Students’ Personality and Susceptibility to Persuasion during Mathematics Groupwork: An Exploratory Study

  The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand how and to what extent personality traits, positionality, and content knowledge influence students’ susceptibility to persuasion during groupwork. Personality surveys, recorded videos, and semi-structured interviews provided evidence to support the findings. The findings confirmed that individuals who have low levels of conscientiousness or high levels of neuroticism are more likely to be convinced during a group activity. Additionally, individual background of content knowledge influenced the group persuasion process. A rich body of content knowledge about a subject area helped students feel that they were more confident; those who had confidence were more actively involved in discussions and firmly stood by their own opinions during the social persuasion process. However, the findings indicated there was not a link between susceptibility to persuasion and learners’ sociocultural factors. These findings provide educators with insights for improving the design of constructive groups in the mathematics classroom.