Some individuals are more successful than others in performing the learner role and the learning facilitator role (e.g., O'Donnell et al., 1991; Webb, 1991). Thus, the current investigation sought to identify characteristics that influence the enactment of each role. The characteristics that have been studied previously fall into two domains: cognitive ability, which includes verbal ability (O'Donneil et al., 1991; Webb, 1991), and rapport, which includes affective factors (e.g., liking for group members; Battistich et al., 1993) and personality characteristics (e.g. self-consciousness; O'Donnell et al.,

Elizabeth M. Horn, William G. Collier, Julie A. Oxford, Charles E Bond, Jr., and Donald F. Dansereau, Department of Psychology, Texas Christian University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elizabeth M. Horn, Department of Psychology, TCU Box 298920, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas 76129. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected]. 153

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1987). The impact of the characteristics that are relevant to the performance of the learner role and the learning facilitator role is discussed in the following sections. The Learner Role in Cooperative Learning Several characteristics correlate with an individual's ability to be an effective learner (Hall et al., 1988; Larson et aL, 1984; O'Donnell et al., 1991; Sharan & Shaulov, 1990; Webb, 1982, 1991), For example, differences in verbal ability, a characteristic from the cognitive domain, have been shown to covary with individual achievement. Perhaps because they have the necessary cognitive skills and learning strategies to acquire material successfully, individuals who have high verbal ability recall more information discussed in a cooperative setting than low-ability individuals (Hall et al., 1988; Larson et al., 1984; O'Donnell et al., 1991). Cooperativeness, which falls in the rapport domain, is another characteristic that has been examined within the context of interactive learning (Sharan & Shaulov, 1990). Students who express a preference for group work (i.e., are high in cooperativeness) benefit more from interactive learning than students who prefer to work alone. Although there has been research on the impact of differences in the ability to enact the learner role across different text passages and learning partners (e.g., Larson et alM 1984; O'Donnell et al., 1987), the reliability of these differences over time and partners has not been formally established. In the Larson et al. (1984) study, for example, college students studied material in a text passage cooperatively and then studied another text passage individually. The high-ability students recalled more information from each passage than the low-ability students. However, because Larson and colleagues did not compute a reliability coefficient for recall over the two passages, the consistency of the high-ability students' recall was not established. The reliability of differences in the ability to perform the learning facilitator role also has not been documented. The Learning Facilitator Role in Cooperative Learning The influence of the learning facilitator role on achievement has been evaluated in a few studies (e.g., Webb, 1982, 1991; Weigmann, Dansereau, & Patterson, 1992). Instruction from high-ability partners benefits less able peers (Weigmann et al., 1992). Individuals who explain material well enhance their partner's comprehension of the material (for a review see Webb, 1991). These prior investigations were limited, however, in that they neglected to address differences in the performance of the learning facilitator role across learning materials and learning partners. Various characteristics may be relevant to an individual's ability to facilitate others' learning. Characteristics that enable individuals to be good learners may also enable them to be good learning facilitators. For instance, because they process information quickly and provide elaborative explanations for the material, high-ability individuals may be

