III. Attitudes
1. Definition of Attitudes
Allport (1935: 810) defines an attitude as «A mental
or neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a
directive or dynamic influence on the individual's response to all objects and
situations to which it is related». It is, then, a psychological
state of the individual of viewing or perceiving something or a situation that
concerns them. It can be either positive or negative. Another definition of
attitudes is provided by Eagly and Chaiken (1993: 01) who say that an attitude
is «a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a
particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor». This means,
an attitude is expressed by assessing something or someone either positively or
negatively. For example, a teacher proposes to his students a new method of
doing tests, some students may have positive attitude toward this, they will
like the idea and will be curious to discover it and try it while other may
have negative attitudes, they will not like the idea and they will still prefer
the old one and they will not have any readiness to try it.
2. Importance of Attitudes
While conducting a study about a subject, it is important to
know the attitudes of the people concerned. In this study, the teachers of ICTs
and the students of Master One are the participants. Reid (2003: 33) declared,
«Attitudes are important to us because they cannot be neatly separated
from the study». An attitude determines outcomes and helps to know to
what extent can the thing succeed or fail and it also defines what our actions
will be, whether to
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Chapter I: Review of the Literature
adapt the thing, technique or strategy or not; and in our case
whether collaborative visualisation can be adapted or not and to what extent it
can succeed.
IV. Theoretical Framework
1. G. Erkens' Coordination Process Theory
(2005)
Coordination, according to the Online Cambridge dictionary, is
«The act of making all the people involved in a plan or activity work
together in an organized way». Thomas and Crowstone (1993: 90)
provided another definition which is «Coordination is managing
dependencies.» This means that if there is no interdependence, there
is nothing to coordinate. In collaborative learning, it is essential for
students to coordinate and increase their efforts to join a common goal.
Indeed, they construct knowledge through interaction. «A collaborative
situation may be defined as one in which two or more students work together to
fulfill an assigned task within a particular domain of learning to achieve a
joint goal» (Cohen, 1994, cited in Erkens et al., 2005: 466).
According to Erkens et al., (2005: 466) collaborative learning
encourages three main processes. The first one consists of the mutual
activation and share of knowledge and skills which is a process in which all
the students should participate for an exchange of information and knowledge
and skills. This can be seen in group activities and exposés where
students share knowledge and exchange information and it is noticed that some
students ask their mates rather than their teachers to better understand the
given topic.
The second process is grounding or creating a common frame of
reference, this enables the group members to understand each
other for an effective communication .There will probably be different
perceptions because each member has his experiences and skills. If students are
given an assignment they need to have this ground, they need to share the
knowledge about the topic; otherwise, they will not collaborate to complete the
task. For
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Chapter I: Review of the Literature
example, a teacher divides the class into groups and gives
each group a statement and asks them to explain it. If the members of the group
do not have common information, if they do not refer to the same ground they
will not be able to collaborate and accomplish the task.
The third one is negotiating and coming to an agreement. It is
natural for everyone to have their personal opinions, beliefs and perceptions
of things. In this process, students will try to attain agreement between them.
For example, when a teacher gives students a pair work, every two students are
supposed to read a given text and extract the most important information from
it, one of them may find what the second finds important not important and may
be the contrary, here they find themselves in a situation where they have to
negotiate these information and come to an agreement and select the appropriate
information and accomplish. Within these processes, three activities can be
distinguished, Erkens et al., (2005:466). First, focusing in which students
should try to maintain the discussion by showing interest. It is done by asking
questions, suggesting ideas, etc. Then, checking which occurs by asking
questions of clarification enables students to check whether the other group
members agree or disagree with the proposals. Finally, argumentation in which
students should ask verification questions, show agreement and give many
examples, and this is a good strategy for argumentation to finish with a
solution that satisfies everyone.
All this can be summarised in what has been said by Erkens et
al., (2005: 466),
In earlier research we found that this coordination is
realized by a complex interaction between task related strategies, cooperative
intentions andcommu nication processes during collaboration. In the
collaborative learning situation the learning results will be influenced by the
type of task, the composition of the group, the complementarily in expertise of
the participants, the resources and tools available, and the educational
climate. In order to achieve the common goal the collaboration partners will
have to coordinate their activities and their thinking. They will have to
activate their knowledge and skills and will have to establish a common frame
of reference in order to be able to negotiate and communicate individual
viewpoints and inferences.
This means that to realise coordination, there should be a
certain relationship between techniques used in collaborative activities,
cooperation and communication during a
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Chapter I: Review of the Literature
collaborative activity .In addition to this; for better
results, there should be a successful collaboration which realises when
students share knowledge and information among them, when they share the same
frame of reference, and when they negotiate, and all this is related to
communication, since all these procedures are involved in it and by following
each time these processes, students may promote their communication skills .
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