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Page 1: Methodological reflections: designing and understanding computer-supported collaborative learning

This article was downloaded by: [University of Toronto Libraries]On: 20 December 2014, At: 20:21Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Teaching in Higher EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cthe20

Methodological reflections: designingand understanding computer-supportedcollaborative learningRaija Hämäläinen aa Finnish Institute for Educational Research , University ofJyväskylä , P.O.Box 35, Keskussairaalantie 2, Jyväskylä , 40014 ,FinlandPublished online: 17 Feb 2012.

To cite this article: Raija Hämäläinen (2012) Methodological reflections: designing andunderstanding computer-supported collaborative learning, Teaching in Higher Education, 17:5,603-614, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2012.658556

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2012.658556

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Page 2: Methodological reflections: designing and understanding computer-supported collaborative learning

Methodological reflections: designing and understandingcomputer-supported collaborative learning

Raija Hamalainen*

Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyvaskyla, P.O.Box 35,Keskussairaalantie 2, Jyvaskyla 40014, Finland

(Received 2 February 2011; final version received 1 December 2011)

Learning involves more than just a small group of participants, which makesdesigning and managing collaborative learning processes in higher education achallenging task. As a result, emerging concerns in current research have pointedincreasingly to teacher orchestrated learning processes in naturalistic learningsettings. In line with this trend, collaboration scripts for instructional supporthave been presented as a potential trigger for collaboration. This article presents aqualitative methodology designed to understand collaboration in macro-scriptedconditions. The study aimed to highlight the differences and similarities in howthe ‘ideal’ script (the particular learning activities that the script is expected toproduce) and the ‘actual, realized’ script (i.e. what really happens in the scriptedlearning setting) were reached by different groups. In practice, this kind of ananalytic method will help teachers to support the knowledge construction ofdifferent groups.

Keywords: qualitative methodologies; collaborative learning; distributed learningenvironment; collaboration macro-scripts

Introduction

Today, it is not enough to offer individual learners new knowledge only. To meet

the challenges of the twenty-first century work life, more often learning in the

higher education context is based on the notion of collaborative knowledge construc-

tion. Agreeing that collaborative learning involves a group of participants makes

designing, developing, implementing, managing and monitoring the collaboration

processes a challenging task for teachers (Kollar et al. 2011). Related to that, the

role of the teacher is changing from that of a monologic (teacher as knowledge

recourse explaining to students ‘how things are’) to a dialogic actor (teacher

appointing stimulus for students’ shared collaboration and problem solving). This

transformation seems to be very demanding (Sarja and Janhonen 2009) as teachers

do not typically find pedagogical support from the curricula (Voogt 2008) or

collegial collaboration within educational organisations (Hokka, Rasku-Puttonen,

and Etelapelto 2008). There is an increasing need for teachers to orchestrate and

support the students in shared knowledge construction; thus, instructional plan-

ning for effective instruction in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) settings

has become an emerging concern in current research of higher education. Therefore,

*Email: [email protected]

Teaching in Higher Education

Vol. 17, No. 5, October 2012, 603�614

ISSN 1356-2517 print/ISSN 1470-1294 online

# 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2012.658556

http://www.tandfonline.com

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more attention must be paid to engaging students in productive collaboration

(Hamalainen and Hakkinen 2010) and examining how learning can be orchestrated

by the teacher in TEL settings (Dillenbourg and Jermann 2010). In this article,

we are interested in finding an analytic method of collaboration by which newknowledge can be produced to understand collaboration processes and to support

teaching in TEL settings.

Designing computer-supported collaborative learning with macro-scripts

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) (e.g. Koschmann 1996) appears

to be a promising social approach to foster generative discourse and knowledge

construction in higher education. In this context collaboration is defined as sharedknowledge construction in which knowledge is built on shared ideas and thoughts

(for a more detailed definition, see Arvaja et al. 2007). Despite the potential,

there are also several challenges in arranging high-level CSCL in higher education.