better learning facilitators than individuals who lack the necessary cognitive skills (e.g., Webb, 1991). Cooperative learning depends not only on cognitive ability but also on affective factors associated with rapport between the learner and the partner (Battistich et al., 1993; O'Donnell et al., 1987; Newbern & Dansereau, 1996). Affective factors encompass the emotions experienced during the cooperative interaction and may originate from an individual's perceptions of his or her partner. Generally, if an individual views fellow group members favorably, the resulting interaction is smooth (i.e., high rapport is achieved) and learning is more likely to occur (Battistich et al., 1993; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, pp. 9-10). Because of dispositional differences, some individuals are better liked than others; some are more good natured, more socially skilled, and less anxious than others (Bond, Horn, & Kenny, 1997; Kenny, 1994). These well-liked individuals may be especially effective in facilitating learning. Certain personality characteristics may influence the ability of an individual to establish rapport with the partner. One of these characteristics is public self-consciousness (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975). A publicly selfconscious individual is aware of the self as a social entity and is concerned about self-presentation. Although individuals who are low in public self-consciousness 1eam more than individuals who are high in public self-consciousness (O'Donnell et al., 1987), it is unknown whether the former would be more effective learning facilitators than the latter. One hypothesis is that individuals who are high in public self-consciousness may divert cognitive resources to maintaining a good self-image and ignore the partner. Alternatively, these individuals may wish to augment their selfpresentation by working diligently at the task, providing the necessary help, and promoting the appropriate learning atmosphere for the partner. Another personality characteristic that is related to the establishment of rapport is self-monitoring (Snyder, 1974, 1979). Individuals high in self-monitoring use external cues as behavioral guides and are skilled at modifying their behavior to suit the social situation. Those who are low in self-monitoring behave according to their inner attitudes and beliefs. In a cooperative interaction, high self-monitors may alter their behavior to provide the type of assistance that a partner requires; low self-monitors may not be as responsive to the partner. Thus, individuals who were partnered with high self-monitors may recall more material than individuals who had low self-monitoring partners. On the other hand, because they are unconcerned with appearing behaviorally congruent with the partner, low self-monitors may focus exclusively on the task, provide assistance with the material, and enhance the partner's performance more than high self-monitors. The Present Study The extent to which performance of the learner role and the learning facilitator role contributes to the variability in individual performance has been neglected in previous cooperative learning research partially because of analytic

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limitations. For example, if a researcher wished to demonstrate the effectiveness of cooperative learning, she or he might compare the performance of students who studied text material alone (control condition) with that of students who studied the material interactively (experimental condition). To analyze the data, the researcher might use standard analysis of variance techniques, which assume independence of observations. In the case of the experimental group, the independence assumption is violated (i.e., the performance of one member of a cooperative dyad is dependent on the performance of the other member). The researcher may choose to address this problem by forming a composite performance score for each dyad. This approach is not entirely satisfactory, however, because low power becomes an issue, and the impact of one partner's performance on the other partner's performance is lost. Kenny proposed a social relations model to accommodate interdependencies that arise from social interactions (Kenny, 1994; Kenny & LaVoie, 1984; Warner, Kenny, & Stoto, 1979). To illustrate the model, suppose that four individuals have learned two text passages cooperatively in dyads and are tested on the material at a later time. For the first passage, Person A learned with Person B and Person C learned with Person D. For the second passage, Person A and Person C studied together, and Person B studied with Person D. This type of procedure is called a block design (Kenny, 1994). Person A's performance when interacting with Person B can be represented as the sum of four components: a mean (overall performance in the group of four persons), a learner effect (the tendency for Person A to recall material well), a learning facilitator effect (the tendency for Person B to facilitate others' learning), and a residual effect (the tendency for Person A to recall more or less than usual when paired with Person B). Traditionally, research on cooperative learning has involved comparisons of group means, such as control group mean performance versus experimental group mean performance. The social relations model, however, seeks to explain the variability in performance. A social relations analysis partitions the variability in performance into three sources: learner variance, learning facilitator variance, and other variance. Reliable learner variance indicates that some individuals recalled more information than other individuals. This implies that individuals' recall performance was consistent across learning partners. There is reliable learning facilitator variance if some partners were better learning facilitators than other partners. This implies that individuals afforded their partners a consistent level of facilitation. "Other" variance arises from the special synergistic effects of two particular individuals learning together. This analysis also allows for two types of interdependency (or covariance) in cooperative learning: generalized (which implies that a good learner is a good learning facilitator) and dyadic (which implies that if Person A recalls more than usual after studying with Person B, Person B recalls more than usual after studying with Person A). A social relations analysis estimates these variances and covariances and tests them for reliability using a one-sample t test,

with degrees of freedom equal to the number of four-person groups minus one. Using data obtained from a block design (see Kenny, 1994), this study expected to demonstrate that performance in dyadic cooperative learning is dependent on both the ability to learn (the learner role) and the ability to teach and provide an environment that is conducive to learning (the learning facilitator role). As indicated by reliable generalized interdependency, individuals who are effective learners may be effective learning facilitators. As shown by reliable dyadic interdependency, particular individuals may tend to recall the same amount of material as their partners. Finally, factors from the cognitive ability domain and the rapport domain were expected to influence the performance of the learner role and the learning facilitator role.

