Social-cognitive interactions, motivation, and cognitive growth in Logo programming and CAI problem-solving environments.

Extending earlier work by D. H. Clements and B. K. Nastasi (1985, 1988), this study investigated whether children working in two educational computing environments—Logo and computer-assisted instruction (CAI) problem-solving—exhibited differing amounts of behaviors indicative of cooperative interaction, conflict and resolution, effectance motivation, and self-evaluation. Ss were 12 fourth and 28 sixth graders randomly assigned to Logo or CAI. Toward the end of 42 treatment sessions, Ss working in pairs were videotaped. Children in Logo evinced more cognitively oriented conflict, attempts at and successful resolution of conflicts, rule making, and pleasure at discovery. Resolution of cognitive conflict more than the occurrence of conflict predicted problem-solving performance and accounted for treatment effects on problem solving. Findings suggest that Logo may foster cognitive growth through opportunities for resolving cognitive conflict and may enhance effectance motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)