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Learning from group work inscienceR. F. Kempa a & Aminah Ayob aa Keele University , Staffordshire, UKPublished online: 24 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: R. F. Kempa & Aminah Ayob (1995) Learning from groupwork in science, International Journal of Science Education, 17:6, 743-754, DOI:10.1080/0950069950170606

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INT. J. Sci. EDUC., 1995, VOL. 17, NO. 6, 743-754

Learning from group work in science

R. F. Kempa and Aminah Ayob, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK

This paper addresses itself to the question of how effective group work is in promoting 'learning fromothers'. It follows an earlier report in which verbal interactions between pupils engaged in group workwere analysed. The tasks attended to during the group work were all concerned with the planning ofscientific investigations.

The findings obtained indicate that a significant amount of 'learning from others' occurs as the resultof pupils being involved in group work: in the present case, about 40% of information points includedin pupils' independent written accounts had previously been contributed to the group discussion by otherpupils. However, the accounts also contained information points that had not been mentioned during thepreceding group discussions.

The extent of pupils' achievement and 'learning from others' in group work appeared unrelated totheir actual group behaviours, which suggests that even seemingly 'inactive' group members benefit fromtheir involvement in group learning experiences.

Introduction

In a previous publication in this journal (Kempa and Ayob 1991), we reportedon the nature and extent of verbal interactions among pupils engaged inproblem-solving tasks in science. The problem-solving tasks, which involved theplanning of investigations, were conducted by pupils working in groups (consistingof three or four pupils), without direct supervision by the teacher. The main findingsreported in our previous communication were as follows:

1. Interactions within groups were far from uniform in relation to both the totalamount of information exchanged among pupils and the extent to whichindividual pupils contributed to, or became involved in, the informationinterchange within a group.

2. Much of the talk within working groups appeared to take the form of'dialogues' between two group members at a time. The position of theremaining group member(s) during such 'dialogue' phases was uncertain:were they 'silent' participants in the interaction (acting as listeners), or werethey temporarily excluded from the discussion?

3. The 'cognitive level' of the information interchanged within groups tendedto be 'low' in the sense that it concerned mainly the transmission of factualinformation. Higher-level cognitive thinking (in terms of explanations orthe generation of— to the pupils - new insights) was practically absent from theverbal transactions.

As the foregoing findings indicate, the focus in the previous article was primarily onthe nature and quality of the verbal interactions within groups. What was notexamined then were (i) the learning outcomes resulting from the pupils' involvementin group work and (ii) the extent to which pupil participation in group discussions

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was associated with selected pupil variables, such as their academic ability andcertain personality traits. It is to these two aspects that we address ourselves in thispaper.

Learning front others in group work

In order to develop a concept of what constitutes 'learning from others in groupwork', let us consider a situation in which pupils 1 to n are engaged in collaborativegroup work, and where their individual contributions to the total informationgenerated within the group is Xi to Xn. For pupil 1, therefore, Xi represents theinformation contributed by him/her, whilst contributions X2 to XM (which wouldhave come from the other group members) form a 'resource' from which he/she canactually learn as the result of having been involved in the group work. Suppose nowthat we measure a pupil's total knowledge acquisition from the group work after thelatter has been completed. If we are able to distinguish in this between thoseknowledge items that were originally contributed by the pupil to the groupdiscussion and those that originated from the other group members, then we couldregard the latter as representing the pupil's 'learning from group work'.

In putting forward this argument, we are in effect assuming that—had the pupilworked on his/her own, rather than in a group setting - he/she would not have arrivedindependently at the knowledge items that were taken over from the other pupils.No evidence was obtained during this study on the basis of which the validity of thisassumption could have been judged. (This would have required a separateinvestigation, comparing the outcomes of problem-solving when undertaken bypupils individually or in groups, respectively.)

It has to be stressed that the notion of 'learning from others' developed aboveis not the same as 'achievement' resulting from his/her involvement in a grouplearning activity. The latter can simply be defined as the total knowledge items orinformation points acquired by the pupil through the group work, regardless of theiractual origin. Figure 1, shown further on in this report, analyses the relationshipbetween the two measures. What is important at this stage is to realize that 'learningfrom others' and achievement are measures by which the effectiveness of group workmay be judged. Therefore, in the present study, attention was paid to each separately.

