A quantitative study of the differences in ideas generated by three different opportunities for classroom talk

This paper reports the productiveness of different modes of classroom talk - whole class, pair work and individual. The data collected points to pair work as providing the optimum conditions for participant effort and product iveness of ideas. Whilst whole class talk is more focused, more productive in terms of total ideas and covers a greater percentage of possible ideas, it suffers from a low participation rate. Individual work demands the most effort bur produces idiosyncratic results. Pair work, in being both partici patory. and productive, is most suitable for teachers working under the pre ssure of time. Teachers with more time to spare should seriously consider p lanning lessons with opportunities for all three modes of classroom talk, a s each offers different benefits. In producing ideas about a burning candle , Egyptian science teachers did not show any differences in the epistemolog y of ideas produced with different opportunities for talk, but the distribu tion of ideas categorized according to chemistry topic did vary according t o opportunities for classroom talk.