Are you with me or not? Temporal synchronicity and transactivity during CSCL

Abstract

Do the simultaneous alignment of student activities (temporal synchronicity) and students successively building on each other's reasoning (transactivity) predict the quality of collaborative learning products? To address this question, we used a mixed‐method approach to study 74 first‐year university students who were randomly assigned to work in dyads on an ill‐defined problem of biodiversity collapse in tropical forests within a computer‐supported collaborative learning setting. The quantitative analysis revealed that neither temporal synchronicity nor transactivity was related to the quality of group products. The qualitative analysis of chat transcripts revealed that the variability between the groups could be explained by group dynamics, students' prior knowledge, confidence in managing the learning task, collaborative strategy and communication skills. The study findings could be used to optimize collaboration by informing students directly of their activities or the teachers that scaffold these activities. Lay Description What is already known about this topic: Collaborative learning effort is influenced by how well students coordinate their activities across time and transact on each other's ideas. What this paper adds: This study examines the relation between temporal synchronicity, transactivity and the quality of group products in the context of synchronous computer‐supported collaborative learning. Neither temporal synchronicity nor transactivity was found to be directly related to the quality of group products. Implications for practice and/or policy: Collaboration groups require socio‐cognitive support not only based on the attunement of their efforts but also based on differences within groups.

Are we together or not? The temporal interplay of monitoring, physiological arousal and physiological synchrony during a collaborative exam

“…Collaboration is coordinated, synchronous activity which follows constant attempts to construct and maintain a shared understanding of a problem (Roschelle and Teasley 1995). In the context of collaborative learning, the dynamic and reciprocal adaptation of shared interaction emerges: that is, when individuals in a group are not only working on the same activity at the same time, but are also all "in tune" mentally (Baker 2002;Popov et al 2017). Therefore, synchronicity between individuals in collaborative learning can also be seen in gazes (Schneider and Pea 2013), joint visual attention (Schneider et al 2018), and physiology (Ahonen et al 2018;Gillies et al 2016).…”

“…Second, this study seeks to reveal if and why individuals in a group are physiologically in synchrony with the same activity if such synchrony cannot be observed in verbal interactions. In CSCL, synchronicity has the potential to reveal whether individuals in a group are attuned towards the same mental activity (Popov et al 2017). Third, this study contributes methodologically to the field of CSCL by taking advantage of physiological data that have not yet been explored much.…”

From Cognitive Load Theory to Collaborative Cognitive Load Theory

“…This entails achieving agreement on task-related strategies, dividing tasks between participants, identifying and resolving conflicts, building upon each other's ideas, achieving consensus, and establishing chronological order of activities (Baker 2002;Erkens et al, 2006;Fransen et al 2013;Mayordomo and Onrubia 2015;Popov et al 2017). This communication and coordination brings with it costs to the learners in terms of cognitive load (Ciborra & Olson, 1988;F.…”

“…Kirschner et al 2009b;Yamane, 1996). Popov et al (2017) give a very relevant example with respect to temporally synchronizing communication and coordination activities in CSCL noting that with respect to -among other things -the temporal synchronicity within a team, if the activities of the team members are not aligned or are poorly aligned, the carrying out of the learning task along with the subsequent learning from that task will be negatively influenced.…”

“…These activities which may occur synchronously or asynchronously (Popov et al 2017) enable groups to acquire collective knowledge of who the others are and how they can deal with the task (i.e., a collective executive function), the group's accuracy and willingness to resolve it, and how all members should coordinate what they are doing with each other to accomplish the task together by mediating the acquisition individual and group domainspecific knowledge and the shared, generalised knowledge (Kalyuga 2013;Prichard and Ashleigh 2007). As stated by Popov et al (2017) Blearning is particularly likely to occur when the collaborating students engage in transactive discourse (i.e., critique, challenging of positions and attainment of synthesis via discussion), because this form of discourse gives rise to cognitive activities that stimulate knowledge construction^(p. 426).…”