In the present study, the actual determination of achievement and 'learning fromothers' in group work was based on pupils' written accounts of solutions to theproblems worked on by the groups. These accounts were prepared by pupilsindividually, immediately upon completion of the group activity. Details about theactual evaluation of pupils' written accounts are given below.

An alternative, or even complementary, approach to the determination of thelearning outcomes from group work would have been to interview pupils andsubsequently to analyse the transcripts of such interviews. This approach was notchosen, however, for two reasons: (i) it would have led to a considerable time intervalbetween the learning experience and the testing, at least for some pupils; (ii) it wouldhave been difficult to conduct such interviews without any prompting.

Pupil characteristics and participation in group discussions

The issue of what makes pupils contribute to group discussions is intrinsically verycomplex. It may be suggested that the extent to which contributions to such

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LEARNING FROM GROUP WORK 745

discussions are made depends on certain pupil characteristics, such as ability andacademic attainment, as well as personality variables. However, the general working'climate' that exists within a group may also represent an important factor in thiscontext, although 'climate' itself is a difficult concept when considered in detail.The work by, e.g., Walberg (1969) and Walberg and Anderson (1968) on 'classroomclimate' bears this out. In the present study, only a limited attempt was made toexplore factors affecting pupils' contributions to group discussions, by focusing ona small range of pupil characteristics.

The choice of the pupil characteristics was based on two assumptions. The firstwas that the higher a pupil's academic competence and achievement, the moresignificant might be his/her contribution to a group discussion. The second was thata pupil's 'personality' might also influence his/her participation in the group activity:in particular, pupils' 'extroversion' and 'introversion' were regarded as being ofpotential importance in this context.

The actual measures used for determining the two sets of pupil characteristicsare described in the following section.

Experimental details

The student sample, the problem-solving tasks and the methods for recording andanalysing interactions in group work used in this study were fully described in ourprevious publication (Kempa and Ayob 1991). Information relevant to this paper,but not described previously, concerns the measures of pupils' academic competenceand attainment and of their 'personality traits' that were used. This information isnow given.

Measures of academic competence and attainment

Because of the unpredictability of administering standardized ability or IQ tests, itwas decided to accept the results of the Malaysian 'RSP' (Lower Certificate ofEducation) examinations as valid measures of pupils' academic competence andattainment. These examinations are conducted at the end of the lower secondaryeducation phase (at age 15 + years) and result in pupils being graded in individualsubjects according to a nine-point scale. Pupils receiving the top two grades (1 and2) are officially described as 'high achievers', those in the next four grades (3 to 6)as 'medium achievers' and those in the two next lowest grades (7 to 8) asiow achievers'. The lowest grade category (9) represents 'failure'.

For all pupils in the sample, RSP grades for Science, Mathematics and MalaysianLanguage were available. For ease of use and interpretation, points for the 1—9 RSPgrading scale were converted to points on a 9—1 rating scale, to avoid the inverserelationship between academic attainment and grade.

Measures of personality traits

Pupils' personality was measured using a Malaysian adaptation of the JuniorEysenck Personality Inventory (Eysenck 1965). This instrument, which describespersonality in terms of two dimensions (namely extroversion/introversion andanxiety/stability), is a self-rating questionnaire that requires pupils to respond tostatements like 'Do you like mixing with other children?' and 'Do ideas run through

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your head so that you cannot sleep?' on a 'yes/no' basis. The inventory comprised24 statements relating to the extroversion/introversion dimension, and 24 statementscovering the anxiety/stability trait.

Extroversion and anxiety scores were used solely for correlational purposes;hence, actual score levels are not reported here.

Results and discussion

The results are presented and discussed in two sections. In the first, the focus is onpupils' achievement in, and learning from, group work; as part of this, we alsoexamine the relationship between learning from group work and the group behaviourvariables about which we reported in our previous paper. In the second section, therelationships between group behaviour variables and selected pupil characteristicsare explored.

Section 1: Achievement and learning in group work

As argued above, a distinction has to be made between pupils' achievement resultingfrom group work and their 'learning from others'. The exploration of these twoaspects requires different measures to be used, as explained below.

Pupils' achievement in group work: For the purpose of determining this, four differentcomponents of the problem-solving tasks* were considered:

A: the identification and choice of the variables to be measured during theexperiment and the variables to be controlled;

B: the selection of apparatus and materials required for the problem-solvinginvestigation;

C: the working procedure to be adopted and arrangements made for conductingthe measurements;

D: proposals for the treatment and evaluation of the measured data.

