This dissertation examined small group learning in a Masters level pre-service teacher education course at a large urban university. The project looked at small group learning from two vantage points: individual semi-structured interviews regarding students' opinions about factors which facilitate or impede small group work, and discourse analysis of two audio-recorded discussions by small learning groups. Findings from the interviews were used to identify a focus for the discourse analysis phase of the study.

Although interviewees had generally positive impressions of small group work, they expressed concern about problems related to unbalanced participation in some groups. Thus, analysis of small group discussions focused on the distribution of participation within groups and on the discourse strategies members used to develop and control participation in the discussions. Based on transcripts of the discussions, analyses were made of frequency and distribution of topic initiations, frequency and distribution of speaker turns, and verbatim conversational strategies which served to shape relative participatory roles.

Generally speaking, the small group discussions displayed patterns of balanced participation, despite the tendency of one participant to assume a project leader type of role. Analysis of conversational excerpts revealed that participants employed discourse strategies to equalize status and build collaborative relationships among group members. The discussions displayed patterns of both “positive politeness” and “negative politeness,” as these terms have been defined by Brown and Levinson (1987).