Effects of visualizing participation in CSCL

1. Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 Effects of visualizing participation in CSCL Jeroen Janssen, Gijsbert Erkens, Jos Jaspers, and Marcel Broeken Department of Educational Sciences Utrecht University, The Netherlands

2. Overview presentation Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 2 • Participation problems during CSCL • Solution: Visualization of participation • Operationalization: Participation Tool • Research questions and method • Results • Conclusion and discussion

3. Participation problems during CSCL • When students are collaborating using CSCL, • sometimes: • Participation is low • Participation is unequal (free riders) Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 3

4. Solution:Visualization of participation? Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 4 • Visualizes group member’s contribution to online communication • Makes contribution of group members to group processes identifiable • May enhance motivation to participate • May raise awareness of group processes and activities • Can be used to evaluate group processes (group processing)

5. Operationalization: Participation Tool Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 5

6. 6 Group’s participation compared to other groups Group consisting of students Community consisting of groups Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005

7. 7 Group of students Students Distance: Number of messages Size: Length of the messages Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005

8. Research questions Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 8 • Does the Participation Tool (PT) influence: • Participation and equality of participation? • Awareness of group processes and activities? • Students’ collaborative activities?

9. Method Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 9 • 69 students, 5th year secondary education (pre-university track) • Subject: History • Task: Inquiry group task on “Witchcraft and persecution of witches” • Duration: 8 lessons • 51 students (=17 groups) with PT vs. 15 students (=5 groups) without PT • Group size: 3 or 4 students

10. Participation Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 10 • Messages segmented into dialogue acts • Distinction between short (<=5 words) and long (>5 words) dialogue acts

11. Participation Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 11

12. Equality of participation Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 12 • Gini coefficient • 0 = Equal participation • 1 = Unequal participatie • Group-level measure

13. Equality of participation Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 13

14. Awareness of group processes and activities Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 14 • 14 item questionaire, 5-point Likert type questions • 2 factors: Awareness of participation & awareness of group members’ tasks

15. Awareness of group processes and activities Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 15 • Difference: Students with access to PT indicate they knew better when a group member was not working hard, t(21) = 2.43, p = .01.

16. Collaborative activities Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 16 • Coding scheme was developed to examine collaborative activities during CSCL • 4 main dimensions: • Performance of task-related activities • Regulation of task-related activities • Performance of social activities • Regulation of social activities • Technical, other/nonsense

17. Collaborative activities Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 17

18. Collaborative activities Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 18 • Most frequent: • Mutual understanding: 22% • Planning task-related activities: 19% • Monitoring task-related activities: 13% • Information exchange: 9% • Social support: 7%

19. Collaborative activities Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 19 • Students with access to the PT: • More greetings: t(21)=1.89, p=.04 • Less social support remarks: t(21)=-3.71, p=.00 • Less social resistance remarks: t(21)=-2.84, p=.00 • More planning of social activities: t(21)=2.46, p= .01 • Less nonsense activities: t(21)=2.82, p=.01

20. Conclusions Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 20 • Visualization of participation increases participation (typing more long messages) • Visualization of participation influences awareness of group processes and activities (knowing when someone is a free rider) • Visualization of participation increases planning of social activities and greetings • Visualization of participation decreases social support, social resistance and nonsense remarks

21. Discussion Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 21 • Participation increase not due to increase in nonsense messages • Influence of teachers • Small number of students and groups • Influences of group composition and size

22. Questions???? Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 22 Website: http://edugate.fss.uu.nl/~crocicl/ E-mail: j.j.h.m.janssen@fss.uu.nl