Information relating to these components, contained in pupils' written problemsolutions, was assessed on a 0-3 point scale, with the scale points defined as follows:

3 = comprehensive and correct answer;2 = incomplete answer, but information correct;1 = vague and confused answer, but relevant to task;0 = no answer given, or only irrelevant information provided.

Thus, on combining the point scores for the four components, an overallachievement score (QUALANS) was obtained, out of a maximum of 12.

Table 1 summarizes the achievement results across the four tasks employed inthe study. It shows that mean performances on the various components of the fourproblem-solving tasks were fairly similar, except for Task 1 where low mean scoreson both components A and D helped to suppress the overall mean scores, comparedwith the remaining ones. Nevertheless, detailed analysis of the score data, alsoconsidering the spread of scores, indicated that no statistical significance could be

* For a concise description of these tasks, see appendix to this paper.

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Table 1. Achievement in group work: summary of results.

Task

1234

No. ofpupils

22252316

Mean

A

101-5101-9

score on

B

2-52-42-61-9

component

C

2-02-22-72-3

assessment

D

1-52-02-11-6

Total mean

(QUALANS)

7-08-18-57-7

Actualscore range

2-114-117-102-12

attributed to the differences between mean scores for particular components; hence,the four tasks were deemed to be sufficiently similar to warrant their unifiedtreatment.

From the results as a whole, it appears the pupils' performances on componentsB and C exceeded those on the other two components. In particular, the firstcomponent (choice of variables to be measured and to be controlled, respectively)produced consistently low-quality answers. This may be taken as evidence thatpupils find this aspect of problem solving rather more difficult than others. Therather low mean scores on component D, for two of the tasks, are largely the resultof an inadequate articulation, on the pupils' part, of a procedure for translating theirobservations or measurements into solutions to the problem.

The data in table 1 do not, of course, allow any conclusion to be drawn aboutthe effect of pupils' involvement in group work on their achievement. All that canbe said is that, by and large, a reasonable level of achievement resulted from the groupactivities. Whether a lower achievement level would have resulted if the tasks hadbeen carried out by pupils on an individual basis cannot be judged from the dataobtained in this study.

Learning from others in group work: It is appropriate at this stage to restate that, forthe evaluation of 'learning from others', two types of information were used: (i) theknowledge/information points that had emerged in the course of a group discussion,and (ii) the knowledge/information points given by pupils in their written answersto the problems posed. The latter could be divided into three subcategories:

(a) information points that had been contributed by the pupil to the discussion;(b) information points contained in a pupil's answers that had been contributed

to the group discussion by other pupils; and(c) information points that had not been mentioned during the discussion, but

were shown in the pupil's answer.

Figure 1 shows the relationship between these types of information and theirsubcategories, as used for the data analysis. It also acknowledges that some of theinformation points contained in pupils' written answers had not been mentionedduring the preceding group discussion.

In accordance with our earlier argument, variable (b) represents a direct measureof 'learning from others'. However, two relative measures may also be considered:the information points in subcategory (b) as a proportion (percentage) of theinformation points in a pupil's written answer, including or excluding, respectively,those information points that had not been mentioned during the group discussion.

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Total number of information pointscontained In pupil's written answer

Information pointsderived from

group discussion and

Information pointsNOT derived fromgroup discussion

contributed byparticular pupil

contributed byother pupll(s)

Figure 1. Scheme for the analysis of 'learning from others' in group work.

The additional measures are referred to in the following text as variables LEARN andUPTAKE.

Table 2 summarizes the relevant data for the evaluation of 'learning from others'in group work, for the four problem-solving tasks, and lists the mean values of LEARNand UPTAKE, together with their standard deviations. It is evident that pupils'written problem solutions contained, on average, between five and eight informationpoints that had originally been contributed by other pupils. When expressed as aproportion of the total information in pupils' written answers, this amounted toapproximately 40 ± 5% (LEARN) or to approximately 50 ± 5% when informationpoints not raised during the discussions were excluded (UPTAKE).

The raw mean data for the various information categories in table 2 indicate thatthe mean numbers of information points are to some extent task-dependent. In thisrespect, the difference between Tasks 2 and 4 is particularly substantial, but this islargely a reflection of the tasks themselves and of the amount of detail they inducedpupils to write down. When the two relative measures of 'learning from others'(LEARN and UPTAKE) are considered, the differences between the four tasks arestatistically not significant, as determined by one-way analysis of variance.

