The impact of working memory capacity on collaborative learning in elementary school students

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Xuejiao Du¹  Cong Chen¹  Hongxin Lin¹ 

[1] College of Education Science, Ludong University;Department of Food and Medicine, Weihai Ocean Vocational College

关键词: working memory capacity;    Collaborative Learning;    Elementary school students;    individual learning;    working memory resource depletion;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1027523

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Working memory capacity may be a critical factor that influences the effectiveness of collaborative learning, but no studies have directly explored this effect. Using worked examples as learning tasks, Experiment 1 used a 2 (working memory capacity) x 2 (learning format) factorial design to examine the effects of collaborative learning versus individual learning of 4th-grade Chinese elementary school students with different working memory capacities. High-capacity learners displayed less working memory resource depletion and better transfer performance during collaborative learning than individual learning. In contrast, no differences were found among the low-capacity learners. Collaborative learning benefitted high-capacity learners but not low-capacity learners, per our observation. To further optimize collaborative learning for low-capacity learners and expand the findings to heterogeneous collaborative learning, Experiment 2 adopted a 2 (group capacity) x 2 (member capacity) factorial design to explore the effects of member and group working memory capacity on collaborative learning in heterogeneous groups. High-capacity members displayed less working memory resource depletion and better far transfer performance in high-capacity groups compared to low-capacity groups. Simultaneously, all members had better near transfer performance in high-capacity groups compared to low-capacity groups. Both member and group working memory capacities influenced the effect of heterogeneous collaborative learning. However, low-capacity members only partially benefitted from collaborative learning in high-capacity heterogeneous groups.

【 授权许可】

CC BY