For example, according to Vass and Littleton (2009) current use of the term

‘collaboration’ describes ideal forms of group interaction. Related to that, recent

studies have indicated that when learners are left on their own it is often difficult

for teams to engage in these ideally productive interactions (e.g. Arvaja 2007). In

reality, high-quality collaboration (where group members engage in shared knowl-edge construction) seems to be relatively rare. Therefore, different methods of teacher

orchestrated learning (e.g. Dillenbourg and Jermann 2010) have been developed

to enhance learning activities. Next, collaboration scripts will be introduced as a

pedagogical method to enhance higher education.

One way to upgrade higher education is to structure interactions with

collaboration scripts (Dillenbourg and Jermann 2006). Collaboration scripts are

scaffolds that aim to improve collaboration through evoking, structuring and

empowering interactive processes between learners that have been found ineducational studies to strengthen learning (e.g. Kobbe et al. 2007). The aim of

such scripts is to generate shared knowledge construction by introducing inspiring

topics for discussion and then providing groups of learners with support and

structure in how to engage in shared work processes (e.g. solving cognitive conflicts)

(for a detailed description and examples of scripts, see Kobbe et al. 2007). In

practice, this can mean for example introducing a reason for socio-cognitive conflict

and offering a supporting structure for solving that conflict. Within recent years

several studies have indicated scripts’ positive effect on learning in higher educationsettings (e.g. De Wever et al. 2010; Kollar, Fischer, and Slotta 2007; Kopp and

Mandl 2011).

The research field of scripting collaboration is young and methodological

developments on how to investigate scripting are currently being worked on from

different research perspectives. Studies often lie between the educational psychology-

oriented (studies of individual cognition) and socioculturally oriented-research

perspective (studies of group processes) (Dillenbourg, Jarvela, and Fischer 2009).

The roots of scripts are in cognitive psychology, signifying that the proceduralknowledge of individuals guides them in specific routine situations. Next, the scripts

were adapted to studies on cooperative learning. Then, researchers adopted scripting

as a form of supporting collaboration (Kobbe et al. 2007). The focus of empirical

research on scripting has been primarily on the connection between socio-cognitive

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learning processes and individual learning outcomes. Only a few empirical studies

have addressed culturally organised social interactions and the process of group

knowledge construction. Only recently, the focus on scripts has shifted more

towards investigations on how to engage groups in shared knowledge construction

processes in naturalistic classroom settings (De Wever et al. 2010; Hamalainen and

Hakkinen 2010).The difference between research perspectives is consequential when it comes to

applying scripts in teaching. In practice this can be seen as implementing CSCL

in different ways. There is a difference between guiding interactions at a detailed

level (micro-scripts) and establishing conditions for collaboration (macro-scripts)

(Dillenbourg and Jermann 2006). Macro-scripts typically introduce the reason for

collaboration with general steps for how to proceed during the shared learning

activities, while micro-scripts describe in detail what learners should do next and

how (e.g. how to argue). The basic idea of macro-scripts is not only to set up

conditions in which favourable activities and productive interactions should occur,

but also to leave space for the groups’ creativity. In practice, teachers possess

knowledge of pedagogical principles (based on research findings) that are effective

in supporting collaboration and are easily transferable to different learning settings

(see Dillenbourg and Tchounikine 2007). Next, we will discuss how different research

perspectives illustrate collaboration.

According to Arvaja (2007), the problem with studies that focus on (individual)learning outcomes and their relationship with the cognitive quality of discussion

is that they reveal little about the collaborative process. In addition, this type of

analysis makes it difficult to capture variations between groups and their activities

in relation to the design of pedagogical core ideas for macro-scripted collaboration.

Moreover, Mercer and Littleton (2007) argue that pre-determined categories or

target items are prone to limit what actually happens in collaborative leaning

situations. Therefore, methods of analysis used in cognitive and educational

psychology that aim to study the relationship between the cognitive aspects of

student interactions and individual learning outcomes are not capable of illustrating

collaboration processes by which the teacher can support groups’ knowledge

construction. However, this is something that macro-scripts aim for as they attempt

to study group processes and allow for flexible social interactions in the process of

shared knowledge construction. In other words, macro-scripts lie between socio-

cultural approaches and instructional design (Dillenbourg and Tchounikine 2007).

