Context Of Computer-supported Collaborative Learning Research Articles

Role Scripting as a Tool to Foster Transactivity of Asynchronous Student Discussions

Transactivity of student discussions is crucial in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). However, CSCL learners often lack well-developed argumentation and negotiation skills, which makes it challenging for them to engage in and maintain a transactive discussion. Collaboration scripts have been implemented in CSCL contexts and have demonstrated positive effects on students' collaboration and argumentation skills. Yet, the degree of transactivity of student interactions is rarely addressed directly in CSCL research. Employing a qualitative content analysis approach, this study seeks to understand how a role script affects the transactivity of students' argumentative knowledge co-construction in the context of a multicultural master's degree CSCL course. The study employs an experimental design. The results demonstrate that students in the scripted condition produced more contributions on higher levels of argumentative knowledge construction than unscripted students. However, tutor involvement may be necessary to ensure proper script appropriation.

Assessing learners’ perceived readiness for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL): a study on initial development and validation

The main purpose of this study was to develop an instrument that assesses university students’ perceived readiness for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). Assessment in CSCL research had predominantly focused on measuring “after-collaboration” outcomes and “during-collaboration” behaviors while “before-collaboration” assessment was rarely studied. Given the nature of high learner agency and self-directness necessary in CSCL contexts, it was assumed that a sufficient level of student readiness for CSCL could promote positive attitudes and behaviors during the collaborative learning process and subsequent learning outcomes. Considering the importance of a before-collaboration status, this study proposes the new notion of students’ readiness for CSCL (SR-CSCL) and presents a set of criteria to theoretically define and empirically measure the perceived level of SR-CSCL. Drawing on prior research on CSCL and readiness issues, we developed the SR-CSCL instrument with a three-dimensional framework consisting of: (a) motivation for collaborative learning, (b) prospective behaviors for collaborative learning and (c) online learning aptitude. The SR-CSCL instrument was validated with the university students in China in the pilot study (N = 120) and the main study (N = 295). Overall, the results showed some evidence of reliability and validity for the proposed instrument. This study presents an empirical assessment tool that can help instructors and researchers better understand and investigate how to assess and increase students’ readiness levels in order to enhance their learning experiences in CSCL environments.

Exploration of the cognitive regulatory sub-processes employed by groups characterized by socially shared and other-regulation in a CSCL context

The current study examined how collaborative groups use cognitive regulatory sub-processes within a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) context, and how these sub-processes were enacted differently for groups primarily characterized by their socially shared or other-regulation. Toward that end, the synchronous chat logs from three tasks of two collaborative groups, a socially shared relative to an other-regulation group, were qualitatively analyzed for planning, monitoring, and evaluation processes. Findings indicated that both groups maintained a high quality focus on content monitoring. The pathways for both groups differed, given the jointly coordinated planning and task monitoring of the socially shared group relative to the efficient but fully guided planning and task monitoring for the other-regulated group. Results suggest that content monitoring can play a key role in the high quality joint activity in both groups because of synergy among the cognitive regulatory sub-processes.

Enhancing socially shared regulation in collaborative learning groups: designing for CSCL regulation tools

For effective computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL), socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL) is necessary. To this end, this article extends the idea first posited by Jarvela and Hadwin (Educ Psychol 48(1):25–39, 2013) that successful collaboration in CSCL contexts requires targeted support for promoting individual self-regulatory skills and strategies, peer support, facilitation of self-regulatory competence within the group, and SSRL. These (meta)cognitive, social, motivational, and emotional aspects related to being/becoming aware of how one learns alone and with others are for the most part neglected in traditional CSCL support. Based upon a review of theoretical and empirical studies on the potential of and challenges to collaboration, three design principles for supporting SSRL are introduced: (1) increasing learner awareness of their own and others’ learning processes, (2) supporting externalization of one’s own and others’ learning process and helping to share and interact, and (3) prompting acquisition and activation of regulatory processes. Finally, an illustrative example is presented for how these principles are applied in a technological tool for supporting SSRL.

Distributed Educational Influence and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

This article introduces a line of research on distributed educational influence (DEI) that has recently been developed by the research group to which the authors belong. The main hypothesis is that in computer-supported collaborative learning contexts, all participants are potential sources of educational influence (EI). According to this hypothesis, the success of collaboration and its outcomes depend on the extent to which participants take responsibility for being both providers and recipients of aid, such that EI becomes adequately distributed among the group as a whole. The paper is organized into four sections that deal respectively with: (1) the concept of DEI, its origin and its characteristics, with special attention being paid to the demands inherent to the exercising of EI in online collaborative learning; (2) an empirical approach to the study of DEI, based on case studies and a multimethod perspective that combines structural analysis of participants’ activity with content analysis of their contributions; (3) a review of some interesting results obtained so far and some questions that remain open; and (4) proposals for how the study of DEI could help to enrich research on online collaborative learning.