Method Participants In this study, 96 university students, 48 males and 48 females, participated in same-sex groups of 4. The average age of the undergraduate population from which the participants were selected was 21 years (88.9% of these students were younger than 25 years). At the time this study was conducted, the racial-ethnic composition of the population was 78.7% Caucasian, 6.3% African American, 4.1% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian American, 0.6% Native American, and 7.9% other racial-ethnic groups. The 24 groups were recruited such that each group member was unacquainted with every other group member. The students received course credit for their involvement in the study.

Text Passages Each participant learned two text passages: "Orbital Tower" and "Plate Tectonics." "Orbital Tower," which was extracted from a college-level science fiction book, is a fictitious account of the construction of a bridge extending from Earth to a satellite hovering above. "Plate Tectonics," which was excerpted from a college-level textbook, describes the theoretical basis and evidence for continental drift. Each of these passages contained approximately 2,000 words. To eliminate passage carryover effects from one cooperative episode to the other, the two text passages were selected such that the content of the first passage, "Orbital Tower," was independent of the content of the second passage, "Plate Tectonics."

Indicators of Cognitive Ability Two measures were chosen to represent cognitive ability: the Delta Reading Vocabulary Test (DRVT) and perceptions of intelligence. The DRVT assesses verbal ability (Deignan, 1973). The respondent's task on the DRVT is to identify correctly within 10 minutes the synonym for 45 vocabulary words (e.g., "consecutive"). There are four choices for each vocabulary word: three distractors and one correct answer. The DRVT has been used to measure verbal ability in investigations of scripted cooperative learning (e.g., Hall et al., 1988; O'Donnell et al., 1987; Weigmann et al., 1992). DRVT scores are positively correlated with scores from the verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (r = .60; Dansereau, 1978). The participants also provided ratings of each partner's intelligence on a scale that ranged from 1 {not at all intelligent) to 7 (very intelligent).

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Indicators of Rapport Because rapport between members of a cooperative dyad has not been extensively studied, the following four instruments were selected to represent this construct. Cooperativeness Scale. The nine-item Cooperativeness Scale used in the current study was an abbreviated version of an inventory formulated by Lu and Argyle (1991; see Appendix). Participants indicated on 5-point Likert-type scales (1 — strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) the extent to which they endorsed statements regarding cooperation in the workplace (e.g., "Team work is always the best way of getting results") and in the school setting (e.g., "I like to cooperate with other students over academic work"). Lu and Argyle (1991) established that cooperativeness (as indicated by the total on their 36-item inventory) is positively related to self-esteem, social skills, and extroversion. For the current study, the internal reliability of the Cooperativeness Scale was assessed to verify that the nine items, which were taken from two subsets (cooperation in the workplace and cooperation in the school setting) of the larger 36-item Cooperativeness Scale (Lu & Argyle, 1991), comprised one construct. The resulting coefficient alpha was .64. Perceptions of liking. Participants indicated how much they liked each of their partners on a scale that ranged from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). Personality measures. The Self-Monitoring Scale, which measures the degree to which a person controls his or her selfpresentation, contains 25 items, such as "In different situations and with different people, I often act like very different persons" (Snyder, 1974, 1979). Since 1990, the Self-Monitoring Scale has been used in approximately 70 published research investigations, primarily in the areas of social and personality psychology. Snyder (1974) reported an internal reliability of .70 for the 25-item scale; for the current study, the coefficient alpha was .66. The Self-Consciousness/Social Anxiety Scale, which consists of 23 items, measures public self-consciousness (e.g., "I'm concerned about the way I present myself"), private self-consciousness, and social anxiety (Fenigstein et al., 1975). The scores on the Private Self-Consciousness subscale and the Social Anxiety subscale were not used in the present study. The Self-Consciousness/Social Anxiety Scale is also somewhat popular in the social and personality psychology literature; about 60 published investigations have used this instrument since 1990. The Self-Consciousness/Social Anxiety Scale has been used in a previous investigation of scripted cooperative learning (O'Donnell et al., 1987). For this study, the internal reliability for the Public Self-Consciousness Scale was .80.

