Senior Carl, Howard Chris
Department of Psychology (SW509b), School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University Birmingham, UK.
Psychology Department, University of Derby Derby, UK.
Front Psychol. 2014 Sep 25;5:1031. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01031. eCollection 2014.
The role that student friendship groups play in learning was investigated here. Employing a critical realist design, two focus groups on undergraduates were conducted to explore their experience of studying. Data from the "case-by-case" analysis suggested student-to-student friendships produced social contexts which facilitated conceptual understanding through discussion, explanation, and application to "real life" contemporary issues. However, the students did not conceive this as a learning experience or suggest the function of their friendships involved learning. These data therefore challenge the perspective that student groups in higher education are formed and regulated for the primary function of learning. Given these findings, further research is needed to assess the role student friendships play in developing disciplinary conceptual understanding.
本研究调查了学生友谊群体在学习中所起的作用。采用批判现实主义设计，对两组本科生进行了焦点小组访谈，以探究他们的学习体验。“逐案”分析的数据表明，学生之间的友谊营造了社会环境，通过讨论、解释以及将其应用于“现实生活”中的当代问题，促进了概念理解。然而，学生们并不认为这是一种学习体验，也未表明他们友谊的功能涉及学习。因此，这些数据挑战了这样一种观点，即高等教育中的学生群体是为了学习这一主要功能而形成和规范的。鉴于这些发现，需要进一步研究以评估学生友谊在发展学科概念理解方面所起的作用。