In the light of the foregoing finding, it may be suggested that pupils' involvementin group learning does lead to an enrichment of their thoughts and insights and thatthis reflects itself in the quantity and, perhaps also, the quality of the informationwhich they carry into their written answers. Some caution has to be associated withthis conclusion, however, for three reasons. First, in the study reported here,no attempt was made to examine separately pupils' performances on theproblem-solving tasks when these had to be tackled through individual, rather thangroup work. An extension study of this type would need to be undertaken before theissue of 'group work versus individualized work' could be resolved with greatercertainty.

Second, as table 2 also reveals, pupils' written answers invariably containedinformation items that had not been mentioned during the group discussions. Onaverage, these accounted for between 12 and 23% of the total information given inthe written answers. Thus, it may be concluded that the pool of information pointsmade in the course of a discussion is not the only resource on which the pupils drawwhen formulating their written answers: some 'insights' are evidently not disclosed

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Table 2. 'Learning from others' in group work: summary of results.

Variable

Mean number of information points on

Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4(N=22) (JV=25) (AT =23) (JV= 16)

Overallmean

(N = 86)

F-ratio(Significance

level)

Mean for group of size

3 pupils 4 pupils

Mean number of informationpoints in pupils' written answers

Mean number of informationpoints in written answers takenover from other pupils

Mean number of informationpoints in pupils' written answersthat appeared during foregoingdiscussion

Mean number of informationpoints in pupils' answers thathad not been mentioned duringthe group discussion

LEARN*

UPTAKE*

36-5(17-2)

48-1(23-7)

400(21-5)

45-5(25-6)

40-8(17-0)

49-1(20-3)

44-6(19-2)

54-9(21-7)

40-2(18-7)

48-9(22-9)

0-58(NS)

0-95(NS)

37-7(15-1)

450(190)

42-7(21-8)

52-9(26-0)

* Figures in parentheses denote standard deviations.

r>JO

5o73

pO73

o

I50?5

16-3 12-5 15-8 19-4 15-7 — — —

5-8 50 6-3 8-1 6-1 — — —

12-6 11-1 13-4 161 130 — — —

3-7 1-4 2-4 3-4 2-7 — — —

^ 1

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during group discussion, with the result that these remain 'private' to the pupilconcerned.

Third, the present attempt to define 'learning from others' in terms ofinformation points taken up by pupils from other group members, though entirelyjustified, must give rise to the question of whether the origin of an idea can necessarilybe inferred from whether or not a particular pupil overtly contributed it to thediscussion. It is entirely conceivable, of course; that the same idea might have beenheld, or thought of, by a pupil who then either failed to communicate it or was 'beatento it' by another.

The explanation for this is that, in the larger groups, individual pupils'contributions add fewer information points to the discussion; consequently, theproportion of such points taken over from others will then increase.

The points just made all indicate the complexity of defining and determining'learning from group work' in a valid and unambiguous way. Whilst the presentstudy demonstrates, in our view, that genuine learning does result from group work,further research is needed to resolve the additional questions raised here.

Section 2: Group behaviour and other pupil characteristics, and learningfrom group work

In the introductory part of this paper, the question was raised as to whether pupils'achievement in, and learning from, group work is, in any way, related to their groupbehaviour and to other characteristics such as their intellectual abilities and certainpersonality traits. It is to this question that we turn our attention now. We do so intwo different subsections. In the first, the focus is on the relationship between groupbehaviour and learning from group work; in the second, we examine the relationshipbetween learning from group work and the selected pupil characteristics.

Group behaviour and learning from others in group work: The group behaviourvariables studied in our investigation were described in detail in our previous paper(Kempa and Ayob 1991). As was explained there, the focus was on the explorationof pupils' verbal interaction during group learning activities. Of the interactionvariables measured and investigated in the previous study, the following appearedto be relevant to the present context and were, therefore, selected for furtherconsideration.

TUR: the number of task-unrelated utterances contributed by a pupil to thediscussion in his/her group;

TR: the number of task-related utterances made by a pupil in the course of thediscussion;

IP: the number of 'interpersonal utterances' made by the pupil (including,e.g., the seeking and giving of advice, or seeking approval);

CI: the number of items of 'cognitive information' provided by the pupil.

As explained in our previous communication (Kempa and Ayob 1991), IP and CItogether make up TR.

Table 3 presents the results of the correlational analysis of the variousachievement and 'learning from others' measures and the foregoing group behaviourvariables.

