ComPLuS model: A new insight in pupils’ collaborative talk, actions and balance during a computer-mediated music task

Abstract

This exploratory work describes and analyses the collaborative interactions that emerge during computer-based music composition in the primary school. The study draws on socio-cultural theories of learning, originated within Vygotsky’s theoretical context, and proposes a new model, namely Computer-mediated Praxis and Logos under Synergy (ComPLuS). In this model, peers’ dialogue is categorised into five types; disputational, cumulative, exploratory, operational, and reflective, with each one corresponding to different types of spoken contributions. Moreover, peers’ actions are categorised as individual or joint and are used to evaluate the effect of computer mediation on the collaborative activity and its balance within a pair. The potential and effectiveness of the realisation of the ComPLuS model in practice, as far as peers’ collaboration is concerned, are evaluated from its trialling in an experimental case-study, in which a group of 11-yr old pupils worked in pairs to compose short melodies using computers at the computer room of their school. Emphasis was placed upon the types of social modes of thinking with regard to pupils’ spoken contributions and talk types during their conversation; pupils’ actions when manipulating software, and the balance of talk and action between the pair members. Their ongoing peer–to-peer communication and actions formed the research data. A mixed (qualitative and quantitative) analysis revealed that peers usually adopted cumulative and exploratory talk. Moreover, the action type which dominated their work was based on a consensual decision. Nevertheless, it was found that lead on collaborative talk does not mean lead on joint action and does not always sustain a balance in peers’ collaboration. Experimentation with the music software, in conjunction with pupils’ musical background, facilitated their joint action, exploratory and reflective talk. However, audio feedback provided by the software did not seem to affect peers’ talk types. These results suggest that the ComPLuS model captures the characteristics of peers’ collaborative interactions during their shared discussions and actions, and can lead to a better understanding of the nature of computer-supported collaborative creativity in primary music education.

Introduction

There is a positive notion that interaction around computers can afford a particularly productive way of learning (Light and Littleton, 1999, Smeets, 2005). Indeed, one of the clearest benefits of computer-based lessons postulated in the literature is the fact that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) support new modes of learning, such as the collaborative one (Crook, 1994; Dillenbourg, Baker, Blaye, & O’ Malley, 1995). As Stahl points out “socio-cultural theories have been imported from cognate fields to suggest that cognition and learning take place at the level of dyads and/or groups as well as individuals” (Stahl, 2005, p. 79).

Various positions on this issue have been proposed and a number of theoretical perspectives have been recommended. In particular, the concept of communication, which can effectively facilitate learning conversations between learners in proximity, has been developed by examining how meanings and understandings can be shared by peers who construct knowledge by using language. In this way, language is used in new, functional ways. Following this perspective, it is worth while investigating, from a socio-cultural approach, learning as a language-based interactive process that can be subsequently and effectively affected by the use of computers.

Thus far, researchers have provided evidence of the potential value of computer-based talk among learners who work together towards a common task and become able to develop an understanding through their collaborative conversation (Mercer et al., 2003, Wegerif and Dawes, 1997). An emphasis has been placed on which types of talk are deployed during peers’ computer-based collaborative activities that appear to be important and beneficial for the learning process (Mercer, 2000, Wegerif and Mercer, 1996). As a result, there is a significant consensus about examining the potential of collaborative talk in different subjects, such as literacy, mathematics, geography, chemistry and so on.

However, despite this emphasis, very little empirical research has been carried out on how technology can reinforce collaborative strategies, particularly in the context of music education with a reference to the computer-based collaborative composition.

As a response to this lack, the current effort introduces the ComPLuS (Computer-mediated Praxis and Logos under Synergy¹) model. The latter is based on a conception of talk and action (the term action was approached as taking into account children’s interaction with a music software (Finale 2010, www.finalemusic.com) when they composed together) as a tool for thinking together, with computer software being treated as a resource for organising and focussing children’s involvement in compositional collaborative activities.

