A study on the applications of information-sharing concepts to the teaching in elementary school

Abstract

Shared and retrieval are used for knowledge exchange in learning-groups. Whether a student is willing to contribute knowledge to a shared system presents a educational dilemma: Each student saves time and energy by not contributing any information to the system and by using the system only to retrieve information which was contributed by others. But if all students use this strategy, then the system will be empty and, hence, useless for every student. Based on theoretical approaches, one model for fostering the information-sharing behavior of system students are presented in education. Our empirical study examined the influence of information-sharing on learning outcome and learner satisfaction in e-learning environments. Three different settings were studied: two were e-learning environments - with information-sharing, and non-information-sharing. The third was the traditional classroom environment. Results of the experiment showed that the value of knowledge management for learning effectiveness was contingent upon the provision of information-sharing. Students in the e-learning environment that provided information-sharing achieved significantly better learning performance and a higher level of learner satisfaction than those in other settings. However, students who used the e-learning environment that provided non-information-sharing did not improve either. The findings suggest that it may be important to integrate information-sharing into e-learning systems.