The impact of media on collaborative learning in virtual settings: social construction and social presence perspectives

Prior work argues that collaborative learning facilitates the construction of individuals ’ knowledge, because it fosters the information sharing and discussions with other students. This may, in turn, improve learning effectiveness. However, how effective collaborative technolog ies may facilitate collaborative learning remains to be addressed. To handle this, this study developed a model by drawing on social presence and task closure theories. More specifically, we delineated the relationships between learning environment (the media environment and medium choice) and learning effectiveness. To test the above relationships, we employed laboratory experiment. Most of hypotheses were supported.