Activity and Interaction of Students in an Electronic Learning Environment for Problem-Based Learning

This paper contains the results of an experimental study in which students used a collaborative learning tool in the time between regular meetings of a tutorial group in problem-based learning. The analysis of the learning situation for which this tool was developed, as well as the evaluation of the experiment, is based on a model of collaborative learning that covers three sections. The first is the learning environment that mediates the second section learning behaviour and the third section learning mechanisms . From the perspective of the stimulation of productivity in collaborative learning, the relation between characteristics of the problem task (learning environment) and interactions (learning behavior) was explored. In problem-based learning students formulate learning issues after a brainstorm discussion in the group. Students formulate theoretical and practical learning issues. Two research questions are presented in this study: What types of learning issues generate most interactions? and What types of learning issues generate the highest level of information processing? The first question is concerned with an analysis of the number of interactions and the second with the quality of these interactions. Practical learning issues generated more interactions, as well as a higher level of information processing. These results are discussed in the context of social factors in learning.

[1]  Matthew W. Lewis,et al.  Self-Explonations: How Students Study and Use Examples in Learning to Solve Problems , 1989, Cogn. Sci..

[2]  P. Dillenbourg.  What do you mean by collaborative learning , 1999 .

[3]  K. Kumpulainen,et al.  The situated dynamics of peer group interaction: an introduction to an analytic framework , 1999 .

[4]  Timothy Koschmann,et al.  Paradigm shifts and instructional technology : An introduction , 1996 .

[5]  Margarete Boos,et al.  Eine Methode zur Analyse von Interaktionsprozessen beim Problemlösen und Entscheiden in Sitzungen , 1991 .

[6]  Charlotte N. Gunawardena,et al.  Analysis of a Global Online Debate and the Development of an Interaction Analysis Model for Examining Social Construction of Knowledge in Computer Conferencing , 1997 .

[7]  Valerie J. Shute,et al.  Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Past, Present, and Future. , 1994 .

[8]  Jim Garrison,et al.  Realism, Deweyan Pragmatism, and Educational Research , 1994 .

[9]  Nancy Nelson Spivey,et al.  The Constructivist Metaphor: Reading, Writing, and the Making of Meaning , 1996 .

[10]  K. Engle.  Problem-Based Learning: An Approach to Medical Education , 1981 .

[11]  Marlene Scardamalia,et al.  Computer Support for Knowledge-Building Communities , 1994 .

[12]  N. Fairclough.  Discourse and Text: Linguistic and Intertextual Analysis within Discourse Analysis , 1992 .

[13]  Timothy Koschmann,et al.  Using Technology to Assist in Realizing Effective Learning and Instruction: A Principled Approach to the Use of Computers in Collaborative Learning , 1994 .

[14]  Michael J. Baker,et al.  The role of grounding in collaborative learning tasks , 1999 .

[15]  W. Frawley.  Mind as Action , 1998, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[16]  James Rhem.  Problem-based learning: An introduction , 1994 .

[17]  Alice F. Artz,et al.  Development of a Cognitive-Metacognitive Framework for Protocol Analysis of Mathematical Problem Solving in Small Groups , 1992 .

[18]  C. Howe,et al.  Peer Collaboration and Conceptual Growth in Physics: Task Influences on Children's Understanding of Heating and Cooling , 1995 .

[19]  David H. Jonassen,et al.  Constructivism: Implications for the Design and Delivery of Instruction , 1996 .

[20]  L. Resnick,et al.  Knowing, Learning, and Instruction , 2018 .

[21]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Guided, Cooperative Learning and Individual Knowledge Acquisition , 2018, Knowing, Learning, and Instruction.

[22]  Susan M. Williams,et al.  Putting Case-Based Instruction Into Context: Examples From Legal and Medical Education , 1992 .

[23]  D. Newman,et al.  A Content Analysis Method to Measure Critical Thinking in Face-to-Face and Computer Supported Group Learning , 1995 .