计算机支持的协作学习的伙伴模型

伙伴模型的建立是计算机支持的协作学习（CSCL）中寻找学习伙伴的关键。伙伴模型对学生分组的关键因素进行了较全面的建模。对伙伴模型进行了形式化的描述,并重点对动态协作信息的表示，如伙伴学习进度、知识水平、认知能力和协作能力进行了研究。     

Measurement and assessment in computer-supported collaborative learning

The overall goal of CSCL research is to design software tools and collaborative environments that facilitate social knowledge construction via a valuable assortment of methodologies, theoretical and operational definitions, and multiple structures [Hadwin, A. F., Gress, C. L. Z., & Page, J. (2006). Toward standards for reporting research: a review of the literature on computer-supported collaborative learning. In Paper presented at the 6th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, Kerkrade, Netherlands; Lehtinen, E. (2003). Computer-supported collaborative learning: an approach to powerful learning environments. In E. De Corte, L. Verschaffel, N. Entwistle & J. Van Merriëboer (Eds.), Unravelling basic components and dimensions of powerful learning environments (pp. 35–53). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier]. Various CSCL tools attempt to support constructs associated with effective collaboration, such as awareness tools to support positive social interaction [Carroll, J. M., Neale, D. C., Isenhour, P. L., Rosson, M. B., & McCrickard, D. S. (2003). Notification and awareness: Synchronizing task-oriented collaborative activity. International Journal of Human–Computer Studies 58, 605] and negotiation tools to support group social skills and discussions [Beers, P. J., Boshuizen, H. P. A. E., Kirschner, P. A., & Gijselaers, W. H. (2005). Computer support for knowledge construction in collaborative learning environments. Computers in Human Behavior 21, 623–643], yet few studies developed or used pre-existing measures to evaluate these tools in relation to the above constructs. This paper describes a review of the measures used in CSCL to answer three fundamental questions: (a) What measures are utilized in CSCL research? (b) Do measures examine the effectiveness of attempts to facilitate, support, and sustain CSCL? And (c) When are the measures administered? Our review has six key findings: there is a plethora of self-report yet a paucity of baseline information above collaboration and collaborative activities, findings in the field are dominated by ‘after collaboration’ measurement, there is little replication and an over reliance on text-based measures, and an insufficient collection of tools and measures for examining processes involved in CSCL.     

Group awareness and regulation in computer-supported collaborative learning

Group awareness is of critical relevance for collaborative learning and interaction and is thus often referred to in CSCL research. However, the concept is only vaguely defined as some kind of understanding or perception of characteristics of learning partners or the collaborating group. Most CSCL research activities concerned with group awareness aim at modifying learners' awareness using so-called group awareness tools. However, there are much less attempts to measure group awareness and to conceptualize its formation. Thus, building on existing group awareness research, this article derives a conceptualization with six defining aspects of group awareness: (1) group awareness is cognitive, (2) group awareness is conscious, (3) group awareness is current, (4) group awareness is individual, (5) group awareness is social, and (6) group awareness is perceived as valid. Additionally, while it is often assumed that group awareness builds on self-regulatory skills, its role in regulating behavior and cognition within a social context is seldom explored. Thus, this article aims at defining and analyzing the concept of group awareness, specifying its relation to regulatory processes, and sketching possible research paths whilst building on, complementing, and informing tool-driven research.

     

Investigating the complexity of computer-supported collaborative learning in action

International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning -     

Gender-related differences in computer-mediated communication and computer-supported collaborative learning

Abstract   A question associated with the introduction of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is whether all participants profit equally from working in CSCL environments. This article reports on a review study into gender-related differences in participation in CSCL. As many of the processes in CSCL are similar to those in computer-mediated communication (CMC), studies into CMC are also included in the review. Male dominance is found to play a role in many CMC settings. A learning culture with an explicit focus on participation by all students seems to be related to a more gender-balanced participation in CMC, however. A tendency for boys to be more active participants than girls is also present in CSCL environments, but it is less pronounced than in CMC. This may be explained by the fact that participation is explicitly promoted in most CSCL environments. Gender differences in the character of students' contributions are found in both CMC and CSCL. It is concluded that in order to avoid gender-stereotyped participation and communication patterns, it is necessary to explicitly address inclusiveness as an aspect of a collaborative classroom culture. A plea is made for further research into differential participation by students in CSCL, and the effects thereof on cognitive and affective learning outcomes. Research should also focus on the question how classroom cultures can be promoted that support active participation of all students aimed at collaborative knowledge construction.     