Sustaining learning design and pedagogical planning in CSCL

This paper tackles the issue of learning design and pedagogical planning in the context of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). In this sector, we witness the same variety of approaches and tools that we find in the technology-enhanced learning (TEL) research field. In particular, in the CSCL context, notions such as “Collaborative Learning Flow Patterns” (CLFP) or “collaborative scripts” have been used to describe and/or run online collaborative learning activities and, consequently, tools have been implemented to reify these concepts and visualise the designs. Despite the differences, most of the existing tools support the representation of learning designs that are already “in the designer’s mind”, while fewer tools specifically aim to provide guidance and support to CSCL designers in the early phases of the design process, that is, when they have to make critical decisions concerning the educational approach, the tools to be used, and the ways to engage the target population. This paper, while focusing on this gap in CSCL research, proposes a unifying model, aimed at supporting pedagogical planning and decision making in the CSCL design process based on the interplay of four model components: Task, Teams, Time and Technology.Keywords: computer-supported collaborative learning; design process; 4Ts model; learning design(Published: 16 September 2013)Citation: Research in Learning Technology Supplement 2013, 21: 17585 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v21i0.17585

New Frontiers: Regulating Learning in CSCL

Despite intensive research in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) over the last decade, there is relatively little research about how groups and individuals in groups engage, sustain, support, and productively regulate collaborative processes. This article examines the role of regulatory processes in collaborative learning and how CSCL environments can be used for shared regulation of learning. First, we establish the importance of regulation processes and introduce three types of regulation contributing to successful collaboration: self-, co-, and socially shared regulation of learning. Second, we illuminate two strands of seemingly diverse research that lay an important foundation for supporting and researching regulation in CSCL contexts establishing that (a) computer-based pedagogical tools used to successfully support regulation in individual learning contexts can be leveraged for collaborative task contexts, and (b) computer-based tools for supporting collaborative knowledge construction can be leveraged for supporting regulatory processes. Finally, we draw on emerging research in our own programs of research to demonstrate how regulation can be supported and researched in CSCL environments. The article concludes by charting a course for future CSCL research focused on supporting regulated learning in collaborative task contexts.

Are online learners frustrated with collaborative learning experiences?

<p>Online education increasingly puts emphasis on collaborative learning methods. Despite the pedagogical advantages of collaborative learning, online learners can perceive collaborative learning activities as frustrating experiences. The purpose of this study was to characterize the feelings of frustration as a negative emotion among online learners engaged in online computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) experiences and, moreover, to identify the sources to which the learners attribute their frustration. With this aim, a questionnaire was designed to obtain data from a sample of online learners participating in the Master of ICT and Education program of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). Results revealed that frustration is a common feeling among students involved in online collaborative learning experiences. The perception of an asymmetric collaboration among the teammates was identified by the students as the most important source of frustration. Online learners also identified difficulties related to group organization, the lack of shared goals among the team members, the imbalance in the level of commitment and quality of the individual contributions, the excess time spent on the online CSCL tasks, the imbalance between the individual and collective grades, and difficulties in communication, among other factors leading to frustration. The analysis of the students’ sources of frustration in online CSCL is followed by a list of recommendations to the distance education stakeholders, aiming to reduce students’ frustration and improve the quality of their experiences in online CSCL contexts such as the UOC.</p>

Scenario-based orchestration of Web 2.0 applications in university teaching and learning processes: a case study

In the context of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), Web 2.0 applications are increasingly being used for Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL). The paper presents the main principles of Web 2.0 and develops the hypotheses derived from the central aspect of collaborative learning. These hypotheses refer to the significance of Web 2.0 for the technical support of various collaborative teaching/learning scenarios within the TEL approach. With an example scenario, the paper demonstrates how Web 2.0 applications can be orchestrated to support a CSCL scenario in face-to-face classes and the effects that this will have on the cooperative learning process of students.

Does Individual Tutoring Produce Optimal Learning?

This research examined teaching and learning combinations that tested the relative impact on student achievement when students were paired with one other student or a large group of same-age peers, and when students worked with a teacher or did not. The comparison took place in a computer-supported collaborative learning context. The results reported here demonstrated that access to a teacher or a large group of same-aged peers were equally potent learning resources in computer supported collaborative learning environments. Analyses further confirmed that students working in groups and students individually tutored by a teacher learned and achieved more on a battery of tests than children who worked with only one other child partner. These results differ substantially from a large body of research reported to date ( Bloom, 1984 ; Hughes & Greenhough, 1995 ; Radziszewska & Rogoff, 1991 ; Rogoff, 1990 ).