Scripts for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) offer socio-cognitive scaffolding for learners to engage in collaborative activities that are considered beneficial for learning. Yet, CSCL scripts are often criticized for hampering naturally emerging collaboration. Research on the effectiveness of CSCL scripts has shown divergent results. This article reports a meta-analysis about the effects of CSCL scripts on domain-specific knowledge and collaboration skills. Results indicate that CSCL scripts as a kind of socio-cognitive scaffolding can enhance learning outcomes substantially. Learning with CSCL scripts leads to a small positive effect on domain-specific knowledge (d = 0.20) and a large positive effect on collaboration skills (d = 0.95) compared to unstructured CSCL. Further analyses reveal that CSCL scripts are particularly effective for domain-specific learning when they prompt transactive activities (i.e., activities in which a learner's reasoning builds on the contribution of a learning partner) and when they are combined with additional content-specific scaffolding (worked examples, concept maps, etc.). Future research on CSCL scripts should include measures of learners' internal scripts (i.e., prior collaboration skills) and the transactivity of the actual learning process.Keywords Collaboration scripts . Collaboration skills . Computer-supported collaborative learning . Domain-specific knowledge . Socio-cognitive scaffolding . TransactivityResearch on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) deals with the question how digital technologies can be used to help groups of learners collaborate on a high level Educ Psychol Rev (2017) University of Augsburg, Universitätsstr. 10, 86159 Augsburg, Germany (Koschmann 1996). A high level of collaboration is reached when groups of learners engage in certain socio-cognitive activities such as explaining (Webb et al. 2009), questioning (King 1998), or arguing (Andriessen, Baker, andSuthers 2003). Through an engagement in such activities, students are assumed to acquire both domain-specific knowledge (i.e., knowledge about the topic that is discussed within the group) and cross-domain skills such as collaboration skills or argumentation skills. In short, collaborative learning is credited for its high potential to facilitate learners' cognitive development (Mugny and Doise 1978;Schwarz and Linchevski 2007). However, as prior research on collaborative learning-both in face-to-face and in computer-mediated settings-has shown, learners often have difficulties engaging spontaneously in beneficial collaborative learning activities (Cohen 1994;Kuhn, Shaw, and Felton 1997). In this article, the term Bunstructured collaboration^is used to refer to such situations in which learners are not supported with respect to their collaborative learning activities.To overcome these problems, learners can be supported by means of socio-cognitive scaffolding that guides them through collaborative activities that enhance learning. In computer-supported lea...

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Teacher educators are encouraged to promote evidence-based practice in teaching and to use evidence for their own teaching. In the present study, teacher educators' attitudes, perceived challenges, and uses regarding evidence-based practice are described. Moreover, the extent to which personal factors are related to the use of evidence is investigated. In an exploratory study, 58 teacher educators from higher education participated in an online survey. The results reveal that teacher educators generally have a positive attitude toward evidence-based practice. They use evidence regularly, both for individual learning and for teaching purposes. Furthermore, the study reveals that teacher educators with more experience in research and teaching have a more positive attitude toward evidence-based practice and higher uses of evidence. In comparison, less experienced teacher educators perceived more challenges. It is discussed, how teacher educators can be supported in their professional learning, particularly in light of the increasing scientific knowledge base in education.

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Scripting computer-supported collaborative learning has been shown to greatly enhance learning, but is often criticized for hindering learners' agency and thus undermining learners' motivation. Beyond that, what makes some CSCL scripts particularly effective for learning is still a conundrum. This meta-analysis synthesizes the results of 53 primary studies that experimentally compared the effect of learning with a CSCL script to unguided collaborative learning on at least one of the variables motivation, domain learning, and collaboration skills. Overall, 5616 learners enrolled in K-12, higher education, or professional development participated in the included studies. The results of a random-effects meta-analysis show that learning with CSCL scripts leads to a nonsignificant positive effect on motivation (Hedges' g = 0.13), a small positive effect (Hedges' g = 0.24) on domain learning and a medium positive effect (Hedges' g = 0.72) on collaboration skills. Additionally, the meta-analysis shows how scaffolding single particular collaborative activities and scaffolding a combination of collaborative activities affects the effectiveness of CSCL scripts and that synergistic or differentiated scaffolding is hard to achieve. This meta-analysis offers the first counterevidence against the widespread criticism that CSCL scripts have negative motivational effects. Furthermore, the findings can be taken as evidence for the robustness of the positive effects on domain learning and collaboration skills.

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The learning sciences, as an academic community investigating human learning, emerged more than 30 years ago. Since then, graduate learning sciences programs have been established worldwide. Little is currently known, however, about their disciplinary backgrounds and the topics and research methods they address. In this document analysis of the websites of 75 international graduate learning sciences programs, we examine central concepts and research methods across institutions, compare the programs, and assess the homogeneity of different subgroups. Results reveal that the concepts addressed most frequently were real-world learning in formal and informal contexts, designing learning environments, cognition and metacognition, and using technology to support learning. Among research methods, design-based research (DBR), discourse and dialog analyses, and basic statistics stand out. Results show substantial differences between programs, yet programs focusing on DBR show the greatest similarity regarding the other concepts and methods they teach. Interpreting the similarity of the graduate programs using a community of practice perspective, there is a set of relatively coherent programs at the core of the learning sciences, pointing to the emergence of a discipline, and a variety of multidisciplinary and more heterogeneous programs "orbiting" the core in the periphery, shaping and innovating the field.The learning sciences as an academic community started to grow some 30 years ago, when the idea of investigating learning and teaching in the real world brought together scientists from various research areas. Stemming from fields like psychology, sociology, computer science, design studies, science, mathematics or medical education, social work, and the young field of cognitive science, these scientists had different academic backgrounds regarding both theory and methods (Hoadley & Van Haneghan, 2011). Thus, from the very beginning, a characteristic of the learning sciences was and continues to be its multifaceted nature, originating from the involvement of diverse scientific fields, each contributing to research on learning and supporting learning in its own way.Since then, an academic community has evolved and flourished, which has increased considerably regarding its scientific impact and popularity. Today, there are many universities across the globe offering graduate programs in learning sciences. Still, up to now little has been known about the disciplines involved in offering these programs and the theories, concepts, and (research) methods they teach. As Yoon and Hmelo-Silver (2017) point out, knowing the extent to which learning sciences programs align might be crucial knowledge to understand both the current status of learning sciences and its future development, which depends on what future learning scientists learn in these programs (Nathan, Rummel, & Hay, 2016). The present study aims to answer the question of the current alignment of graduate learning sciences programs and thereby adds to and extends the...