Measuring perceived sociability of computer-supported collaborative learning environments

Most asynchronous computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments can be characterized as functional environments because they focus on functional, task-specific support, often disregarding explicit support for the social (emotional) aspects of learning in groups which are acknowledged by many educational researchers to be essential for effective collaborative learning. In contrast, sociable CSCL environments emphasize the social (emotional) aspects of group learning. We define sociability as the extent to which a CSCL environment is perceived to be able to facilitate the emergence of a sound social space with attributes as trust and belonging, a strong sense of community, and good working relationships. Specific environmental characteristics, which we have designated social affordances, determine sociability.     

Heterogeneity of learning material in synchronous computer-supported collaborative modelling

This paper examines the effect of heterogeneous resources, available to students, during computer-supported collaborative problem solving. A study of collaborative modeling has been conducted in the frame of an authentic educational activity in a secondary school. The students involved were provided with sets of primitive resources of varying degrees of heterogeneity to be used during synchronous computer-mediated modeling activities. Analysis of students' peer interaction and of the produced solutions revealed that, contrary to our expectations, the group with heterogeneous resources produced solutions of similar quality to those of the reference group, although they were more active, they exchanged more messages, they were involved in deeper discussions and collaborated more for building the constituent parts of the solution.     

Analyzing collaborative learning processes automatically: Exploiting the advances of computational linguistics in computer-supported collaborative learning

In this article we describe the emerging area of text classification research focused on the problem of collaborative learning process analysis both from a broad perspective and more specifically in terms of a publicly available tool set called TagHelper tools. Analyzing the variety of pedagogically valuable facets of learners’ interactions is a time consuming and effortful process. Improving automated analyses of such highly valued processes of collaborative learning by adapting and applying recent text classification technologies would make it a less arduous task to obtain insights from corpus data. This endeavor also holds the potential for enabling substantially improved on-line instruction both by providing teachers and facilitators with reports about the groups they are moderating and by triggering context sensitive collaborative learning support on an as-needed basis. In this article, we report on an interdisciplinary research project, which has been investigating the effectiveness of applying text classification technology to a large CSCL corpus that has been analyzed by human coders using a theory-based multi-dimensional coding scheme. We report promising results and include an in-depth discussion of important issues such as reliability, validity, and efficiency that should be considered when deciding on the appropriateness of adopting a new technology such as TagHelper tools. One major technical contribution of this work is a demonstration that an important piece of the work towards making text classification technology effective for this purpose is designing and building linguistic pattern detectors, otherwise known as features, that can be extracted reliably from texts and that have high predictive power for the categories of discourse actions that the CSCL community is interested in.

Developing professional skills and social capital through computer supported collaborative learning in university contexts

This study aimed to compare the efficacy of collaborative learning in face-to-face and online university courses in developing professional skills and social capital. One hundred and sixty-six psychology majors learnt professional skills in seminars taught by the same teacher online and face-to-face. The different groups of participants achieved similar growth in level of professional knowledge, social self-efficacy, self-efficacy for problem solving and empowerment. Instead, online students were top performers on competence-based tasks. Follow-up evaluation after 9 months showed that social ties, formed initially more in the face-to-face groups, lasted more among online students. Our results indicate that Computer Assisted Collaborative Learning could provide educational opportunities to new groups of learners as well as to more traditional campus-based students.     

Conceptualizing the designs of authentic computer-supported collaborative learning environments in schools

A major perspective within research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) approaches learning as a cultural practice and considers the implications of this on the way classroom learning environments are designed. Often referred to as authentic learning, many innovative approaches to the design of learning environments come with the intention that practices of the people who are experts in a domain are enculturated by the participating students. Different approaches taken given the constraints of educational settings have led to conceptual fragmentation in this area of CSCL scholarship. Therefore, the dual aim of this research is to advance our understanding of the relevant cultures at play when designing for authenticity and show how these cut across different approaches taken for the design of authentic CSCL environments in schools. Using the constant-comparative method, we looked back at the past quarter century of sociocultural research to analyze the way different variations of sociocultural activities, scenes, participants, time, and cultural tools have been designed within authentic CSCL environments. A refined conceptualization of authentic learning that elucidates the relationships between intended, current, and authentic cultures emerged coupled with a novel coding scheme and visualization tool that can help the field rise above the wide variation in designs for authenticity.