Procedure Overview. The study was conducted in two sessions. During the first session, the participants helped each other learn material contained within two text passages. Each participant in a group of 4 learned material from the "Orbital Tower" passage with one partner and then learned material from the "Plate Tectonics" passage with a different partner. On several instruments, the participants provided ratings of each learning episode and learning partner. The ratings of each episode were not analyzed in the present study. Two days later, the participants recalled information from both passages. Participants' personality traits, which are relatively stable and should not interact with the cooperative tasks, were assessed after the free-recall tasks had been completed. First session. On arrival at the first session, each participant was randomly assigned a letter code of A, B, C, or D. Each participant wore a badge that displayed his or her assigned letter.

The participants began by completing an abbreviated version of the Cooperativeness Scale. The experimenter then gave the participants instructions for dyadic cooperative learning. Participants were told that the purpose of the study was to determine what factors contribute to the cooperative learning process. They learned that they would engage in two cooperative learning episodes (each with a different partner), and that 2 days later they would be asked to recall what they had learned in each episode. The participants did not receive any training in cooperative learning techniques nor were they offered an incentive (beyond receiving course credit) for their performance on the recall test. The interdependent component of cooperative learning was emphasized (Johnson & Johnson, 1989; Slavin, 1992); participants were told that they would be evaluated not only in terms of their own performance on the recall tests but also in terms of their partners' performances. The instructions outlined the sequence for each cooperative interaction. Participants were instructed to help their partner learn the textual material at two different points during the learning episodes: once at the marked point halfway through the passage and once at the end. The manner in which help was given was left up to the participants. The participants also were given the option to discuss the text material with their partners at any time. In the first 20-min episode, the participants split into dyads to learn material in the "Orbital Tower" passage. One dyad, composed of Person A and Person B, learned the passage in one room, while a second dyad, composed of Person C and Person D, learned that same passage in another room. To facilitate interaction, the two members of a dyad sat at right angles at a rectangular table. Blank, unlined paper was available to the participants for note-taking, although these could not be used in the later free-recall task. The participants in each dyad began by reading the first part of the "Orbital Tower" passage to themselves and noting important points on the blank paper provided. When each participant had completed the first part of the passage, they discussed what they had read by summarizing and clarifying main ideas. The participants also had the opportunity to ask their partners for help in understanding the material while they read the passage. Once the participants were satisfied that they had covered the information in the first half of the passage, they continued reading the remainder of the text. After the participants had finished reading, they discussed the passage in a manner similar to that described previously. After 20 min had passed, the dyads exchanged partners for a second 20-min episode. Again the dyads were placed in separate rooms. One dyad, Person A and Person C, and a second dyad, Person B and Person D, learned information contained within the "Plate Tectonics" passage. Blank paper was available for notetaking. After the second episode, participants rated how much they liked their "Plate Tectonics" partner and that partner's intelligence. Then participants were paired with the partners with whom they learned the first passage ("Orbital Tower"). Participants made the same ratings as before. To avoid inducing self-awareness during the second cooperative episode, the participants did not rate liking for the first partner and that partner's intelligence until the conclusion of both cooperative episodes. On completing the ratings for the "Orbital Tower" episode, the participants were instructed to return in 2 clays for a second session. Second session. Individuals who had participated in the first session on the same day returned at the same time for the second session, which was held in a large classroom. Each participant received a folder containing the following items: two lined pages for free recall of "Orbital Tower," two lined pages for free recall of

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INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES "Plate Tectonics," the Self-Monitoring Scale, the Self-Consciousness/Social Anxiety Scale, and the DRVT. Participants began by recording all of the information they could recall from the "Orbital Tower" passage. Then they recalled information from the "Plate Tectonics" passage. Participants were allowed 15 min for free recall for each passage. Most participants had ceased recording information within 10 min. The participants then completed the Self-Monitoring Scale, the Self-Consciousness/Social Anxiety Scale, and the DRVT. The participants made additional ratings concerning their own study abilities and their partners' personality traits (e.g., extroversion, achievement, personal warmth). At the close of the second session, participants were debriefed and dismissed.

