The effects of social learning context and modeling on persistence and dynamism in academic activities

The authors investigated 138 third- and fourth-grade students’ responses to failures and successes in a mathematics computation task in four experimental conditions varied by the two independent variables of social learning context and modeling. Interaction effects indicated that a collaborative learning context increased students’ persistence following failures and dynamism after successes in a nonmodeling group, and modeling enhanced persistence and dynamism in an individual learning context. The enhancing effects of the collaborative learning context can be best explained by the familiarity with the problem solving, and the enhancing effects of modeling may be best explained by the identification between students and the model. Findings from this study demonstrate the motivational advantages of both collaborative learning and modeling.