Thus, understanding learning in macro-scripted settings requires making sense of the

collaboration processes that students engage in, the tools that mediate their learning

as well as the qualitative differences in the communities where they participate.Therefore, the methods of analysis need to be further developed as well. Thus,

methods need to be based on the understanding developed in sociocultural studies

and focus on macro-scripts as flexible resources that facilitate group processes in

authentic learning contexts. The aim of this article is to depict a method by which

it is possible to detect the difference between the ‘ideal’ script (the particular

learning activities that the script is expected to produce; cf. Kobbe et al. 2007) and the

‘actual, realized script’ (i.e. what really happens in the scripted learning setting)

(Dillenbourg and Jermann 2006). With regard to collaboration, special attention will

be paid to whether macro-scripts are able to promote the resolution of cognitive

conflict, collaborative knowledge construction and the sharing of expertise, as is

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expected from the introducing topic and structure for discussions. Empirical examples

of two small groups with similar amounts of activity were selected to illustrate the

method’s applicability. In practice, this kind of analytic method will help teachers

to support the knowledge construction of different groups.

The setting: instructional intervention in the education of teachers

This study implemented a design-based research approach (e.g. Wang and Hannafin

2005). Sub-studies involved structuring the student groups’ collaborative activities

by means of a pedagogical model (script), whilst the groups were working in an

asynchronous web-based learning environment. For this purpose, three macro-scripts

were designed (for more detailed description of the scripts see e.g. Hamalainen andHakkinen 2010). In this article, one script (called ‘Grid’) was selected to illustrate

the applicability of the method. The study was conducted in a higher education

context and composed of two groups of first-year teacher education students

(N �8). The same teacher was used in each group. These two groups were selected

based on their similar activity levels and varied quality of collaboration (collabora-

tive and non-collaborative groups).

The aim of the script was to generate collaboration between the team members

and to prevent ‘free riders’ (see Strijbos and De Laat 2010) (i.e. to activate allstudents) by requiring individual work as part of the script. The script used in

this study combined ‘ConceptGrid’ (cf. Dillenbourg and Jermann 2006), mutual

explanation and the idea of resolving cognitive conflicts. Moreover, the script was

expected to encourage the group members to share expertise, and to use collabora-

tive knowledge construction in task solution. The students were expected to work

on a controversial education policy topic on whether pre-primary education should

be organised at school or kindergarten. The task and the pedagogical core idea of

the script were selected first as, in many studies, students’ differences in terms ofknowledge or perspectives are stressed as a prerequisite for cognitive conflicts and

high-level learning. The topic itself was expected to cause conflict and encourage

shared solutions in the web-environment because the teacher had used this task in

face-to-face situations for many years with a similar impact.

In the script, the students were expected to go through five different phases.

Moving from one phase to the next presupposed that the previous task was

completed. However, the students were not penalised in any way when they failed to

complete a phase in the script and the script did not give detailed instructions forstudent interaction. These kinds of flexible instructions are typical for macro scripts,

the objective of which is to offer stimuli to accomplish collaboration (Dillenbourg

and Tchounikine 2007). Moreover, the idea was that flexible instructions would

encourage the students to develop personal participation styles during collaboration

activities and interplay with fellow group members (Jahnke 2010). First, the groups

received different sets of theoretical background information (for each participant),

which the students allocated within the group. The aim of this procedure was to

create interdependence between the group members by producing opposite butcomplementary resources for the students (see Kobbe et al. 2007). In the second

phase, each student read his or her theory material and looked up a relevant site of

pre-primary education (school or kindergarten) on the Internet. The aim of this

phase was to offer authentic experiences and to add meaning to the personal roles

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established in the first phase. In the third phase, each student filled in a table with

his or her views and definition of the topic, based on the background information

and his or her online research (different views aiming at cognitive conflicts). The aim

of this phase was to make the opposite sides and opinions visible and clear forthe group members. In the fourth phase, each group had a shared discussion in which

the students had to formulate final statements around the topic while heeding the

opposite points of view. In this phase, a cognitive conflict between the opposing

views was expected to rise, ideally solved by using shared expertise and complemen-

tary knowledge construction (De Laat and Lally 2004). In the fifth and final phase,

members of each group had an analytic discussion about how well they had been

able to construe the task and complete the final statement.

