Identifying a transition period at the midpoint of an online collaborative activity: a study among adult learners

This case study describes the group development in an online learning group. Adult learners enrolled in a MBA partially delivered at a distance were observed during fifteen weeks to better understand the group development of an online learning group. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to capture the dynamic of social interactions within the group and some affective reactions of members. The results revealed a transition period at the midpoint of the collaborative activity showing a decline of task-oriented communications, motivation and positive mood from this period. Results were discussed through models of group development validated in face-to-face environments. Some implications were proposed to facilitate online activities in computer-supported learning groups.     

Effects of face-to-face versus chat communication on performance in a collaborative inquiry modeling task

In many contemporary collaborative inquiry learning environments, chat is being used as a means for communication. Still, it remains an open issue whether chat communication is an appropriate means to support the deep reasoning process students need to perform in such environments. Purpose of the present study was to compare the impact of chat versus face-to-face communication on performance within a collaborative computer-supported modeling task. 44 Students from 11th-grade pre-university education, working in dyads, were observed during modeling. Dyads communicated either face-to-face or through a chat tool. Students’ reasoning during modeling was assessed by analyzing verbal protocols. In addition, we assessed the quality of student-built models. Results show that while model quality scores did not differ across both conditions, students communicating through chat compressed their interactions resulting in less time spent on surface reasoning, whereas students who communicated face-to-face spent significantly more time on surface reasoning.     

The influence of students and teachers characteristics on the efficacy of face-to-face and computer supported collaborative learning

In this paper we compared the efficacy of face-to-face and computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) in increasing academic knowledge and professional competences. We also explored how students’ personality characteristics and learning strategies and teachers’ characteristics were associated with better learning outcomes in online or face-to-face contexts. One hundred and seventy students participated in 10 community psychology seminars, five online and five face-to-face. Academic and professional learning increased for participants in both settings. Tutors’ characteristics did not influence students’ learning. Students who performed better in online and in face-to-face contexts differed in some psychological variables and in their learning strategies. Overall results show that asynchronous collaborative learning online can increase professional competences normally learnt only in small face-to-face educational settings, and that CSCL can be used to provide innovative educational opportunities that fit particular needs of students with low anxiety, high problem solving efficacy, who have time management problems in their learning strategies.     

Computer-supported team-based learning: The impact of motivation,enjoyment and team contributions on learning outcomes

The benefits of teamwork and collaboration have long been advocated by many educational theories, such as constructivist and social learning models. Among the various applications of collaborative learning, the iterative team-based learning (TBL) process proposed by Michaelsen, Fink, and Knight (2002) has been successfully used in the classroom without computer support. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation results of a classroom application of the TBL process, which was modified to include computer mediation. We call this process computer-supported team-based learning (CS-TBL). This work extends learning in small teams from the traditional classroom to the hybrid classroom where students meet both face-to-face and online by emphasizing the importance of online team interactions. The outcomes are assessed through an evaluation model that considers the impact of motivation, enjoyment and team contributions on learning outcomes. The study results indicate that motivation influences the relationship between team interactions and perceived learning. Enjoyment is affected by motivation and perceptions of team members’ contributions, with the implication that students who perceive that the team interactions are adding value to their education will better enjoy learning and will experience higher-level learning outcomes.     

Online collaboration: Collaborative behavior patterns and factors affecting globally distributed team performance

Studying the collaborative behavior of online learning teams and how this behavior is related to communication mode and task type is a complex process. Research about small group learning suggests that a higher percentage of social interactions occur in synchronous rather than asynchronous mode, and that students spend more time in task-oriented interaction in asynchronous discussions than in synchronous mode. This study analyzed the collaborative interaction patterns of global software development learning teams composed of students from Turkey, US, and Panama. Data collected from students’ chat histories and forum discussions from three global software development projects were collected and compared. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods were used to determine the differences between a group’s communication patterns in asynchronous versus synchronous communication mode. K-means clustering with the Ward method was used to investigate the patterns of behaviors in distributed teams. The results show that communication patterns are related to communication mode, the nature of the task, and the experience level of the leader. The paper also includes recommendations for building effective online collaborative teams and describes future research possibilities.     

Evaluation of the efficacy of collaborative learning in face-to-face and computer-supported university contexts

This study aimed to compare the efficacy of collaborative learning in face-to-face and online groups. Fifty psychology majors learnt the same professional skill (a community evaluation methodology) in two seminars taught over a two month period by the same teacher online and face-to-face. Participants in both seminars achieved similar growth in level of professional competence, academic self-efficacy, social self-efficacy and self efficacy for problem solving among members. Post-course evaluation of collaborative experience showed no significant differences between online and face-to-face seminar participants in perceived social presence, cooperation and satisfaction with the learning experience. Our results support the claim of advocates of third generation distance education methodologies that computers can be an effective enabler, not only of independent learning, but also of collaborative learning. Furthermore, computer-supported collaborative learning environments are as efficient as collaborative learning in face-to-face seminars in developing social presence and increasing professional competencies and self-efficacy.     

