A Comparative Study of Individual Instruction by a Teacher and Peer Communication in Student Groups

Abstract

In this research project, we investigated the educational effects of two teaching methods. The first method involved one teacher working with one student on the process of observation. In the second method, two students worked together. First, we classified the students involved into two types by their EFT results. The students who got a high EFT grade were classified as the field independent type, and the students who got a low EFT grade as the field dependent type. In one group, which we called an 'instruction group,' a teacher explained the process of observation to individual students of both types. In the other group, which we called a 'communication group,' we had two students, one a field dependent type and the other a field independent type, communicate together freely. In each group, we made students write down their discoveries and observations. We classified their discoveries into twelve categories and compared the number of students or teams in each category within the instruction group and the communication group. The result was that the students in the communication group noted more points of interest than the students of the instruction group in two categories: slope and fault.