The data were collected in conjunction with a university course. The collectioninvolved naturalistic observations of ongoing web-based activities over a period

of about four weeks in Grid-script. The process-oriented data sources included

material used and produced in the computer-based activity, asynchronous web-based

discussions held during the task and the final productions of the groups provided

at the end of the script.

The aim of the analysis was to find out the difference between the ‘ideal’ script

and the ‘actual, realized script’. Special attention was paid to whether the teachers’

instructional activities (i.e. the macro-script with a pedagogical core idea) were ableto promote the sharing of expertise, collaborative knowledge construction and the

resolution of cognitive conflict in the groups, as the pedagogical idea of the script

implied.

In the beginning of the analysis the data were verified: all the material was read

and reread several times and different types of data occurring in the same context

were taken under cross-analysis. The following three steps were taken: (1) examining

whether the groups followed the structure of the script and whether they reached

the pedagogical core of the macro-script; (2) analysing whether the group work wascollaborative or non-collaborative (based on the functional roles of discussion, the

identification of group work and the use of internal and external learning resources);

and (3) comparing the main differences between the groups despite the use of the

same scripted environment. The main findings are demonstrated through empirical

examples of the two different groups.

Whether the groups followed the macro-script

Firstly, the analysis addressed whether the students were active during the script

and the degree to which they followed the script. This was done by categorising

the students’ rate of participation (Part 1: Amount of Activity) in terms of a) the

overall activity of all students during the scripted exercise (how many students were

active during each phase of the script) and b) each student’s rate of participation

during each phase. Table 1 shows the activity of the students in groups A and B

in the web-based discussions (discussion and feedback discussion) in the Grid-

task, the frequency of their actions and whether the students filled out the table.The focus is on the individual differences and similarities in the participation activity.

As can be seen from Table 1, overall participation in groups A and B was rather

similar. Both of the groups also had one active participant in the discussion (Pekka

(Group A) and Mea (Group B)). The goal of examining whether the groups followed

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the structure of the script (Part 2: Quality of Activities) was completed after

analysing collaboration within different groups (see Second Level of Analysis) by

examining whether the Grid-script generated a resolution of cognitive conflict,

collaborative knowledge construction and shared expertise, as is expected in the core

pedagogical ideas of scripts.

The quality of collaboration

Since the activity levels of students in a virtual environment do not necessarily

illustrate collaboration, these levels were determined not only by the frequency oftheir contributions within different steps of the script, but also by considering how

meaningful these contributions were with respect to collaboration. This is in line

with Mercer and Littleton’s (2007) notion that the quality of a learner’s commu-

nication is strongly related to the quality of learning. Therefore, a qualitative content

analysis (Berelson 1952) was used to focus on group processes and the groups

were identified as either collaborative or non-collaborative. The identification was

based on the analysis of the functional roles of discussion (Hamalainen 2011). The

focus was on what internal and external learning resources (Jeong and Hmelo-Silver2010) the groups used and what spontaneous roles the students adopted during the

scripted task (Strijbos and De Laat 2010).

To understand the nature and context of the discussion after naturalistic

observations of ongoing web-based activities, all the material was read through

several times, and different types of data were taken under cross-examination. This

way, we developed an intuitive understanding and hunches (Vass and Littleton 2009)

concerning the collaboration. Moreover, the aim of rereading the web-based

discussions was to find regularities and discursive features that were seen as rele-vant for the research questions (Vass and Littleton 2009). Next, we developed an

understanding of whether group work was in line with the ‘ideal’ script by analysing

the functional roles of discussion, students’ orientation and efforts, and their use

of learning resources.

The analysis of the functional roles of discussion was modified from the

communicative functions’ analysis (Arvaja 2007; Kumpulainen and Mutanen 1999)

of collaboration and the quality of discussion and its impact on learning. The

communicative functions were first adapted by Arvaja (2007) from the frameworkfor analysing language functions developed by Kumpulainen and Mutanen (1999).

However, in this context, the analysis of communicative functions was further

elaborated to understand specific theory- and context-based collaboration (i.e. macro-

scripted, aiming for specific types of activities). Therefore, the functional roles of

Table 1. The total amounts of participation with groups A and B.