Comparing the roles of representations in face-to-face and online computer supported collaborative learning

This paper reports an empirical study comparing the role of discourse and knowledge representations (graphical evidence mapping) in face-to-face versus synchronous online collaborative learning. Prior work in face-to-face collaborative learning situations has shown that the features of representational notations can influence the focus of learners' discourse and collaborative activities. Two hypotheses were considered in the present study: (1) The influence of knowledge representations in the online condition could be weaker because of the lack of shared awareness and meaning that results from working together in front of a physically shared display, and because of the greater difficulty of utilizing the representations as a resource for conversation through gestural deixis, and (2) The influence of knowledge representations in the online study could be stronger because participants must rely more on them to compensate for the absence of face-to-face modes of communication. Quantitative results largely support the second hypothesis. There was greater consideration of certain coding categories supported by the knowledge representation software. However, essay quality and other observations provide indirect support for the first hypothesis. Explanations for these results and implications for the design of online collaborative learning environments are provided.     

Students' views of collaboration and online participation in Knowledge Forum

This study examined students’ views of collaboration and learning, and investigated how these predict students’ online participation in a computer-supported learning environment. The participants were 521 secondary school students in Hong Kong, who took part in online collaborative inquiry conducted using Knowledge Forum™. We developed a questionnaire to assess the students’ views of their collaboration aligned with the knowledge-building perspective. We also administered the Learning Process Questionnaire to examine their preferred approaches to learning. The students’ online participation in Knowledge Forum was examined using the Analytic Toolkit software. Analyses indicated that students who viewed their collaboration as more aligned with collaborative knowledge building were more likely to employ a deep approach to learning. A structural equation model indicated that the students’ views of collaboration exerted a direct effect on online participation in Knowledge Forum and mediated the effects of deep approaches on forum participation. Implications of examining students’ views of collaboration for productive online participation are discussed.     

Assessing online collaborative learning: process and product

The assessment of online collaborative study presents new opportunities and challenges, both in terms of separating the process and product of collaboration, and in the support of skills development. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of assessment with respect to the processes and products of online collaborative study. It describes a qualitative case study of staff and students perspectives on two UK Open University courses which have used a variety of models of online collaborative assessment. The findings underline the importance of assessment in ensuring online participation, and in supporting the practice and development of online collaborative learning. They have led to a number of recommendations for the assessment of online collaborative learning.     

Collaborative Online Examinations: Impacts on Interaction, Learning, and Student Satisfaction

This paper presents the results of a field experiment on online examinations facilitated by collaboration support systems. In particular, it examines collaborative learning and virtual teams through online examinations as an assessment procedure, compared to traditional examinations. Assessment is increasingly regarded as an important part of the learning process. Applying constructivism and collaborative-learning theories, the collaborative examination process features students' active participation in various phases of the exam process through small group activities online. A 1 times 3 field experiment evaluated the collaborative online exam compared with the traditional in-class exam, and the participatory exam, where students participated in the online exam processes without groups. Data analysis using results from 485 students indicates that collaborative examinations significantly enhance interactions and the sense of an online learning community and result in significantly higher levels of perceived learning     

When groups decide to use asynchronous online discussions: collaborative learning and social presence under a voluntary participation structure

The purpose of this study is to explore how groups decide to use asynchronous online discussion forums in a non-mandatory setting, and, after the group decision is made, how group members use online discussion forums to complete a collaborative learning project requiring complex data gathering and research processes. While a large body of research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) has documented successful intervention strategies to promote and sustain online discussion forums, little of the research has examined the use of online discussion forums in voluntarily contexts, wherein the decision to use online discussion forums is a personal decision and participation is not a graded component. This study approaches the research questions using a naturalistic case study of one graduate-level blended learning course with 55 students. Employing both student interviews and content analysis methods, this study revealed that the factors affecting the group decision to use online discussion forums are (1) successful or unsuccessful experiences during the first trial, (2) perceived affordances of CMC tools, and (3) the interplay between the nature of collaborative tasks and perceived efficiency. The content analysis of online postings in two voluntary groups revealed that when groups decided to use online discussion forums, participation levels were almost equal among individual group members, and discussion threads were sustained until the final completion of the collaborative project.     

