Collaborative reasoning in the context of group competition

A key skill in collaborative problem-solving is to communicate and evaluate reasons for proposals to arrive at the decision benefiting all group members. Although it is well-documented that collaborative contexts facilitate young children’s reasoning, less is known about whether competition with other groups contributes to children’s collaborative reasoning. We investigated whether between-group competition facilitates children’s within-group collaborative reasoning, regarding their production of reasons and their use of transacts, communicative acts that operate on one another’s proposals and reasoning. We presented 5- and 7-year-old peer dyads with two collaborative problem-solving tasks (decorating a zoo and a dollhouse). In one task, children competed against another group (the competitive condition); whereas in the other task, they did not (non-competitive condition). Our results suggest that children’s sensitivity to group competition as reflected in their reasoning changed depending on the task. When they decorated a house, they produced more transacts in the competitive condition than in the non-competitive condition; whereas when they decorated a zoo, this pattern was reversed. Thus, our results highlight that group competition did not influence children’s collaborative reasoning consistently across different contexts.

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The pivotal role of monitoring for collaborative problem solving seen in interaction, performance, and interpersonal physiology

Metacognition and Learning ◽

10.1007/s11409-021-09279-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Eetu Haataja ◽

Jonna Malmberg ◽

Muhterem Dindar ◽

Sanna Järvelä

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Electrodermal Activity ◽

Self Regulation ◽

Collaborative Problem Solving ◽

Pivotal Role ◽

Collaborative Group ◽

Collaborative Task ◽

Collaborative Problem ◽

Group Members

AbstractBeing aware of the progress towards one’s goals is considered one of the main characteristics of the self-regulation process. This is also the case for collaborative problem solving, which invites group members to metacognitively monitor the progress with their goals and externalize it in social interactions while solving a problem. Monitoring challenges can activate group members to control the situation together, which can be seen as adjustments on different systemic levels (physiological, psychological, and interpersonal) of a collaborative group. This study examines how the pivotal role of monitoring for collaborative problem solving is reflected in interactions, performance, and interpersonal physiology. The study has foci in two central characteristics of monitoring interactions that facilitate groups’ regulation in reaching their goals. First is valence of monitoring, indicating whether the group members think they are progressing towards their goal or not. Second is equality of participation in monitoring interactions between group members. Participants of the study were volunteering higher education students (N = 57), randomly assigned to groups of three members whose collaborative task was to learn to run a business simulation. The collaborative task was video recorded, and the physiological arousal of each participant was recorded from their electrodermal activity. The results of the study suggest that both the valence and equality of participation are identifiable in monitoring interactions and they both positively predict groups’ performance in the task. Equality of participation to monitoring was not related to the interpersonal physiology. However, valence of monitoring was related to interpersonal physiology in terms of physiological synchrony and arousal. The findings support the view that characteristics of monitoring interactions make a difference to task performance in collaborative problem solving and that interpersonal physiology relates to these characteristics.

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Comparing Collaboration Fidelity between VR, MR and Video Conferencing Systems: The Effects of Visual Communication Media Fidelity on Collaboration

JUCS - Journal of Universal Computer Science ◽

10.3897/jucs.2020.052 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 26 (8) ◽

pp. 972-995

Author(s):