Group A Table Discussion

Feedback

discussion Group B Table Discussion

Feedback

discussion

Pekka x 15 1 Mea x 16 1

Lisa x 13 1 Viivi x 9 1

Sue x 8 1 Caro x 5 1

Lena x 10 1 Saana x 9 1

Total Group A x 46 4 x 39 4

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discussion were theory-based in nature. Moreover, since macro-scripts aim to be

flexible resources that result in a richness of collaborative interactions (Dillenbourg

and Tchounikine 2007), the occurrence of functional roles in discussion depended

on the groups’ shared processes and the interpretations made by the participants

involved in these discussions. In other words, the groups were not compelled to

engage in specific types of activities (e.g. sharing expertise); therefore, the contextual

nature of collaboration needed to be considered (e.g. the groups did not necessarily

use aimed activities).

The analysis was made by classifying each utterance into discourse function

categories (see Table 2 for descriptions). These categories were based on the follow-

ing theory-driven aims for scripted tasks: (1) sharing expertise; (2) collaborative

knowledge construction and; (3) solving cognitive conflict (see Table 2). An utterance

with the substance of a theory-driven communicative function was chosen as the

unit of analysis (Chi 1997). However, in some cases, several utterances served

the same function: for example, ‘Sue: According to the article children were able to

adapt in pre-school in both day-care and school very well. Only one of the children

participating in the study had difficulties in pre-education at school. This might

be because the children’s personal needs had been considered in choosing if pre-

school education would be conducted in the school or in day-care’. This is one

utterance in which student Sue is sharing her expertise (According to the article. . .),describing (one of the children participating in the research. . .), and reasoning (This

might be because of. . .) children’s placement in preschool.

Since there were messages without functional roles of discussion (e.g. organising

activities) and in some cases several utterances served the same function, the number

of messages and the amount of functional roles differed. Group A sent 50 messages

in which 54 functional roles of discussion were identified. In contrast, Group B sent

43 messages in which 27 functional roles of discussion were found (see Table 3).

As can be seen in Table 3, the most typical discourse function with both of the

groups was sharing expertise (with Group A, 45 of 54, and with Group B, 22 of

27 functional roles of discussion consisted of sharing expertise). The number of

messages involving collaborative knowledge construction was rather low for both

groups (with Group A, 9 of 54, and with Group B, 4 of 27 functional roles of

discussion consisted of complementary knowledge construction). Finally, the

analysis indicated that neither group solved cognitive conflicts even though the

teacher had many years of experience using this task in face-to-face situations with

fruitful use of cognitive conflicts (see Table 3).

In conclusion, the simple participation activity in the discussion did not

explain the difference in the quality of collaboration, of which we had developed

an intuitive understanding while reading and rereading the web-based discussions.

Table 2. Descriptions of discourse function categories.

Discourse functions Description

Distributing expertise Reasoning, explaining, or justifying one’s own knowledge

Complementary knowledge

construction

Responding to or completing knowledge construction

started by other group members (knowledge construction

built on others’ ideas and thoughts)

Solving cognitive conflict Negotiating a shared solution to the problem

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From the analysis of the functional roles of discussion, we were able to see that

even though the participation activity frequency in Groups A (50 times) and B

(43 times) differed quite little (Group A had seven more than Group B during about

four weeks of study), the discussion of Group A (54) had double the amount of

functional roles compared with Group B (27). In other words, the work of Group A

came closer to the ‘ideal’ script (the particular learning activities the script is expected

to produce; cf. Kobbe et al. 2007) than that of Group B.

The next level of analysis was inspired by the analysis of prototypical roles in

CSCL (see Strijbos and De Laat 2010). The analysis focused on group activities,

whereas the aim was to understand the reasons for the differences between Group A

and B in the functional roles of discussion. According to Strijbos and De Laat

(2010), student roles in collaborative learning situations can be identified on three

dimensions: group size, student orientation and effort. In this study, both of the groups

were small. Firstly, students’ orientation during group work was categorised either

as orientation towards individual goals or towards group goals. Secondly, the effort

that the students put into the group work and its impact were investigated.

