Collaborative learning from an analogy

Analogy is an important mechanism of learning: by implicitly or explicitly comparing examples, people are able to abstract common structural features (cf. Gentner, 1989) or generalize over them (Ross & Kennedy, 1990). Our study investigated how analogical learning occurs in a group using complex material. We identify a correlation of roles with specific analogical learning processes, and related to that a repeated cycle of analogical learning with apparently varying learning outcomes.