Learning performance and behavioral patterns of online collaborative learning: Impact of cognitive load and affordances of different multimedia

Abstract In online collaborative learning, discussions have been widely utilized as an educational activity, and much research has been conducted on the process and behaviors involved in synchronous or asynchronous discussions. However, research on behavioral patterns in collaborative learning environments with different formats of learning materials has not been addressed in detailed yet. In this study, we designed three versions of media to present the same learning contents: interactive version, video version, and text version. The differences among the above three versions are the form of information organization and the interaction mode between students and the given version. There were 131 eighth graders from three classes participated in this study. They were asked to complete a group worksheet through online discussion while engaging with the given learning materials. In order to explore students' online collaborative behavioral patterns while engaging with different multimedia, this study proposed a verb-dominated coding scheme for synchronous online collaborative learning and conducted a lag sequential analysis. The findings indicate that Class A (interactive version) formed an active learning atmosphere, while Class B (video version) spent more time on showing disagreement due to overloaded working memory caused by improper information presentation. In contrast, Class C (text version) had high efficiency in information exchanges because of the convenience of information acquisition. Besides, Class A gained the highest scores in group worksheet and invested moderate cognitive load. Class B had unsatisfactory learning performance on group worksheet along with the highest cognitive load. Class C invested the lowest cognitive load and had better knowledge retention than Class A, as shown in the results of the post-test a week later.

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