INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN DYADIC COOPERATIVE LEARNING

The impact of individual differences on the performance of 2 roles-lea rner and learning facilitator-was assessed during dyadic cooperative l earning. Eighty university students, 40 men and 40 women, participated in same-sex groups of 4. Each student cooperatively learned a text pa ssage with 1 partner and then learned a 2nd passage with another partn er. In a later session, the students recalled the information containe d within both text passages and completed several personality measures . A social relations analysis (D. A. Kenny & L. LaVoie, 1984) was used to partition the variability in recall for the passages into various sources. Variability in recall depended strongly on individual differe nces in learning ability and (to a lesser extent) on individual differ ences in the ability to facilitate others' learning. Differences in th e ability to learn text passages were independent of individual differ ences in the ability to facilitate others' learning. Effective learner s were high in verbal ability, whereas effective learning facilitators were low in public self-consciousness and in self-monitoring. The inf luence of cognitive and rapport factors on the performance of the lear ner role and the learning facilitator role is discussed.