Coding Procedures Although 24 groups of 4 participants participated in this study, data obtained from 2 groups of men and 2 groups of women were excluded from the analyses because 1 participant from each group failed to return for the second session on the correct date. All of the analyses discussed next were thus conducted on data from the remaining 20 groups (10 groups of men and 10 groups of women). For coding purposes, each passage was divided into a series of propositions. A proposition is a word or phrase that expresses a single idea (Holley, Dansereau, McDonald, Garland, & Collins, 1979; Meyer, 1975; O'Donnell et al, 1987). For example, one of the propositions for the "Orbital Tower" passage was "the ionosphere has weather" and for the "Plate Tectonics" passage, "plates are relatively elastic." "Orbital Tower" contained 258 propositions; "Plate Tectonics" contained 321 propositions. Two raters coded the free recall of all 80 participants, scoring each participant'sfreerecall for each proposition on a 5-point scale: 0 {missing), 1 {mentioned but inaccurate), 2 {partly correct), 3 {mostly correct), and 4 {completely correct). A similar coding scheme has been used in previous research (e.g., O'Donnell, 1996). Interrater reliability was assessed using the Spearman-Brown formula (for the "Orbital Tower" passage, effective r — .90 and for the "Plate Tectonics" passage, effective r = .92).

Calculation of Recall Scores Two recall scores were calculated for each participant for each passage. The first score, accuracy of recall, was a sum of the accuracy ratings that were greater than 1. The second score, number of accurate mentions, was the number of mentioned propositions that received accuracy scores greater than 1. The two raters' scores of a given participant's recall for a given passage were averaged. The two text passages were not comparable in thematic content, reading difficulty, or number of propositions. Additionally, the order in which the passages were learned was constant across the four-person groups. To compensate statistically for these sources of extraneous variation, the grand mean recall for a particular passage across all 20 groups was subtracted from each participant's recall score. Thus, a participant's final accuracy of recall score and the final number of accurate mentions score for each passage were expressed as deviations from the corresponding grand mean for a particular passage.

Overview of Analyses There were two types of variables in the current study: individual-level variables and dyadic variables. The individual-level variables were overall cooperativeness, preference for cooperation, preference for independent work, self-monitoring, public self-consciousness, verbal ability (i.e., DRVT score), and ratings of study abilities. The dyadic variables consisted of two recall scores (accuracy of recall and number of accurate mentions), the liking ratings, the intelligence ratings, and the ratings of each partner's personality. Before analysis, each dyadic variable was expressed as a deviation from the grand mean within each passage for that variable across all 20 groups. Each recall variable was subjected to a univariate social relations analysis; then covariances among the individuallevel variables and the recall variables were computed. A bivariate version of the social relations model was used to identify relationships among the recall variables and the other two dyadic variables. Analyses were performed using BLOCKO (Kenny, 1995), a FORTRAN program written to analyze data obtained from a block design.

Accuracy of Recall and Number of Accurate Mentions A dyadic social relations analysis was applied to the participants' accuracy of recall and number of accurate mentions. Relevant results are shown in Table 1. The analyses partitioned the variance in accuracy of recall and number of accurate mentions into three sources: learner variance (the tendency to recall textual material), learning facilitator variance (the tendency to facilitate others' recall), and other variance. The latter would reflect the tendency of a particular learner to recall material accurately when paired with a particular partner as well as error. Significance tests of variances are one-tailed, because variances cannot be negative. Two types of interdependency can be assessed for each recall variable. The first type, generalized interdependency, involves the tendency for individuals who are good learners to be good learning facilitators. The second, dyadic interdependency, reflects the tendency for an individual to learn more of a particular passage than usual if his or her partner learned more of that passage than usual. Learner variance accounted for 70.4% of the total variance in accuracy of recall {M learner variance = 418.09), f(19) = 2.60, p < .05, and 72.1% of the total variance in

Table 1 Relative Variance Partitioning for the Recall Variables (20 Groups) Variable

Learner variance

Learning facilitator variance

Other variance

Accuracy of recall Number of accurate mentions

.704* .721*

.076* .073*

.220 .206

Results Preliminary analyses revealed that the results for the 10 groups of male participants resembled the results for the 10 groups of females. Thus, the following analyses collapse across participants* gender.