Looking at the QUALANS variable first, which expresses the quality of pupils'written answers, it is seen that it correlates moderately strongly with two of the

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Table 3. Relationship between achievement and 'learning from others' ingroup work and group behaviour variables.

Achievement or'learning fromothers' variable

QUALANSLEARNUPTAKE

Total

0-28**-0-34**-0-37**

Utterances during discussion

Task-related (TR)

Interpersonal(IP)

0-22-0-29*-0-29*

Cognitiveinformation

(a)

0-34**-0-36**-0-43

Taskunrelated

(TUR)

-0-060-11001

Note: * denotes p< 0-01; ** denotes p< 0001.

utterance variables, i.e., the total number of task-related utterances made by a pupiland the number of 'cognitive-information' points contributed by him/her to thediscussion. The latter is, of course, a subset of the former, so that the two correlationsare essentially of similar nature.

It is not easy to interpret the foregoing positive correlations with absoluteconfidence. There is no a priori reason why the QUALANS variables, which ispredominantly concerned with the quality of a pupil's answers, should be related tothe number of information points contributed by him/her to the discussion: the latteris a measure of quantity, since no distinction was made, in the evaluation of thediscourse, between correct and incorrect contributions. We may suggest, in the lightof the present finding, however, that those pupils who are in a position to contributecognitive information points to a discussion are those who have a clear grasp of thenature of the problem and are thus also in a position to produce the best writtenproblem solutions.

All correlations for the 'learning from others' variable (LEARN and UPTAKE) arenegative and highly significant statistically. This is basically as expected: the lowerthe number of (task-related) contributions made by an individual to the groupdiscussion, the more points appearing in that pupil's answer are likely to stem fromothers.

It should be noted that the amount of task-unrelated talk showed no significantcorrelation with any of the achievement or learning variables. However, it has to bestated that the general level of task-unrelated talk in the various working groupsparticipating in the present study was rather low, as we reported in our previouspaper.

Achievement and learning from others in group work, and selected pupil characteristics:We now turn our attention to the relationship between pupils' achievement andlearning from others in group work, and the measures of their academic ability andpersonality. For the sake of completeness, the analysis is extended to cover therelationship of the latter measures with the two main group behaviour variablesTR and TUR. Table 4 presents the correlation coefficients between these variables.

As is evident, most of the correlation coefficients are of low magnitude and failto reach an acceptable level of statistical significance. Of the academic ability

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Table 4.

RESEARCH REPORT

Correlation between group learning and behaviour variables, andselected pupil characteristics.

QUALANSLEARNUPTAKETask-related talk

(TR)Task-unrelated talk

(TUR)

Science

012- 0 0 6- 0 0 1

019

- 0 0 6

Ability measure

Mathematics

011-0-11- 0 1 0

0-15

0-08

Language

042***-0-20-0-31**

0-31**

- 0 1 6

Personality

Extroversion

0-15-0-27*-0-29**

013

0-36**

variables

Anxiety

0020-03

- 0 0 10-04

-0-07

Note: *denotes/><0-05; **denotes />< 0-001; ***denotes p< 00001.

measures, neither science nor mathematics attainment appears to have any bearingon pupils' learning behaviour in groups or on their achievement and 'learning fromothers' in group work. Pupils' linguistic attainment is, however, significantlycorrelated with several of these variables. First, a fairly strong positive correlationis seen to exist between pupils' linguistic ability and the quality of their writtenanswers to the problem-solving tasks (QUALANS). Similarly, a moderately positivecorrelation appears with regard to the amount of task-related talk contributed bypupils to the group discussion.

A plausible explanation for these positive correlations is that all the groupbehaviour and learning variables to which they refer are concerned with'communication', either in the verbal or the written form. The fact that thecorrelations are particularly strong for the 'transmission of cognitive information'(Cl) and the quality of pupils' written problem solutions (QUALANS) suggests thatlanguage skill is an important factor in the formulation and articulation of thoughtsand ideas.

The negative correlation with language skill observed for the LEARN variablefollows naturally from the fact that, as a pupil's contribution to a group discussionincreases, the number of information points that can be taken over by him/her fromothers in the group obviously decreases. This makes for an inverse relationship.

