Effects of Different Leadership Styles on Cognitive Engagement in Online Collaborative Learning

Abstract

The collaborative learning approach as a universal teaching strategy is widely used in online learning. It is proven that the group leader has an important impact on group collaborative knowledge construction in online collaborative learning (OCL). However, limited research is available on how leadership styles influence a group universal teaching strategy is widely used in online learning this study, the authors adopted lag sequential analysis, epistemic network analysis, and social network analysis to explore the influence of divergent and convergent leadership styles on cognitive engagement in OCL groups. Compared with convergent leadership, divergent leadership strengthened online collaborative cognitive engagement through significant organizer and manager roles, triggered high-quality cognitive behavior transformation within the group, and promoted the balanced development of learners' cognitive structure.