*p < .05.

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Table 2 Correlations Among Recall and the Cognitive Ability and Rapport-Related Variables Variable

1

2

— 1. Verbal ability 2. Cooperativenessa .04 — 3. Preference for cooperation* -.04 — 4. Preference for indepena dent work .11 — 5. Self-monitoring -.08 -.11 6. Public self-consciousness -.06 -.04

3

Relationships Among Recall and the Cognitive Ability and Rapport-Related Variables 6

4

5

— -.32*

— .05

—

-.20

.15 .30 —

—

Note. Correlations were calculated by subtracting the group mean for a particular variable from each individual's score on that variable and then correlating the-resulting score with the analogous score for a second variable. "Correlations were not computed among the components of the Cooperativeness Scale. *p < .05.

number of accurate mentions (M learner variance = 54.27), f(19) = 2.69, p < .05; thus, there were large differences among individuals in the ability to learn, and these differences generalized across learning partners. As expected, some students were better learning facilitators than others. Learning facilitator variance in accuracy of recall comprised 7.6% of the total (M variance = 44.90), f(19) = 1.93, p < .05; for number of accurate mentions, partner variance was 7.3% of the total (A/variance = 5.12), f(19) = 1.88,p < .05. Variance from other sources in accuracy of recall and number of accurate mentions comprised 22.0% and 20.6% of the total variance, respectively. For both, accuracy of recall and number of accurate mentions, there was no evidence of either generalized interdependency—for accuracy of recall, M covariance = 53.70, t{\9) ~ 1.58, ns, and for number of accurate mentions, M covariance = 5.17, f(19) = 1.39, ns—or dyadic interdependency—for accuracy of recall, M covariance = 9.27, ((19) = .27, ns, and for number of accurate mentions, M covariance = 2.50, ;(19) = .62, ns. Thus, the ability to be an effective learner was independent of the ability to be an effective learning facilitator, and individuals showed no special tendency to recall the same amount of material as did their partners.

Covariances among the individual-level cognitive ability and-rapport-related variables and the learner effect and the learning facilitator effect in each of the two recall variables (accuracy of recall and number of accurate mentions) were calculated. These are expressed as correlations in Table 3. As expected, people with high verbal ability recalled the material well; correlation between verbal ability and the learner effect yielded .63, f(39) = 4.47, p < .05, for accuracy of recall, and .64, f(39) = 4.62, p < .05, for number of accurate mentions. People who preferred cooperation did not recall the material well; the correlation between preference for cooperation and the learner effect in number of accurate mentions was —.34, t(39) = -2.15, p < .05. Correlates of the ability to facilitate others' learning were preference for cooperation, self-monitoring, and public self-consciousness. Specifically, people who preferred cooperation were good learning facilitators; the correlation between preference for cooperation and the learning facilitator effect in accuracy of recall was .50, r(39) = 2.12, p < .05. However, participants recalled less if they were paired with high self-monitors rather than low self-monitors; the correlation between self-monitoring and the learning facilitator effect yielded - . 5 3 , *(39) = -2.26, p < .05, for accuracy of recall and -.55, f(39) = -2.37, p < .05, for number of accurate mentions. Participants also recalled less when they were paired with people who were high (rather than low) in public self-consciousness; the correlation between public self-consciousness and the learning facilitator effect in number of accurate mentions was - .52, r(39) = -2.20, p < .05. None of the relationships among the self-ratings of study abilities and the recall variables were reliable.

