School promotes a child's progress in cognitive, moral, emotional and social domains, and it is the latter that was particularly important in the context of distance education due to the Covid-19 epidemic, as interactions with peers allow children to establish different types of relationships compared to interactions with adults.
Distance learning, which can take place due to various social circumstances, is characterised by the spatial and temporal separation of teacher and pupil, and is performed with the aid of ICT. Social interaction is of paramount importance for pupils, as it influences extrinsic motivation for learning and is essential for the development of a positive self-image, self-confidence and sense of identity. Distance learning significantly changes and reduces the opportunities for social interaction that pupils are used to at school, so it is important for the teacher to provide opportunities for peer interaction during distance learning as well. One of the effective forms of peer interaction is cooperative learning, where members of a group are in a co-dependent position and perform a common task with clearly defined roles, while also learning cooperative skills. This type of learning has a positive impact on achieving cognitive learning objectives, emotional-motivational objectives and psychomotor-skill objectives, and represents an interesting and active learning experience for the pupils.
In the empirical part of the thesis, we used a questionnaire to investigate the attitudes of fourth grade primary school pupils towards peer collaboration during regular school lessons and the forms, frequency and purpose of peer collaboration during distance learning. We were also interested in pupils' ability to use ICT, their attitudes, perceived benefits and preferences for peer collaboration according to gender and number of siblings. The sample includes 118 fourth grade children from different primary schools.
The results of the empirical study have shown that most pupils had positive attitudes towards peer collaboration during regular school lessons, and that pupils' attitudes generally did not differ by gender, nor were there significant gender differences regarding the perceived benefits of peer collaboration. The pupils surveyed mostly liked peer collaboration because they saw it as an interesting and active form of school work. On average, pupils who have no siblings had slightly more positive attitudes towards peer collaboration than pupils who have one or more siblings. We found that most of the pupils surveyed were able to collaborate with their peers using ICT, and that most pupils saw remote peer collaboration as a positive experience, while also wanting to collaborate with their peers more often. On average, however, pupils with no siblings were more likely to want more peer collaboration than pupils with siblings. We also found that during the time of distance learning, most of the communication between pupils was in written form, with the aim of discussing their free time at home or help with school work. Several times a week or every day, they also had the possibility of virtual meetings with the teacher.
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