ABSTRACT
In this entry, we review small group learning research and discuss practical implications concerning the use of cognitive with social interactional processes in collaborative activity. This review accounts for empirical research beginning in the mid-1990s, when the field began to recognise between-group variation in academic achievement, shifting from an earlier study of group structure and individual cognitive processes for explaining individual achievement outcomes. This paradigm shift forefronted the group as a collective and as a primary subject of study, refocusing the field on the investigation of interactional processes among members of the group. Given that collaborative group activity is fundamentally social, researchers soon realised that cognitive processes, which explained the variations of highly functioning and productive groups, depended on and were interrelated with the socioemotional and motivational processes operating within the group (Barron, 2003); this study of the cognitive with the social is the primary subject of this synthesis. We close our discussion with recommendations for policy and future research.