     

Developing argumentation processing agents for computer-supported collaborative learning

In this study, an intelligent argumentation processing agent for computer-supported cooperative learning is proposed. Learners are first assigned to heterogeneous groups based on their learning styles questionnaire given right before the beginning of learning activities on the e-learning platform. The proposed argumentation processing agent then scrutinizes each learner’s learning portfolio on e-learning platform and automatically issues feedback messages in case devious argument or abnormal behavior that is unfitted to the learners’ learning style is detected. The Moodle (http://moodle.org), an open source software e-learning platform, is used to establish the cooperative learning environment for this study. The experimental results revealed that the learners benefited by the argumentation activity with the assistance of the proposed learning style aware argumentation processing agent.     

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.     

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.     

Learning technologies: Affective and social issues in computer-supported collaborative learning

This paper is concerned with affective issues in learning technologies in a collaborative context. Traditionally in learning there has been a division between cognition and affect: where cognition is concerned with skills and processes such as thinking and problem-solving and affect with emotional areas such as motivation, attitudes, feelings. Affective issues have been viewed as somewhat problematic in studying learning, so although it is well known that learner attitude, motivation, and emotional state are very important, they have often been excluded from the frame of research, or studied separately from cognitive learning. This position is gradually changing and this paper considers what previous research has been conducted in these areas. It discusses the role of affective factors in three main areas of collaboration: in settings where learners are co-located, in on-line communities and to support and develop socio-emotional skills. It considers relevant developments in these areas, what the outcomes have been and suggests important directions for future research.     

Experiences with CLARE: a computer-supported collaborative learning environment

Current collaborative learning systems focus on maximizing shared information. However, "meaningful learning" is not simply information sharing but also knowledge construction. CLARE is a computer-supported learning environment that facilitates meaningful learning through collaborative knowledge construction. It provides a semi-formal representation language called RESRA and an explicit process model called SECAI. Experimental evaluation through 300 hours of classroom usage indicates that CLARE does support meaningful learning. It also shows that a major bottleneck to computer-mediated knowledge construction is summarization. Lessons learned through the design and evaluation of CLARE provide new insights into both collaborative learning systems and collaborative learning theories.     

An exploration of students' strategy use in inquiry-based computer-supported collaborative learning

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate students' use of cognitive learning strategies in inquiry-based computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). A process-oriented interview framework on cognitive activity, self-regulation and motivation, and a coding category for analysing cognitive learning strategies and cognitive self-regulation was developed. The students of an intervention group (n=18) participating in inquiry-based CSCL and a comparison group (n=8) were interviewed six to eight times during the 3 years of the study. The results derived from the mixed-method analysis of altogether 161 interviews were compared between the two groups. The results indicate that the students who participated in the inquiry-based CSCL activities reported deeper-level cognitive strategies such as monitoring, creating representations and sharing information collaboratively. The students of the comparison group reported more surface-level strategies such as memorization. However, the findings concerning the utility of CSCL inquiry on cognitive learning strategies were not uniformly positive. It was found that the students of the comparison group reported significantly more strategies under the category of content evaluation. Nevertheless, the results suggest that computer-supported inquiry-based learning can enhance the use of cognitive strategies that support learning.     

Development of computer-supported collaborative social networks in a distributed learning community

This study examines the formation and change of collaborative learning social networks in a distributed learning community. A social network perspective is employed to understand how collaborative networks evolved over time when 31 distributed learners collaborated on a design project using a computer-mediated communication system during two semesters. Special attention was paid to how pre-existing friendship networks influenced the formation of macro-level collaborative learning networks and individual level social capital. We discovered that pre-existing friendship networks significantly influenced the formation of collaborative learning networks, but the effect was dependent on the developmental phase of community. Also, pre-existing networks generally acted as a social liability that constrained learners' ability to enhance their social networks and build social capital when they participated in a new learning environment. The results suggest that, in order to fully understand how to build effective collaborative learning and work environments, participants' social network structures need to be considered.