Collaboration and learning with Logo: does gender make a difference?

The present study represented the final in a series of five which explored the performance of children in Logo tasks while they worked in one of three gender pairs (girl, boy or boy/ girl). Differences in perfor­ mance based on the gender of the pair had been appar­ ent in the early studies when specific types of tasks were presented as initial experiences in the new do­ main. The present study analysed the strategies and interactions of 30 pairs of children (mean age 7 years 3 months) in relation to three sets of tasks. The children worked with the screen version of Logo (LCSI) in tasks that required them to make accurate copies of given (Logo) figures and to direct the turtle up a path to a destination The results revealed that when the copy task was presented first and followed by the track task there were no significant differences in perfor­ mance in terms of accuracy or efficiency of moves made in order to reach the end of the path. This was a contrast to previous findings when the track task had been presented first. The current research illustrated that performance was moderated by the type of strate­ gies that were deployed and the nature of the collabora­ tion of the pairs.