Effects of speech from a joint attention perspective on arithmetic problem solving in cooperative situations

Abstract

It is necessary to acquire the viewpoints of others and relate them to one's own ideas through interaction in cooperative situations. This study examined the effects of speech from a joint attention perspective (guided and tracked) on problem solving in three fifth-grade classes for learning formulas for finding the area of a figure, as speech that attempts to acquire another person's viewpoint. In order to clarify the effects of interactions that only cooperative learning situations can provide, which are not present in individual learning situations, this study analyzed the speech of the participants by distinguishing between their own speech and that of their partners. The results showed that the partner's tracking of the event that the actor had guided facilitated post-task problem solving. Furthermore, it was shown that the influence of such speech occurs in the problem of understanding formulas.