Influence of participation, facilitator styles, and metacognitive reflection on knowledge building in online university courses

Understanding how to foster knowledge building in online and blended learning environments is a key for computer-supported collaborative learning research. Knowledge building is a deeply constructivist pedagogy and kind of inquiry learning focused on theory building. A strong indicator of engagement in knowledge building activity is the socio-cognitive dynamic of epistemic agency, in which students exercise a higher level of agency for setting forth their ideas and negotiating fit with those of others rather than relying on their teacher. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of (a) levels of participation, (b) facilitator styles and (c) metacognitive reflection on knowledge building in two blended, post-secondary education contexts. A study of a total of 67 undergraduate students suggest that high levels of participation, a supportive facilitator style, and ample opportunities for metacognitive reflection on the students’ own participation strategies are most conducive for fostering epistemic agency for knowledge building. Implications of these results for research and instructional design of online courses are discussed.     

Visualization of agreement and discussion processes during computer-supported collaborative learning

This study examined the effects of the shared space (SS) on students’ behaviors in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. The SS visualizes discussion and agreement during online discussions. It was hypothesized the SS would increase the media richness of the CSCL-environment, would stimulate critical and exploratory group-norms, would lead to more positive perceptions of online collaboration, and would have an impact on students’ collaborative activities. In total, 59 students working in 20 groups had access to the SS visualization, while 58 students working in 20 groups did not. The results show that students with access to the SS visualization: (a) perceived higher media richness; (b) had a more exploratory group-norm perception; (b) perceived more positive group behavior; (c) perceived their group’s task strategies to be more effective; (d) engaged in different collaborative activities and (e) performed better on one part of the group task. These results demonstrate the potential benefits of visualizing agreement and discussion during CSCL.     

Analyzing collaborative interactions: divergence,shared understanding and construction of knowledge

One of the most important facets of collaborative learning is the interaction between individual and collaborative learning activities – between divergent perspectives and shared knowledge building. Individuals bring divergent ideas into a collaborative environment. While individuals bring their own unique knowledge and perspectives, the second important aspect of collaborative learning is how they move from seemingly divergent perspectives to collaborative knowledge building. This is clearly a social process among group members who could adopt various strategies for resolving differences including asserting dominance, acquiescing, or some form of reciprocal sense making. An important aspect of collaborative learning is the move from assimilation to construction, i.e., creating new understandings based on the discussions that they have had. Documenting this change from divergence to collaborative knowledge building to possible construction is therefore important in understanding the nature the collaborative interactions. In this paper we discuss our analysis of the process of collaborative interactions based on three dimensions – divergence of ideas, collaborative knowledge building and construction. Our aim was to document as well as to understand how collaborative interactions develop over time: whether students raise new issues (ideas) more frequently as they become more familiar with the discussion and discussants, and whether shared knowledge building becomes richer over time, and subsequent evidence that students were able to construct their own understanding based on their interactions with others. Our analyses were conducted in the context of an online graduate course conducted using the learning environment that we designed, CoDE, (Constructivist, Distributed learning Environment). In this paper, we will first describe the design of CoDE. We will then describe a study in which CoDE was used to offer an online graduate course in learning theories. We then discuss our analyses of both individual and collaborative learning as it progressed through the duration of the course.     

Collaboration factors,teamwork satisfaction,and student attitudes toward online collaborative learning

This study examined online courses with collaborative learning components from 197 graduate students across three consecutive academic years. A student attitude survey containing 20 items and a student teamwork satisfaction scale containing 10 items on a 5-point Likert-type scale with three open-ended questions regarding their online collaborating experiences were collected during the final week of each semester. Results revealed that the three extracted online collaboration factors (Team Dynamics, Team Acquaintance, and Instructor Support) from the student attitude survey had moderate to high degrees of correlation with teamwork satisfaction. Results also revealed that the three collaboration factors accounted for 53% of the variance in online teamwork satisfaction. In addition, results from both surveys and open-ended questions revealed students favored working collaboratively in an online environment.     

Learning through online peer discourse: Structural equation modeling points to the role of discourse activities in individual understanding

Although learning through discourse activities seems well-documented, it is unclear which mechanisms and behavioral variables are involved. What exactly contributes to learning when two or more learners interact in online learning environments? To analyze interrelations between central discourse activities and individual learning outcomes at the level of constructs, we applied structural equation modeling to data collected from 160 dyads engaging in written online learning discourses within a series of homogeneous experiments. We analyzed three theory-based indicators of conceptual elaboration activities during online discourse: the number of questions asked to receive information and expand knowledge, the number of explanations formulated to express individual knowledge, and the amount of on-task discourse. Individual conceptual understanding was represented by objective learning parameters that varied in each particular experimental task. These measured general understanding of the topic addressed and particular understanding of conceptual terms, complemented by the gain in individual self-assessed knowledge. Results of structural equation modeling revealed a strong effect of dyadic conceptual elaboration on individual understanding at the construct level, demonstrating that dyadic elaboration fosters the development of an elaborated individual understanding of specialist concepts and general content knowledge. Moreover, conceptual elaboration was best measured by the number of explanations during discourse. Implications regarding which features of collaborative learning settings promote mutual conceptual elaboration are discussed.     

