Abstract
While virtual learning environments (VLEs) present several advantages, such as space-time flexibility, they are still not including proper opportunities and resources for students to engage in collaborative activities with their peers. Recent approaches, for example, are based on resources that are not standard for VLEs or usual for students. Thus, their integration with VLEs is not simple. This paper conducted a theoretical investigation to identify strategies that could induce collaborative behaviours in students. These strategies were implemented as learning objects running in a VLE and a quasi-experimental research design was conducted with 133 students. The results show that the approach promotes collaborative interactions between students and also tend to improve their learning outcomes. Moreover, learning objects use a conceptualization that is already established over the e-learning community, simplifying their integration with VLEs.
Highlights
The Distance Learning (DL) technology has allowed several higher education courses to be delivered to locations and populations that have historically not been afforded opportunities for involvement in such an educational level (Money and Dean, 2019; Randolph, 2007)
Courses that provide limited forms of interaction tend to present feeble outcomes (Kearsley, 2000) and this is the main reason to create strategies that enforce collaboration. We corroborate these affirmations but, differently from these approaches, our study aims to induce collaboration by means of object learning designed as resources that are already usual for online students
Q1 – Which concepts could be used to induce collaboration in educational settings? This study presented three concepts, or forms of interaction, that can be used to induce collaboration in small groups: argumentation, explanation, and mutual regulation
Summary
The Distance Learning (DL) technology has allowed several higher education courses to be delivered to locations and populations that have historically not been afforded opportunities for involvement in such an educational level (Money and Dean, 2019; Randolph, 2007) This style of education often falls short of what it attempts to accomplish (Choi and Park, 2018; Kumar et al, 2017). The study of Blom et al (2013) says that “the peers find support from one another for solving the tasks and several students regard the social format as being natural because they are already used to the idea of engaging
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