Department of Education 21 Selected review findings  Small group discussions used in a wide variety of ways, and the term often used very loosely  Students often struggled to formulate and express coherent arguments and demonstrated a low level of engagement with tasks  Very clear evidence of teachers and students needing to be given explicit teaching in the skills associated with development of arguments and characteristics associated with effective group discussions  Groups functioned better when the stimulus used to promote discussion involves both internal and external conflict  Methodologically, there were two very contrasting approaches to analysis  Grounded theory  Use of existing analysis tools
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