In this paper, learning through computer mediation is considered not only as an individual construction developed during the interaction with the computer but also as a social construction developed within the whole learning activity. Thus far, models are too simple to describe the complexity of collaborative learning that is based on the communication between learners through talk and action. Therefore, a framework has been created to describe firstly, the level of spoken contributions and the talk types they lead to and secondly the software-based actions as well as pupils’ actions combined with the kind of decisions accompanied by peers’ activities. Additionally, the introduced framework illustrates a systematic approach that has the potential to explore and interpret pupils’ computer-mediated collaboration without coaching before and during the collaborative session. Hence, the cognitive advantage of joint activity focussing on the collaborative interactions that occur when peers compose together are analysed and identified.

Some research focuses on examining learning aspects during collaboration, such as conflict and argument, or the articulation of participants’ thoughts (Crook, 1994), or specific speech-acts in talk that lead to productive interaction.² Nevertheless, the in-depth analysis of participants’ utterances during a joint music compositional task, which turns the collaborative interaction into a true collaborative effort, has not been yet examined in detail. Thus, the present work sheds light on a detailed analysis of peers’ (a) talk (i.e., investigating the learning processes when children are actively involved in pairs in a computer-based compositional task by identifying a variety of spoken contributions that lead to different types of collaborative talk), (b) actions (i.e., analysing pupils’ actions while they manipulate score writing software and the decisions accompanying those actions during the compositional process), and (c) balance (i.e., identifying the existence of any balance within peers’ collaboration), in order to model the nature of collaboration in a computer-based context with reference to music composition.

The present paper takes into account collaborative learning as a vehicle for musical creation, through which pupils in primary school can support one another and learn together how to create their own music works, i.e., to compose. Although composition of itself seems to be a solitary activity, carried out mostly by mature musicians and rarely by novice ones, like children,³ abstract forms (of composition) can be produced by children, mostly when they collaborate during music lessons. In that case, composition sets the framework wherein collaboration can help children to create together, and through their common creativity to learn differently. To this end, composition becomes a collaborative activity. In fact, it evolves through a process where an initially unspecified, or even fuzzy, musical idea/material that appears in children’s minds, gradually builds up in a structured pattern through their collaboration. During this process, the young children:

• Exchange knowledge through improvisation (Burnard & Younker, 2008);

• Assemble a mutual compositional task expressing their musical skills and provoking a wide range of mechanisms and interactions, which support a collaborative competitive elaboration between them; and

• Through their peer interactions, they learn to be socialised- upon Vygotsky’s (1962) socio-cultural theory through which human learning and development are fundamental social processes- and take benefits from the dynamics and cognitive outcomes of different peer relationships, such as friendships (Azmitia, 1996, Miell and Macdonald, 2000).

An important point in the compositional activity is the realisation of the difference between the listener’s and the composer’s time. During the compositional process, the composer can ‘freeze’ a moment that will finally last a few seconds (listener’s time), and work on it as long as s/he thinks it is necessary (composer’s time). This makes composing a time-free task, as the composer could spend a significant amount of time for a part of the piece that could just last for 2–3 s. This view is supported by Iannis Xenakis (1992), who has spoken for the in-time and out-time structures, clearly showing the way a composer handles the relationship between structure/form and time evolution. Consequently, during their work, pupils can refine a particular part of their composition regardless of time-limitations, thus deploying, their collaborative activities by expressing, discussing and improving their ideas on a mutual task at their own pace. In that way, a productive communication takes place within the collaborative context of learning. This communication can be expressed through their dialogue (discourse, and expressions of emotional arousal), and their actions when they manipulate with the software (e.g., scoring notes, tempo markings, change rhythm, dynamics, expression, articulation, and so on). Using the dialogue, at the beginning, the pupils externalise and share their general ideas for the composition. Then, through discussion, they have an opportunity to focus these ideas on the specific compositional task and explain them to their peers in detail, reasoning every step of their thought. In this way, the collaboration through the compositional context provides impetus for partners to develop greater understanding and establish common pathways between alternative views. As a result, the final product of the compositional task is an enhanced copy of what is already conceived in the peers’ minds, and involves a creative process in which the effort to collaborate guides the pupils to develop together new solutions that bridge their own understanding and thinking.