Neither of the personality variables correlated significantly with any aspects ofpupils' task-related talk. The moderately strong positive correlation between pupils'extroversion and their contribution to task-unrelated talk is noteworthy. It suggeststhat the more extroverted the pupils are, the more likely are they to stray from alearning task. However, as was pointed out above, pupils' engagement intask-unrelated talk was generally rather low and, for most groups, did not constitutea major interference with the performance on the problem-solving task.

Finally, a comment is warranted on the negative correlation between pupils'extroversion and the extent of their 'learning from others'. Since no significantrelationship was observed to exist between extroversion and the TR variable, thisnegative correlation cannot be explained in terms of the number of task-relatedcontributions made in a group discussion. Therefore, an alternative explanation hasto be sought. We suggest the following: the more extroverted a pupil is, the less likelyis he/she to pay attention to the contributions of other pupils to a group discussion.

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As a result of this, extroverted pupils tend to take over fewer information pointsgenerated by other group members.

Conclusion

This paper has addressed itself to the question of how effective 'working in groups'is in promoting learning on the part of individuals engaged in such work. In this,particular attention has been given to the extent to which individual pupils learn fromothers with whom they work in group settings.

In relation to both these issues, the findings from the present study areencouraging. Apart from indicating a generally satisfactory level of achievementfrom group work, they also demonstrate a significant amount of 'learning fromothers' to have occurred, in the sense of pupils including in their written answerspoints of knowledge and insight that had initially been contributed by other pupilsto the group discussions.

The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the task-related comments andobservations made by pupils in the course of a group discussion represent a major'shared' (knowledge) resource from which the pupils can, and do, learn.

However, as the present results also show, knowledge and information pointsraised in, and contributed to, a group discussion do not represent the only 'resource'on which pupils draw when demonstrating their learning. A not insignificantproportion of information points appearing in pupils' individual answers had notbeen mentioned during the group discussions —these have clearly to be regarded asthe result of 'private' knowledge gained by them.

In our previous paper, we reported that pupils' participation in group discussionshad been very uneven. According to the present findings the level of pupils'participation in group discussions is not a significant correlate of the extent of theirachievement and 'learning from others' in group work. This must by regarded asa positive and encouraging finding for those who have advocated group work as asound strategy for learning.

Arguments in advocacy of group work are, of course, not restricted to thoseconcerned with learning and learning outcomes. They also include reference to suchgoals as 'learning to work with others', 'learning to organize oneself (Ayob 1990).The present study has not looked at these aspects. Thus, there remain furtherimportant research tasks to be tackled, in an attempt to develop a sound basis fordeveloping pedagogical and managerial strategies for group work.

ReferencesAYOB, A. (1990). Study of learning interactions in group work in secondary science. Doctoral

thesis, Keele University, UK.EYSENCK, S. B. G. (1965). Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory. London, University of

London Press.KEMPA, R. F. and AYOB, A. (1991). Learning interactions in group work in science.

International Journal of Science Education, 13 (3), 341-354.WALBERG, H. J. (1969). Social environment as a mediator of classroom learning. Journal of

Educational Psychology, 60, 443-448.WALBERG, H. J. and ANDERSON, G. L. (1968). Classroom climate and individual learning.

Journal of Educational Psychology, 59, 414—419.

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Appendix. Brief description of problem-solving tasks used

Task 1 —'Ice-Drink': In this, pupils are asked to plan an investigation to find outwhich kind of container (metal, glass, plastic) and what ways of 'insulating' it(immersion in water, wrapping with a dry or wet towel) would keep an ice-drink coldfor the longest period of time. Critical aspects of this investigation include the controlof experimental conditions to ensure that comparable results are obtained and theadoption of a meaningful operationalization of 'keeping cold longest'.

Task 2—'Bouncing Ball': This task requires pupils to plan an investigation intothe 'bouncing' behaviour of three balls (of different sizes) on different surfaces.A particularly interesting aspect of this task, in addition to others, is how 'fairness'in testing can be ensured.

Task 3-'Paper Towel': This task concerns the planning of an investigation to findout which kind of paper towel (three different kinds of 'kitchen towel') will hold mostwater. Among the issues to be considered here is the meaning and operationalizationof the term 'holding water' as well as the identification of an approach that will resultin a meaningful answer.

Task 4—'Fertilizer': This task is about planning an investigation to establish whichof the fertilizers would make house plants grow faster. Critical issues here arethe interpretation and operationalization of the notion of 'fast growth', but also the'control' of growing conditions, e.g., exposure to light, dampness of soil, etc.

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