1. Participation in Dialogic Learning
Differences among presentations
Methodology (experiments, quasi experiments, correlational studies)
Emphasis on student-student vs. teacher-student interaction
Number of conversational participants (small groups to classrooms)
Duration of study (1 week to several years)
Goal of study (e.g., development of discourse norms, dialogue and leadership, dialogue and learning)
Variables measured
Conversational (e.g., talk about discourse, number of utterances, reasoned responses to others’ views, correct explanations, challenging others’ views)
Cognitive (e.g., science and math achievement, number conservation, spatial awareness, analogical reasoning, text comprehension)

2. Participation in Dialogic Learning
Commonalities across presentations
Evidence suggesting dialogue may have positive effects on short-term and long-term indices of thinking and learning
No systematic attention to role of motivation
Motivational assumptions rarely discussed
General belief that dialogue fosters “engagement”
General belief that dialogue should involve “cognitive challenge”
Suggestion that competition may foster engagement (Kuhn & Zillmer; Anderson)
Questions
What goals are activated in different conversational environments, and how do these goals affect conversation and cognitive outcomes?
How do students’ pre-existing goals affect their conversations and cognitive outcomes?

3. Potentially Useful Lines of Work
Cooperative learning (vis-à-vis competitive and individualistic learning)
Elliot Aronson; David and Roger Johnson; Robert Slavin
Consistent and wide-ranging effects
Academic achievement
Self-esteem
Intergroup relations
Acceptance of academically handicapped students
Attitudes toward school
Possible mechanisms
Self-interest (reward interdependence)
Interpersonal attraction
Cognitive elaboration

4. Potentially Useful Lines of Work
Socio-cognitive conflict
Gabriel Mugny, Willem Doise, A. N. Perret-Clermont; Fabrizio Butera
Socio-cognitive conflict = individuals have different responses to a problem and seek to achieve a joint solution
Produces extensive cognitive restructuring
Generalization across domains
Novel solutions
Moderated by several factors
Participants’ level of cognitive development
Participants’ relative status
Intensity of conflict
Mode of conflict resolution (social or cognitive)

5. Potentially Useful Lines of Work
Constructive controversy (vis-à-vis debate, concurrence seeking, individualistic effort)
David and Roger Johnson
Constructive controversy = two people’s ideas, information, conclusions, theories, or opinions are incompatible and they seek to reach agreement
Well-developed theoretical rationale (uncertainty, epistemic curiosity, information search, perspective taking, reconceptualization)
Necessary conditions: cooperative goal structure, skilled disagreement, rational argument, active involvement of all participants
Positive impact on wide range of achievement tasks, cognitive reasoning, perspective taking, task involvement, self-esteem, interpersonal relationships, ability to engage in political discourse

6. Potentially Useful Lines of Work
Achievement goals
Carol Dweck; Andrew Elliot; Judith Harackiewicz
Mastery goals (meet task-based or self-defined criteria) vs. Performance goals (outperform others)
Approach goals (improve skills; do better than others) vs. Avoidance goals (avoid skill decline; avoid doing worse than others)
Approach > > avoidance
Mastery > < performance
Current directions
Multiple goals approach: unique benefits of mastery and performance goals
Mechanisms: arousal/effort; depth of learning (how students study); learning agenda (what students study -- teacher vs. self)

7. Achievement Goals: Implications for Dialogic Learning
Regulation of socio-cognitive conflict
Epistemic regulation = focus on gaining valid knowledge open mindedness
Relational regulation = focus on demonstrating competence defensiveness
Darnon & Butera (2007); Darnon, Butera, & Harackiewicz (2007)
Mastery goals lead to epistemic regulation and better learning
Performance goals lead to relational regulation and worse learning
Exchange of information
Mastery and performance goals affect orientations toward others and willingness to share information with them
Poortvleit et al. (2007)
Mastery goals lead to reciprocity orientation and high info sharing
Performance goals lead to exploitation orientation and low info sharing

8. Potentially Useful Lines of Work
Group composition
Number of members
Characteristics of members
Demographic features (sex, race, age, SES)
Skills/knowledge
Values
Personality
Distribution of characteristics
Homogeneous
Heterogeneous
Balanced
Unbalanced
Majority/minority

9. Potentially Useful Lines of Work
Group composition (cont.)
Substantial research on how diversity affects group processes (e.g., communication, conflict) and performance
Many moderators have been identified (e.g., member characteristics, length of contact, type of task)
Substantial research on how members of numerical majorities and minorities process information from and are influenced by the other faction
Many moderators have been identified (e.g., faction size, social identity of majority and minority members, objective vs. subjective issues)
Substantial research on “stereotype threat,” in which members of social groups (often minorities) exhibit reduced performance when a negative stereotype of their group is activated
Anxiety about performance reduces working memory capacity

10. Potentially Useful Lines of Work
Group composition and learning in groups
Interactants with complementary information learn more than those with the same information (Lambiotte et al., 1988)
Introverts prefer collaborative over adversarial discourse (Nussbaum, 2002)
Many interesting questions remain…

11. Conclusions
Researchers who study dialogue and learning should (a) make explicit their assumptions about the role of motivation and (b) base these assumptions on evidence
Attention should be given to the range of epistemic and social motives that may operate in dialogue situations
De Dreu, Nijstad, & van Knippenberg (2008) – Motivated information processing in group judgment and decision making
Echterhoff, Higgins, & Levine (2009) – Shared reality: Experiencing commonality with others’ inner states about the world
Attention should be given to how situationally induced motives change during interaction and how pre-existing motives interact with situationally induced motives