Reconsidering Jigsaw Social Psychology: Longitudinal Effects on Social Interdependence, Sociocognitive Conflict Regulation, Motivation, and Achievement

Abstract

Jigsaw is a peer learning procedure based on the assumption that making "children treat each other as resources" (Aronson Patnoe, 2011, p. 8) stimulates cooperation among equals. Using a short-term, longitudinal experimental design in 14 sections of an undergraduate human anatomy laboratory, we contrasted this perspective with the idea that Jigsaw's two-group composition actually elicits a mix of opposing social-psychological processes and outcomes. Supporting this view, students' perceptions of social interdependence and sociocognitive conflict regulation covaried over time with each other and with motivation and achievement. Likewise, rather than solely elicit cooperation, Jigsaw students initially reported higher levels of competition and individualistic efforts than students in a business-as-usual (BAU) control, and lower levels of epistemic regulation. These trends then reversed over time, but the magnitude of increasing cooperation and decreasing competition and individualistic efforts among Jigsaw students never exceeded that of BAU students. In fact, at the end of the semester, the only significant differences between Jigsaw and BAU were for relational regulation and academic achievement. Overall, these findings provide a much more complete but complicated portrait of Jigsaw social psychology and its eff