The interactions that take place during the process of selecting rhythm, timbre, tempo, harmony, and melodic elements, are expressed through pupils’ talk (based on common assertions, counter-assertions, comments, agreements, evaluations, clarifications, explanations, and so on) and can trigger compositional achievements. Hence, pupils discussing, describing, explaining and arguing develop their musical understanding and in the words of Wells (1987): “…learning through talk… children are active conductors of their own knowledge”.

Understanding the potential of new technologies and the way they can modify and re-shape the learning processes at a micro (cognitive) level seems one of the main concerns of current educational research in many different subjects. These issues are tackled from different perspectives.

Studies about how new technologies can be integrated in classroom practice are tried out to explore different possibilities. Teasley and Roschelle (1993) investigated the construction of shared knowledge in collaborative problem-solving in a computational context. They take the point of view that students’ work is based on a shared conception of the task. Crook (1994) indicates that collaboration can be seen as the result of a continuous attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem during a synchronous activity. He also describes certain computer-based interactions that he observed in primary school classrooms, where children were asked to work in groups on the same computer-based problem at the same time. He states that often computers may turn out to be a special resource for creating such opportunities as peers collaborate and ‘the important challenge is to determine when and how the creation of shared understanding is embedded in these lively interactions’ (Crook, 1994, p. 188). Jones and Issroff (2005) point out that there are some other significant features which can affect learners’ motivation during a computer-based collaborative task. Social affinity between partners is defined by the level of respect and a willingness to work together. Issroff and Del Soldato (1996) argue that cognitive ability is another feature which affects pupils’ motivation in collaborative work. Two different considerations can sketch out this perspective. The first one is that if one pupil is much more able that his/her partner s/he might dominate the collaboration while the less able student will have less input. This may be a problem if the less able pupil perceives his/her partner as more able and feels that there is no point in trying, or that it would be better for the more capable peer to complete the task on his/her own. On the other hand, less confident learners might prefer a partnership with more skilled colleagues, to increase their chances of success as a group or to have some assistance from them today in order to be able to do it by his/herself tomorrow (Vygotsky, 1978). In this situation although the matching might not be ideal for collaboration, it could in some cases still increase the individual motivation of the less confident partner.

Another distinctive feature of computers that makes them particularly suitable for computer-based collaborative compositional activities is their potential to provide iteration and provisionality. This provisionality consists of aspects of creativity. Creativity, as referred by Boden (1992, p. 63) ‘[…] involves exploration and evaluation’. In this way pupils construct new musical understandings through their exploratory activity. In other words, they could use trial and error methods as a way to test and deploy their compositional ideas. Indeed, computers, as Loveless, 2002, Burnard, 2007, and Mellor (2008) point out, can provide features which support the creative processes. One component which supports the trial and error method in pupils’ compositional activities is the feedback that ICT can provide on the compositional processes. Indeed, in the particular subject of music composition, feedback plays a significant role because pupils have to listen to their own piece of music and evaluate it by sharing new solutions, which are developed through a mutual respect between the collaborators involved. Here again, the potentiality of ICT afford peers the ability to hear their own music whenever they want, enabling them to make constant refinements to their work (Sutherland et al., 2002). This lends support to Mercer, Littleton, and Wegerif (2004), who indicate that computers can organise the process of joint activity much more effectively than a paper by providing feedback to peers activities. Feedback is one of the most pivotal concepts in motivation. Feedback involves providing learners with information about their responses and it can be positive, negative or neutral. Information processing theories tend to emphasise the importance of feedback to learning since knowledge of results is necessary to correct mistakes and develop new plans. In general, the more immediate the feedback, the more learning is facilitated. New technologies appear to be tools which serve a learning context where the pupils are able to get a feedback of what they have done. This feedback can lead to meta- cognitive activities, motivating children’s reflection and thus triggering effective learning (Hadjileontiadou, 2000, Nikolaidou, 2004) at the same time facilitating the collaboration between the partners (Del Soldato & du Boulay, 1996).

