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.