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Another Piece Of The “Silence In Pbl” Puzzle: Students’ Explanations Of Dominance And Quietness As Complementary Group Roles, Vicki J. Skinner, Annette Braunack-Mayer, Tracey A. Winning

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

A problem-based learning (PBL) assumption is that silence is incompatible with collaborative learning. Although sociocultural studies have reinterpreted silence as collaborative, we must understand how silence occurs in PBL groups. This essay presents students’ explanations of dominance, leadership, and silence as PBL group roles. An ethnographic investigation of PBL groups, informed by social constructionism, was conducted at two dental schools (in Australia and Ireland). The methods used were observation, interviews, and focus groups. The participants were volunteer first-year undergraduates. Students attributed dominance, silence, and members’ group roles to personal attributes. Consequently, they assumed that groups divided naturally into dominant leaders …