Sangsun Han ◽

Kibum Kim ◽

Seonghwan Choi ◽

Mankyu Sung

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Common Ground ◽

Mixed Reality ◽

Video Conferencing ◽

The Other ◽

Collaborative Problem Solving ◽

Communication Media ◽

Remote Collaboration ◽

Collaborative Problem ◽

The Creation

Video/audio conferencing systems have been used extensively for remote collaboration over many years. Recently, virtual and mixed reality (VR/MR) systems have started to show great potential as communication media for remote collaboration. Prior studies revealed that the creation of common ground between discourse participants is crucial for collaboration and that grounding techniques change with the communication medium. However, it is difficult to find previous research that compares VR and MR communication system performances with video conferencing systems regarding the creation of common ground for collaborative problem solving. On the other hand, prior studies have found that display fidelity and interaction fidelity had significant effects on performance-intensive individual tasks in virtual reality. Fidelity in VR can be defined as the degree of objective accuracy with which the real-world is represented by the virtual world. However, to date, fidelity for collaborative tasks in VR/MR has not been defined or studied much. In this paper, we compare five different communication media for the establishment of common ground in collaborative problem-solving tasks: Webcam, headband camera, VR, MR, and audio-only conferencing systems. We analyzed these communication media with respect to collaborative fidelity components which we defined. For the experiments, we utilized two different types of collaborative tasks: a 2D Tangram puzzle and a 3D Soma cube puzzle. The experimental results show that the traditional Webcam performed better than the other media in the 2D task, while the headband camera performed better in the 3D task. In terms of collaboration fidelity, these results were somehow predictable, although there was a little difference between our expectations and the results.

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Online and other ICT-based Assessment Tools for Problem-solving Skills

International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET) ◽

10.3991/ijet.v11i04.5339 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 11 (04) ◽

pp. 56 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Athanasios Drigas ◽

Maria Karyotaki

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Large Scale ◽

Thinking Skills ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Collaborative Problem Solving ◽

Future Research ◽

Problem Solving Skills ◽

Collaborative Problem ◽

Group Members

Problem-solving skills assessment starts with the imperative that the hypothesized construct of skills, is theoretically sound. Secondly, assessment refers to identifying and recording inductive and deductive types of reasoning as well as divergent and convergent thinking skills. The aforementioned procedures should be measured, independent of specific learning domains or knowledge backgrounds. Future research should be oriented towards the development of a prototype set of tasks that would embed problem-solving skills in different content and context areas and that would act as a model for implementation in online large-scale assessments. Furthermore, the classroom provides an environment amenable to collaborative problem solving, in which capturing the progress of students’ both social and cognitive processes through identifying the exchange of implicit and explicit types of information, remains to be sufficiently addressed. Effective collaborative problem-solving assessment is related to well-defined, real-world problems as well as to the provision of respective scaffolds to group members for developing their cognitive and meta-cognitive skills. In other words, effective collaborative problem-solving assessment should bring about and measure group members’ cognitive and meta-cognitive skills, evolving from the social regulation of processes, such as goal setting, connecting information and patterns as well as testing hypotheses.

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Computer Agent Technologies in Collaborative Learning and Assessment

Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in Modern Education Delivery - Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-7365-4.ch019 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 229-238

Author(s):

Yigal Rosen

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Collaborative Problem Solving ◽

Educational Systems ◽

Virtual Agents ◽

Problem Solving Skills ◽

Computer Agent ◽

Collaborative Problem ◽

Scalable Learning ◽

Group Members ◽

Computer Based

In recognition of the importance of collaborative and problem-solving skills, educators are realizing the need for effective and scalable learning and assessment solutions to promote the skillset in educational systems. In the settings of a comprehensive collaborative problem-solving assessment, each student should be matched with various types of group members and must apply the skills in varied contexts and tasks. One solution to these assessment demands is to use computer-based (virtual) agents to serve as the collaborators in the interactions with students. The chapter presents the premises and challenges in the use of computer agents in the assessment of collaborative problem solving and describes how human and computer agent collaborative assessments are used in an international learning and assessment project, Animalia.

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Computer Agent Technologies in Collaborative Learning and Assessment

Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3.ch209 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 2402-2410 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yigal Rosen

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Collaborative Problem Solving ◽

Educational Systems ◽

Virtual Agents ◽

Problem Solving Skills ◽

Computer Agent ◽

Collaborative Problem ◽

Scalable Learning ◽

Group Members ◽

Computer Based

In recognition of the importance of collaborative and problem solving skills, educators are realizing the need for effective and scalable learning and assessment solutions to promote the skillset in educational systems. In the settings of a comprehensive collaborative problem solving assessment, each student should be matched with various types of group members and must apply the skills in varied contexts and tasks. One solution to these assessment demands is to use computer-based (virtual) agents to serve as the collaborators in the interactions with students. The chapter presents the premises and challenges in the use of computer agents in the assessment of collaborative problem solving and describes how human and computer agent collaborative assessments are used in international learning and assessment project Animalia.

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