Relationships Among Recall Liking, Perceptions of Intelligence, and Ratings of Partners' Personalities Relationships among dyadic variables may be assessed using a bivariate social relations analysis (Kenny, 1994). Table 3 Correlations Among the Cognitive Ability and Rapport-Related Variables and the Individual-Level Effects in the Recall Variables

Relationships Among Cognitive Ability and Rapport-Related Variables Correlations were computed among the cognitive ability and rapport-related variables. These variables were largely unrelated to one another. As shown in Table 2, the individuallevel cognitive ability measure, verbal ability, was independent of the five individual-level indicators of rapport. Thus, high-ability individuals showed no special ability to establish a positive working relationship with a learning partner. Indeed, there was only one statistically reliable relationship among these variables: Low self-monitors preferred to work in groups, r = -.32, t(39) = -2.12, p< .05.

Individual-level variable Verbal ability Cooperativeness Preference for cooperation Preference for independent work Self-monitoring Public self-consciousness *p < .05.

Accuracy Number of of recall accurate mentions Learning Learning Learner facilitator Learner facilitator effect effect effect effect .63* -.26 -.33 -.15 -.04 .02

.26 .44 .50* -.01 -.53* -.43

.64* -.25 -.34*

.25 .38 .47

-.12 -.07 .01

-.03 -.55* -.52*

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

One of the goals of this study was to establish relationships among the recall variables and the remaining dyadic variables, perceptions of liking, perceptions of intelligence, and personality ratings. Therefore, correlations among the recall variables and the other three dyadic variables—perceptions of liking, perceptions of intelligence, and personality ratings—were computed. The learner effect in recall was negatively correlated with the tendency to like others; r = - . 6 9, t(19) = -2.61, p < .05, and r = - . 6 9, t(19) = -2.63, p < .05, for accuracy of recall and number of accurate mentions, respectively. Thus, individuals who liked others did not recall the material well. Verbal ability also was negatively related to the tendency to like one's partner; r = -.57, f(39) = -2.71, p < .05; high-ability individuals did not like their partners. None of the covariances among the recall variables and the intelligence ratings were reliable. There were differences among raters in scale usage for the ratings of partners' personalities. However, none of the personality ratings were related to the recall variables. Discussion The primary objective of the present study was to assess the extent to which the outcome of dyadic cooperative learning depends on individual differences in the ability to learn and individual differences in the ability to facilitate others* learning. Consistent with previous research, the performance of the learner role influenced information recall (e.g., Hall et al., 1988; Newbern & Dansereau, 1996; O'Donnell et al., 1991). The learner role accounted for more than 70% of the variance in total recall; thus, an individual's performance (i.e., ability to learn the material) was quite consistent across different partners. Performance of the learning facilitator role also influenced the outcome of cooperative learning but contributed a much smaller portion of the total variance in recall (approximately 7%). The current study sought to relate various cognitive ability factors and rapport indicators to the performance of the learner role and the learning facilitator role. Cognitive ability was related to the ability to recall material well. This finding is consistent with results from prior research (Larson et al., 1984; O'Donnell et al., 1991). Logically, individuals who have high verbal ability master written material more easily than individuals who are low in this ability. Attraction for and preference for cooperation with the partner also influenced recall. Individuals who liked their partners and enjoyed collaborative efforts learned less than individuals who did not like their partners or who did not prefer cooperative activities. Because they enjoy interacting with other students, individuals who like and prefer to cooperate with others may be engaging in off-task behavior, such as casual conversation, rather than devoting effort to learning the material. Although the ability to learn was related to both cognitive ability and rapport-related factors, the ability to help others learn was related solely to indicators of rapport. Important to the cooperative learning process, rapport serves to bolster "team spirit" and reduce anxiety (Battistich et al., 1993;

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Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Perhaps because they fostered a relaxed learning environment, individuals who enjoyed cooperating with others during academic work were good at helping others learn. Publicly self-conscious individuals and high self-monitors, however, were not successful in facilitating others* learning. During the cooperative interaction, the high publicly self-conscious individual may have focused exclusively on obtaining feedback regarding his or her performance from the partner (e.g., Fenigstein et al., 1975). The partner, who was occupied with providing feedback, may not have had sufficient time to learn the material. The finding that high self-monitors are poor learning facilitators is somewhat puzzling, however, because high self-monitors adapt their behaviors to suit the social context and are socially proficient (Snyder, 1974, 1979). High self-monitors should be able to establish sufficient rapport to increase partners* achievement. Yet because the current study found that they are poor learning facilitators, high self-monitors were not skilled in establishing a positive relationship with the partner. Perhaps the novel cooperative method failed to provide the social guidelines necessary for the high self-monitor to build rapport and help his or her partner learn.

