INTERACTIONS IN LABORATORY SETTINGS
Experimental work in school science laboratories traditionally
involves students working in small groups.3 Some research
studies in this area have explored the effect of individual traits,
such as gender, prior knowledge, and personality, on the
outcomes of group work.14 Recent investigations have focused
on the role played by social process during collaboration,
looking to characterize the interdependence among practices,
processes, and conditions leading to co-construction of
knowledge in different learning situations.13,15,16 These types
of studies pay close attention to the content and function of
classroom discourse as elicited through the analysis of student−
student and student−teacher interactions.