Paper presented at the EARLI conference Nicosia Cyprus

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

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

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 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 4 Solution: Visualization of participation? • 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)

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

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

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

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

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 9 Method • 69 students, 5 th year secondary education (preuniversity 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

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

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 11 Participation With PT (N=51) M (SD) Dialogue acts 301. 21 - Long - Short Without PT (N=15) M (SD) t (159. 86) 235. 24 (75. 32) 1. 11 114. 08 (70. 99) 72. 89 (30. 39) 1. 76* 187. 13 (96. 69) 162. 35 (60. 53) . 68

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

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 13 Equality of participation With PT (N=17) No PT (N=5) M (SD) t Dialogue acts . 17 (. 09) . 09 (. 04) 1. 73 - Long . 18 (. 11) . 14 (. 06) . 81 - Short . 17 (. 09) . 12 (. 05) 1. 05

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

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 15 Awareness of group processes and activities Awareness of… With PT (N=51) No PT (N=15) M (SD) t Participation 3. 71 (. 56) 3. 76 (. 61) -1. 22 Group members’ tasks 4. 18 (. 59) 4. 02 (. 80) . 89 • Difference: Students with access to PT indicate they knew better when a group member was not working hard, t(21) = 2. 43, p =. 01.

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 16 Collaborative activities • 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

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 17 Collaborative activities Task-related Social Performance • Information exchange • Questions • Greetings • Social support • Social resistance • Mutual understanding • Loss of mutual understanding Regulation • Planning • Monitoring • Positive evaluation • Negative evaluation

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 18 Collaborative activities Most frequent: 1. Mutual understanding: 22% 2. Planning task-related activities: 19% 3. Monitoring task-related activities: 13% 4. Information exchange: 9% 5. Social support: 7%

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 19 Collaborative activities 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

Paper presented at the EARLI conference, Nicosia, Cyprus. August, 2005 20 Conclusions • 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

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

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