International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

This study qualitatively develops further understandings regarding knowledge and identity construction within computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) research by applying discourse analysis and the dialogical self theory (DST) to investigate the role of interpersonal and intrapersonal voices in facilitating knowledge construction. We analyzed and compared the audio recordings of ten students separated into two groups of five (group A and group B) as they engaged in dialogue to construct knowledge for a learning task on physics in a CSCL environment. We divided the dialogue of each group into dialogues by identifying their discourse functions (DF) on the basis of interactional events related to knowledge construction. We then grounded the I-positions of I–it, I–me, I–you and I–we at the utterance level so that we could visualize and describe them within the dialogues that were relevant during knowledge construction in each group. Results showed that the process of knowledge construction for collaborative learning related to DF as well as their use of I-positions. Group A, who failed the learning task, often employed interpersonal voices (I–it/I–me) in dialogues that focused on reviewing directions and strategies at the individual level rather than collective clarification and elaboration or empirical evaluation of knowledge. Group B, who succeeded with the learning task, employed both interpersonal (I–it/I–me) and intrapersonal voices (I–you/I–we) with intrapersonal voices peaking in usage during collective empirical evaluation of knowledge. Our findings underscore prior research that CSCL involves not only knowledge but also identity negotiation as well as demonstrating that DST can aid this exploration.

The development of immersive virtual reality (IVR) hardware and software has accelerated in recent years. The conceptual vocabulary has, however, not received the same amount of attention, especially in the context of collaborative learning settings. Existing concepts such as immersion, presence and interactivity focus predominantly on the individual user’s experience, neglecting the social and collaborative dimensions of learning supported by IVR. This limitation is particularly evident in the context of collaborative 360-degree virtual reality (360VR), in which learners must interact with each other to understand the recorded activity rather than interact directly with the environment itself. This paper challenges the current conceptualisations of IVR learning processes and proposes a new conceptual framework: Activity-based collaborative virtual reality (ABC-VR). ABC-VR builds on activity theory and is aligned with a dual sense of activity – the ‘original’ activity recorded with 360-degree video cameras and the activity produced by learners collaboratively and interactively immersing themselves in an ABC-VR session. In this dual sense of activity, ABC-VR is oriented to activities and the ways learners inhabit activities from educational, social and work practices, where actions and operations occur in a situated context shaped by the learners’ embodied actions and use of material resources. In ABC-VR, learners can question each other and imagine future actions – but they can also figuratively reason, imagine and reflect with the participants in the original activity. Through this paper, we unfold a conceptualisation of collaborative 360VR that can support the design of pedagogical activities and future research on IVR in collaborative learning activities.

Quality of collaborative group engagement (QCGE) is conceptualised as a complex, shared, and multidimensional construct critical to learning outcomes in collaborative learning. It is currently measured in a variety of ways, including rich observation-based methods. However, a standardised self-assessment method for the construct of QCGE has not yet been developed. This contribution presents a pragmatic self-assessment approach to QCGE for higher education contexts and a new self-assessment scale: the QCGE-SAS. Our findings from a study with N = 246 students support the four-factor structure of QCGE originally proposed by Sinha et al. (2015), namely behavioural, social, cognitive, and conceptual-to-consequential collaborative group engagement, and demonstrate that the QCGE-SAS can successfully capture the multidimensional nature of QCGE. Construct and criterion validity were supported by significant correlations with related scales and with self-reported and objective learning outcomes. However, while three subscales proved reliable, the social engagement dimension subscale showed unsatisfactory reliability, indicating further refinement of the scale in future research. Overall, our findings contribute to an accurate operationalisation of the QCGE construct and complement existing methods and comprehensive multi-method approaches to measuring QCGE, thereby informing CSCL research and practice.