Quiet pupils can be effective learners

This paper investigates the importance for pupils’ learning of being generally visibly active participantin a classroom discussion. A class of six year-old pupils was taught about the human skeletalsystem and other organs. To determine what they had learnt, they were asked to produce drawingsbefore and after the course of teaching. The pupils’ participation in the class discussion during thecourse of teaching was given values on a scale from 1–8, the most talkative receiving the value 1 andthe least talkative (or most quiet) the value 8. The study showed that the less talkative the pupilswere in the discussion the more they gained from the teaching. The results could not be accounted forby ceiling effects and similar patterns obtained across the materials used support the robustness ofthe findings. The study suggests that it cannot be assumed that participating in classroom discussionduring the learning process is a necessary precondition for learning.