The silent participant in small group collaborative learning contexts.

There is an increasing acceptance in the education literature and in classroom settings for 'best practice' to be linked with verbal clarification of knowledge and reasoning, ideally in collaborative contexts where students construct both group and individual knowledge. Problem-based learning (PBL) is one such classroom context in which participation is viewed as leading to learning and where the nature of 'good' participation is verbal contribution. Students who choose to participate without speaking, or 'silent' students, are often seen as failing to learn, and significant tutor time is devoted to encouraging verbal input. This article examines the experience of four 'silent participants' (two overseas-educated and two local Australian) in a PBL context. The analysis reported in this article suggests that students' choice to be silent is a consequence of multiple constraints - personal, contextual and cultural - and that silence should not be taken to signify lack of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]