Research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is often concerned with the question of how scaffolds or other characteristics of learning may affect learners' social and cognitive engagement. Such engagement in socio-cognitive activities frequently materializes in discourse. In quantitative analyses of discourse, utterances are typically coded, and differences in the frequency of codes are compared between conditions. However, such traditional coding-and-counting-based strategies neglect the temporal nature of verbal data, and therefore provide limited and potentially misleading information about CSCL activities. Instead, we argue that analyses of the temporal proximity, specifically temporal co-occurrences of codes, provide a more appropriate way to characterize socio-cognitive activities of learning in CSCL settings. We investigate this claim by comparing and contrasting a traditional coding-andcounting analysis with epistemic network analysis (ENA), a discourse analysis technique that models temporal co-occurrences of codes in discourse. We apply both methods to data from a study that compared the effects of individual vs. collaborative problem solving. The results suggest that compared to a traditional coding-and-counting approach, ENA provides more insight into the socio-cognitive learning activities of students.
This study investigates if collaboration and the level of heterogeneity between collaborating partners' problem-solving scripts can influence the extent to which pre-service teachers engage in evidence-based reasoning when analyzing and solving pedagogical problem cases. We operationalized evidence-based reasoning through its content and process dimensions: (a) to what extent pre-service teachers refer to scientific theories or evidence of learning and instruction (content level) and (b) to what extent they engage in epistemic processes of scientific reasoning (process level) when solving pedagogical problems. Seventy-six pre-service teachers analyzed and solved a problem about an underachieving student either individually or in dyads. Compared with individuals, dyads of pre-service teachers referred less to scientific content, but engaged more in hypothesizing and evidence evaluation and less in generating solutions. A greater dyadic heterogeneity indicated less engagement in generating solutions. Thus, collaboration may be a useful means for engaging preservice teachers in analyzing pedagogical problems in a more reflective and evidence-based manner, but pre-service teachers may still need additional scaffolding to do it based on scientific theories and evidence. Furthermore, heterogeneous groups regarding the collaborating partners' problem-solving scripts may require further instructional support to discuss potential solutions to the problem.
Highlights
Evidence about differences in digital competencies (digital divide) is contextualized with other core competencies, esp. literacy and numeracy.
The generation a person is born to/in is a factor for digital divide for all subgroups.
The effect of education on digital competency is larger than the effect of generation.
Rather mitigating digital divide as its impact on digital competencies is smaller compared to the impact of literacy and numeracy.
Migration background has a higher impact on digital divide for persons without computer use at the workplace digital divide than for those who use.
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