What do students do in a F2F CSCL classroom? The optimization of multiple communications modes

This exploratory study analyzes how students use different communication modes to share information, negotiate meaning and construct knowledge in the process of doing a group learning activity in a Primary Grade 5 blended learning environment in Singapore. Small groups of students interacted face-to-face over a computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology called Group Scribbles (GS) to jointly complete a learning task. The lesson designers attempted to optimize the use of CMC technology and face-to-face (F2F) discussion in students’ collaborative learning, with the aim of harnessing the specific features of each medium. Building on notions from communication studies and from interaction analysis, we observed the construction and evolution of the interactions through analyzing the artifacts that were produced by a group of students – in verbal talk, gestures, and sketches drawn and text inscribed in GS. F2F and GS interactions intertwined to support collaborative learning. The findings from this study could inform design aspects concerning integrating and reinforcing the strengths of both communication modes when introducing computer-assisted collaborative learning (CSCL) in a F2F classroom.     

Electronic [re]constitution of groups: Group dynamics from face-to-face to an online setting

The authors work as online tutors for a BSc (Hons) physiotherapy programme at Coventry University in the United Kingdom. This paper represents a stage in our developing understanding, over a 3 year period, of the impact of group dynamics on online interaction among physiotherapy students engaged in sharing with their peers their first experiences of clinical practice. The literature exploring online interaction tends to situate meaning either in theories borrowed from conventional face-to-face interaction or on virtual interaction. Research focusing on ‘blended learning’ that combines face-to-face and online interaction is limited in terms of considering how group dynamics impact groups that are constituted and reconstituted in the two very different learning contexts. Using a case study approach, the authors consider how group dynamics change as groups move from face-to-face to online collaboration in pursuit of learning objectives. We characterize typical features of the cases and draw conclusions based on similarities and differences. Findings suggest that group learning is linked to group cohesion, which appears to be mediated by social and cognitive factors that students bring with them. Social presence appears vital to positive group dynamics and is a precursor to cognitive presence, which develops when groups rise above their desire to be sociable and supportive. Group dynamics, whether positive or negative, and their consequent impact on interaction appear to be relatively stable across contexts once the group scene is set through face-to-face interaction. Engagement and interaction of individual students, however, can alter when face-to-face interaction moves online.     

Procrastination,participation, and performance in online learning environments

The present study focuses on a specific learner characteristic in the management of time – procrastination-, and its role in an online learning environment. More specifically, it was expected that procrastination would influence the successfulness of online learning and that this could be explained by the level of participation of learners in discussion forums. A study was conducted to test this hypothesis among a sample of learners taking a 10-week course on environmental and land use issues. As predicted, a negative relationship was found between procrastination and performance, and this relationship was mediated by the level of the learners’ participation in discussion forums. In other words, it appears that if high procrastinators are less successful online learners than low procrastinators, it is partly due to their lack of participation in discussion forums during the learning process. Additionally, some behavioral differences between high and low procrastinators were found in the times they decided to (re)start working at a distance, felt motivated to work on their course, and felt like dropping out of the course. To conclude, some practical implications for tutoring online activities and for stimulating participation in online learning environments have been proposed.     

Increasing teacher candidates' ways of interaction and levels of learning through action research in a blended course

Within the scope of this research, efforts were exerted to increase teacher candidates' interaction ways through action research in a blended teaching profession course in higher education level. Teacher candidates participated in various blended learning activities during a semester-long course, and the problems related to learners' participation in blended learning activities and their interactions during learning process were solved via action decisions. Blended learning activities were developed according to Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model and the lessons learned from previous two pilot studies. In order to conduct the activities; face-to-face and synchronous virtual classroom sessions were combined with asynchronous from discussions and blog. At the beginning of the course, teacher candidates chosed activity sets according to learning style model and throughout a semester-long course, they participated in the activities. Throughout the action research process, the ways of interactions between students, students and instructor, and students and the content were examined as well as the levels of learning accomplished by students during the learning process. This study has revealed indicators pointing to an increase both in students’ interactions and levels of learning during the blended learning process.