Towards the Development of an Adaptive Communication Tool Promoting Cognitive and Communication Skills

The work presented in this paper discusses the results of an initial qualitative experimental study towards the development of a communication tool with adaptive capabilities, which aims to facilitate group interaction, support the accomplishment of collaborative learning activities of different subject matters and promote the cultivation of cognitive and communication skills. The main objective of the experimental study was to observe how the process of the discussion, between pairs of students collaborating on the accomplishment of a learning activity, proceeds and to analyse their dialogue with respect to the cognitive skills that should be cultivated. In the framework of the study, we developed learning activities, addressing specific and similar cognitive skills, for three subject matters with different orientation. The students, who participated in the study, collaborated in an unstructured dialogue form using a computer-supported collaborative environment. Their dialogue was recorded in log files and was qualitatively analysed. The analysis revealed that the group dialogue presented similarities, as far as the structure and the use of specific phrases are concerned, in cases of collaborative learning activities addressing similar cognitive skills independently of the subject matter under consideration. Also, the analysis drew implications regarding the adaptivity of the communication tool on the basis of the cognitive skills that should be cultivated within the framework of each learning activity. The adaptive capabilities concern (i) the form of the dialogue supported (e.g. structured or unstructured, semi-structured or fully structured messages), and (ii) the “communicationscaffolding” tools (e.g. sentence openers, communication acts) provided, in order to support, facilitate and interpret the group dialogue.