聽他們在談些什麼？探討兒童在操作不同學習軟體時的談話差異

Computer Partners' Conversations as an Indicator of Children's Perceptions of More and Less Structured Learning Software

本實驗讓六十位小二學童兩人一組，同儕合作操作開放式與封閉式軟體各兩次，並分析操作時之談話、訪問偏好。本文以內容分析法將談話分為十類：順序安排、情緒反應、操作方法、簡單敘述、無關任務、策略運用、質疑建議、解釋說明、頓悟及評估。學童操作封閉式軟體時有較高比例之順序安排、情緒反應、策略應用、頓悟與評估談話，可能是軟體之問題比較類似課堂所學有正確答案，學童能依據所學採用策略並評估表現。操作開放式軟體時有較高比例之操作方法、簡單敘述、質疑建議與解釋說明，可能是軟體所提供之問題無固定解決方法，學童較需為策略辯護。學童大都較喜歡開放式軟體。操作軟體時推理性的談話比例不高，顯示教師需要教導學童如何溝通討論。

In this study, sixty 2nd graders, randomly paired, played cooperatively, in two separate sessions, with（a） more open-ended and（b） more structured, drill-andpractice- oriented software. Children’s conversations while playing with the software and their preferences for different kinds of software were examined. Content analysis was applied to examine children’s talk. Ten categories were identified, including taking turns, emotion, technical, simple descriptions, strategies applied, reasoning, evaluation, questions/suggestions, realization and others. The data indicated that, while playing with the structured, drill-andpractice oriented software, such as mathematics perfect, children’s conversations showed that they were more emotional, took turns more often, applied more strategies, and did more evaluating. Thus it seems that this kind of software, with its more clearly-defined goals, stimulated less talk about technical problems, and that each child was more confident and more willing to fight for his turn. In addition, children engaged in relatively more strategy-related talk while working on this software. In contrast, while playing with the open-ended software, such as zoo paradise, children engaged in more technically-related talk and were more concerned with reasoning their decisions, questioning other’s choices, and suggesting alternative selections. With this software, some children automatically asked their partners to take over when they were struggling with the task. It seems that the more open-ended software included tasks that forced children to justifytheir own actions and hypotheses, which rarely occurred when they were using the more structured software. In contrast, the more structured software included clearly-defined tasks forced children to applied strategies learned in math class. The data also indicated that most children prefer the open-ended software to the structured, drill-and-practice oriented software. It seems that students actually preferred to be challenged more in authentic tasks than in homework-like tasks.