The Development of Productive Vocabulary in Knowledge Building: A

Longitudinal Study

Bodong Chen, Leanne Ma, Yoshiaki Matsuzawa,and Marlene Scardamalia

Institute for Knowledge Innovation and TechnologyCSCL • June 9, 2015 • Gothenburg

LANGUAGE AND DEVELOPMENT

Sociocultural Theory(Vygotsky, 1978)

• Child development extends across social, conceptual, linguistic, and cultural competencies– Learning is a sociocultural process

– Learning is mediated by tools, symbols, and language

Language and Learning

• Word knowledge is critical for:– Verbal and listening skills

– Reading comprehension

– Learning new concepts(e.g., Biemiller, 2005; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Steahr, 2009)

• The more words a student knows, the easier it is for them to access new resources and learn more (Stahl, 1991)

Instructional Approaches(Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989)

Direct Instruction Whole-Language

Mechanical approachFocus on componentsMemorize/apply rules Structured, linear process

Authentic, situated approach

Focus on function Preserve meaning

Dynamic, emergent process• Language is a sociocultural

artifact

In Knowledge Building it is not enough that students incorporate new words into their speech and writing, they need to incorporate new word meanings into their thinking and into their contributions to collective knowledge spaces, where these terms can be further discussed and elaborated. (Resendes et. al., 2013)

Knowledge Building

• Collective goal is to create and refine community knowledge

• Principle-based pedagogy– Idea diversity

– Continual idea improvement

– Collective cognitive responsibility

Knowledge Building(Scardamalia, 2002)

Knowledge Forum

CURRENT STUDY

Objectives

• To explore students’ productive

vocabulary growth over

elementary years within a

Knowledge Building context

• To expand CSCL literature with

longitudinal study

Methods

• Longitudinal cohort study of KB class

– 22 students in Toronto, Canada

• Data sources– KF notes

– KF activity logs

Question 1

How did students’ productive

vocabulary change over the span

of six years?

– Lexical proficiency

– Rate of vocabulary growth

Lexical Proficiency

• Lexical richness– Total tokens and types

• Lexical frequency profile– First 1000 words (Laufer & Nation, 2000)

– Second 1000 words (Laufer & Nation, 2000)

– Academic words (Coxhead, 2000)

– Other words

Vocabulary Growth

• Appearance of new words each year– First 1000 words (Laufer & Nation, 2000)

– Second 1000 words (Laufer & Nation, 2000)

– Academic words (Coxhead, 2000)

– Other words

Question 2

How are Knowledge Building

behaviours related to changes in

students’ productive vocabulary?

– Reading

–Writing

– Revising

FINDINGS

Overview of KF Activity

Grade Created Read Revised

1 15.1 63.10 12.33

2 18.43 73.95 9.33

3 19.71 182.00 14.76

4 21.74 235.63 18.89

5 12.85 67.38 8.38

6 10.17 48.17 8.25

Question 1

How did students’ productive

vocabulary change over the span

of six years?

– Lexical proficiency (i.e., lexical richness,

lexical frequency profile)

Lexical Richness

Grade Tokens Types

1 208.10 98.90

2 159.48 72.38

3 114.48 65.10

4 176.53 85.21

5 498.38 146.69

6 366.23 122.85

Overview of Vocabulary

• First 1000 words

1091

• Second 1000 words 331

• Academic words 105

• Other words

635

Lexical Frequency Profile

Grade 1st K 2nd K Acad Other

1 89.2 4.21 2.31 4.28

2 87.1 6.43 0.54 5.96

3 80.6 6.76 4.50 8.14

4 82.2 6.82 2.80 8.23

5 82.4 4.47 1.35 2.72

6 86.1 1.53 11.8 6.77

Question 1

How did students’ productive

vocabulary change over the span

of six years?

– Rate of vocabulary growth

Vocabulary Growth

Question 2

How are Knowledge Building

behaviours related to changes in

students’ productive vocabulary?

– Reading

–Writing

– Revising

*p <.05** p <.01*** p <.001

KB & Lexical Proficiency

Create Read Revise

Token .15 .07 .23**

Type .29*** .17* .42***Vocabular

y size.81*** .55** .77***

Vocabulary

Growth

.23*** .07 .35***

KB Discourse: Definition

What is claymore? My theory is that it is a type of [pottery] wheel.

I think a claymore was a type of big expensive sword that only the richest nobles or or "earls" owned.

C

D

My theory [is] its a very big Scottish [sword].

E

KB Discourse: ContextHow does gravity work? Is it a force in the ground that pulls you down or something in the air that pushes you down?

I think gravity comes from the core of the Earth or the core of other planets. The gravitational pull pulls us down towards the core, making us go down and stay down. Just like the way the sun's gravitational pull pulls all of the other planets around it in a circle or oval.

F

G

KB Discourse: Context

How does gravity work in the middle of the earth?

Gravity is: the downward pull of the earths gravitational field. The more gravity pulling an object the more the mass of the object is.

H

I

SUMMARY

Question 1

How did students’ productive

vocabulary change over the span

of six years? – Tendency to produce more tokens, more

unique word types over the years– Growth rate for different types of words

varied across each year but correlated with each other

Question 2

How are Knowledge Building

behaviours related to changes in

students’ productive vocabulary? – All behaviours were related to lexical

proficiency measures to varying extents– Note revising is the strongest predictor of

vocabulary growth rate

Future Directions

• Comparison groups (e.g., demographics)

• Classroom context– Role of teacher– Face-to-face interactions– Social network analysis

• Embedded, transformative assessment– Individual and group-level analytics– Lexical indicators of conceptual development

and KB advances

We ought to assume that there is potential for a collective zone of proximal development in any classroom, and that within it there is at least some potential for the students to move toward higher levels of agency. (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991)