A Review of Group Awareness Tools/Mechanisms in Empirical Studies in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Research on Innovations in Learning Technologies

Abstract

In the past two decades, awareness tools/mechanisms have been developed to facilitate students’ learning within a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) context. However, how useful the tools/mechanisms were in empirical studies had not been systemically investigated. In this study, we did a content analysis of 15 empirical studies which focus on group awareness tools/mechanisms. The results indicated that the subjects were mainly university and secondary students, the group size ranged from two to six, and sometimes the participants worked independently, various tools/mechanisms focusing on cognitive, metacognitive and social awareness had been developed, most of the research adopted (quasi)experiments with control groups, and the awareness tools/mechanisms were shown to be useful in nine studies.

Authors

• Gaoxia Zhu, University of Toronto

• Stacy Costa, University of Toronto