Implications and Extensions Although the form of cooperative learning used in the current study may be considered atypical by some researchers, this method offers benefits for investigation into interactive learning. Researchers may gain a better understanding of how individual differences impact learning by first studying these variables in a more controlled context, such as the one used in the present study. Once the effects of these differences are known, they may be studied in more realistic learning settings. For example, researchers may assign class members to cooperative groups based on the present study's findings and assess the impact of reward structures (e.g., Slavin, 1983) or the effects of providing or receiving help in learning material (e.g., Webb, 1982, 1991). The present study's cooperative method, therefore, is a stepping stone for future investigations. The results of the current study provide tangible benefits to researchers; yet these findings are constrained by the nature of the cooperative interactions. The inverse relationship between the ability to help others learn and the rapport indicators may have been augmented by the flexible collaboration used in the present study. This type of cooperative interaction, for example, may have induced self-awareness in the publicly self-conscious individual (Buss, 1980). The cooperative method also may have contributed to the failure to find generalized interdependency (i.e., individuals skilled in acquiring knowledge, such as those high in verbal ability, were not especially skilled in promoting a positive learning environment and in helping the partner learn). The students in the present investigation studied text passages and were required to memorize and retain somewhat abstract material. Given this task, high-ability students may have had more difficulty in both offering help and giving help when

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requested (e.g., Webb, 1991). Provided with specific instructions on when and how to give quality instruction, individuals who are effective learners also may become effective learning facilitators.

Conclusions Although the current study has established the reliability of the learning facilitator role's contribution to performance in a cooperative interaction across learners and passages, an individual's performance was dependent more on his or her ability to learn and recall information than on his or her partner's ability to facilitate learning. Thus, within the context of a loosely scripted cooperative interaction, an individual's learning performance would not be strongly influenced by his or her partner. In practice, however, educators might choose not to pair students with partners who are high in public self-consciousness or high in self-monitoring. Partners who degrade others1 performance might be paired with one another or instructed to study individually. Similarly, individuals who engage in cooperative activities outside of the classroom might benefit more from choosing a learning partner with whom they felt rapport rather than choosing a partner who is high in cognitive ability. The overall impact of the learner role and the learning facilitator role on recall may differ if the partners undergo training in the cooperative task or if the cooperative interaction becomes more scripted. Knowing what to expect from the cooperative interaction would reduce selfawareness and anxiety. Publicly self-conscious individuals and high self-monitors might then be more successful in establishing rapport and facilitating their partners' learning.

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Appendix Cooperativeness Scale Factor loading Item 1. In school, too much time is spent on team "projects.""'6 2.1 like to cooperate with other students over academic work. 3. When I am with my colleagues/classmates, I do my own thing without worrying about them.b 4. Classmates' assistance is indispensable for doing well in college. 5. It is often difficult to work together with other people .b>c 6. It is more enjoyable to be responsible for your own efforts.** 7. It is often more productive to work on your own.b 8. Teamwork is always the best way of getting results. 9. If the group is slows me down, it is better to leave it and work alone.b

Preference for Preference for cooperation independent work — .67 .69 .58 — ,80 .66 .61 .71

Note. Loadings less than .40 were not included. Responses range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). a The first item failed to load above .40 on either factor. bItems are reversed scored. cItem 5 originally loaded positively on the "preference for cooperation" factor, however, because this item did not fit intuitively with the remaining items, it was excluded.

Received October 21,1996 Revision received June 9,1997 Accepted June 17,1997