What differentiates productive from unproductive adolescent groups engaged in collaborative problem-solving: A qualitative systematic review

Abstract

Peer interaction is widely recognized as one of the important factors of cognitive development,especially in constructivists and sociocultural approach. Having in mind that global demands forcollaborative problem-solving (CPS) have sparked investigations of peer interaction in the educationalcontext, we have reviewed research findings within that setting. We chose adolescents considering theiradvancements in cognitive and socio-emotional prerequisites to embrace and consider different viewsregarding argument exchange, in comparison to younger children, and their higher potential to furtherdevelop those competencies compared to the older population. Our main goal was to make a qualitativesystematization of studies investigating face-to-face peer interaction within school context in order toextract characteristics which differentiate productive from unproductive groups of adolescents engaged in CPS. The literature inspection using research strings within the three databases (PsycInfo, WoS, ERIC)yielded 5,256 human studies published in English between 2012 and 2022, which are uploaded toCovidence. The systematic narrative literature review was conducted in the form of an inductivedeductivethematic analysis of 160 papers, selected from the mentioned sample aligned with the stepsin PRISMA guidelines. Interrater reliability was excellent (Cohen’s κ=.92; agreement percentage = 97%).We extracted six major themes differentiating productive from unproductive adolescent peer groupsdialogues during CPS. The first was named Socio-Cognitive Aspects of Collaboration, associated with thequality of idea exchange and its potential to be a solid base for joint construction ofmeaning/knowledge. The second, Socio-Emotional Aspects of Collaboration is related to social andemotional processes in a peer group during problem-solving. The third theme entitled The Quality ofTask/Problem-Solving Strategies is pertained to adequate reasoning and approaching the problem. Thefourth and fifth groups describe two types of regulation within a peer group, one oriented towards theproblem/task itself (The Regulation of Group Activity Oriented Towards the Task) and the other towardsparticipants in the process (The Regulation of Group Activity Oriented Towards Group Members). Thesixth one, Participant Engagement, reflected on the nature of adolescents’ involvement in CPS. Thenumber of identified themes describing peer dialogue during CPS has revealed the enormous complexityof social interaction and numerous factors influencing it. The obtained results are in accordance withsimilar literature reviews (Howe & Abedin, 2013; Asterhan & Schwarz, 2016; Gillies, 2016) but seem tohave a particular focus on the quality of peer interaction and cover a broader spectrum of its features.Besides theoretical, our findings have practical implications and serve as a guidebook for teachers eagerto contribute to productive collaboration between students in their classroom, but also for researcherswho seek deeper understanding of the nature of peer interaction in order to develop new interventionsfocusing on productive dialogue features and prevention of unproductive peer interaction.