Following the above perspectives it could be argued that ICT can be integrated into music composition and considers the potential of using it as a tool to support pupils’ learning (Cain, 2004, Dillon, 2007, Gall and Breeze, 2008, Kwami, 2001, Mills and Murray, 2000, Wegerif and Dawes, 2004).

The socio-cultural approach emphasises the causal relationship between social interaction and the individual’s cognitive development (Baker, Tia, & Traum, 1999). The above notion can foster a connection between the cognitive development and children, with regard to the learning process (Rogoff, 1995, Vygotsky, 1978, Vygotsky, 1987).

Mercer (1995) in the same vein focuses on the nature of primary school children’s talk and he indicates three different types when they are working together to solve the problems at the computer in the context of the classroom. These three qualitatively types identify disputational, cumulative and exploratory talk. While the disputational talk is characterized as an unproductive disagreement due to the lack of a resolution (Mercer, 1995), cumulative talk simply adds uncritically to what has gone before (Mercer, 1995). The last one, exploratory, ‘[…] appears to offer a situated description of ‘reasoning’ and is of central concern in the educational area’ (Wegerif & Scrimshaw, 1997, p. 3). It is characterized as the embodiment of critical thinking, which is fundamental for successful participation in educated communities of discourse (Dillenbourg, 1999). It could be argued that this type of talk affords a distinctive social mode of thinking and that by using it pupils are able better to develop intellectual habits that will furnish them well across various learning situations.

Vygotsky (1978) heavily emphasised mediation and the role of tools in human practices. He defined the notion of mediated act, saying that mediation is the characteristic that allows humans to go beyond simple stimulus-response reflexes. He stated that humans make indirect links between incoming stimuli and the resulting responses through mediating links, which allows them to analyse human psychological functions as complex, mediated acts. Fundamentally based on the socio-cultural theory, children working in pairs or groups on a computer-based task appropriate culturally accumulated knowledge with the assistance of their peers and tools available in the circumstances.

Collaboration means to co-labour, to work together. It does not necessarily mean harmony or complete agreement with someone, but it does mean having a working relationship where shared interests are served through the processes of dialogue and cooperation. In collaboration, neither person’s perspective dominates. Instead, a perspective emerges through dialogue that neither person would have had independently. Hence, collaborative relationships are inherently creative.

Assertiveness and listening are complementary aspects of interpersonal communication. Both are essential, in varying degrees, if someone is to succeed in balancing her/his own and others’ needs, creating an atmosphere of effective collaboration and communication. Listening and asserting are not the same as hearing and speaking. Instead, they reflect which point of view is in someone’s consciousness at any given moment. When someone listens to others, s/he is allowing their point of view to prevail in her/his awareness; when s/he asserts, her/his point of view prevails. To collaborate, s/he must balance the two perspectives in her/his awareness and allow the synergies from those competing views to emerge as insight. The justification or not of the latter assumption is definitely reflected in peers’ dialogue during their collaborative activity. Moreover, peers’ actions can be used as a means to find additional information about the existence or not of a balanced activity in the joint task (Avouris, Margaritis & Komis, 2004). Using this index, they tried to quantify the balance in the activity of peers and associate it with peers’ skill balance. In another approach, Hadjileontiadou, Sakonidis, and Balafoutas (2003) studied the balance in peers’ collaboration at the end of each step of a case-study consisting of six steps. In their work, they introduced the area of balanced collaboration activity, where the quality of collaboration is maximised when peers converge to a balanced collaboration.

These ideas were used as a motivation to the current study to integrate collaborative talk, computer-mediated action and balance in the proposed ComPLuS model.