It should be noted that effort is not the same as impact: one’s influence within a

group is not directly dependent upon the amount of one’s contributions. Therefore,

the functional roles of discussion, how meaningful they were for collaboration and

the activity level of each student were examined. Here we also considered whether

the students used external (e.g. books, Internet; Jeong and Hmelo-Silver 2010)

and/or internal (e.g. prior knowledge; Arvaja 2007) resources to enhance their

collaboration activities. The uses of internal and external resources were both taken

as positive efforts in collaboration. In the following excerpts, we will demonstrate

the difference between students’ orientation and effort between Groups A and B.

Excerpt 1: Group A web-based discussion on the role of the child.

Pekka: Children come to pre-school to learn how to operate in a group (independency,fending for oneself, self-regulation and taking care of one’s own means, etc.). In pre-school, instead of pedagogical aims the main interest is in social skills to prepare childrenfor school. In the daily routines there has to be enough space for active participation and

Table 3. The amount of discourse functions of Grid-Script.

Discourse functions Group A Group B

Distributing expertise Pekka 16 Mea 11

Lisa 16 Viivi 4

Sue 8 Caro 3

Lena 5 Saana 4

Complementary knowledge construction Pekka 1 Mea 1

Lisa 5 Viivi 0

Sue 0 Caro 1

Lena 3 Saana 3

Solving cognitive conflict Pekka 0 Mea 0

Lisa 0 Viivi 0

Sue 0 Caro 0

Lena 0 Saana 0

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individual needs. Teachers have to be able to see different needs and react on them.For example, in Steiner- schools that I visited, the curriculum was build together withelementary schools.

Lisa: Pekka made clear points and I agree with him. There is not much to add, butI would also pay attention to role of free and tutored play to practice versatile skillsneeded in school.

Sue: According to the article I read, preschool education is still usually led by theteacher both in day-care and in school, although there are clear differences between thelearning environments. In my personal opinion, in day-care, the role of the child shouldbe somehow free-floating, and children should be allowed to communicate more duringtutored play. My personal work experience from day-care is the opposite. The tutoredplays were rather teacher-controlled with fixed seats and teaching was conducted infront of the class as in traditional school. However, the advantage was that between theclasses the role of the children was more open and also adults attended this free play.Therefore, more learning through play happened there than in the playtime of school.

Researcher’s interpretation: In the aforementioned example from Group A, the

students’ orientation towards a collaborative approach shows in their communica-

tion as they actively share expertise and build a new understanding based on each

others’ ideas in their task solution. Pekka starts the discussion by giving his opinion

about achieving readiness to operate in a group, arguing for it (the main interest

is in social skills. . .) and reasoning how one should act (In the daily routines there

has to be enough space for active participation. . .). In the end of the message, he

gives an example of the Steiner- schools he visited (use of external resources). Lisa

responds to the message by agreeing with Pekka and by introducing a new insight to

pay attention to the roles of free and tutored play (I would also pay attention . . . ).

Then, in the first part of her message, Sue addresses the theme of the teacher’s

role based on the background article (use of external resources), after which she

gives her personal opinion and reasons based on her personal experience (use of

internal resources) concerning teachers’ actions in practice (my personal work

experience from day-care is the opposite. . .). Continuing on this theme, she also

points out another positive fact (However, the advantage was. . .) in the teachers’

behaviour. As we can see the effort that the students put in the group work can be

considered productive with meaningful use of external and internal resources to

empower knowledge construction.

Excerpt 2: Group B web-based discussion regarding the role of the child.

Mea: The role of the child is to be the doer and the maker, and therefore, ‘‘theprotagonist’’ of the pre-school.

Viivi: Yeah, that’s true.

Caro: I agree with Mea: Pre-school has to be child-centred. Needs of the differentchildren have to be considered. As the child is the object of teaching, the planning has tomeet his needs.

Saana: I agree, preschool education has to be inspired by their needs and those ofgroups and individuals.

Follow-on paragraph style: use this for each subsequent paragraph.

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Researcher’s interpretation: As can be seen in Excerpt 2, the students’ statements

regarding the role of children were rather simplistic and based on common

knowledge rather than background materials (research articles or personal experi-

ence from the visit online). Thus, the effort that the students put into the group workwas rather low. There was no use of external or internal materials with Group B.

Moreover, as can be seen in Excerpt 2, the group did not present an orientation

towards high-level collaboration with elaborative questions or deeper reasoning

for their opinions (e.g. Mea, Viivi, Caro and Saana did not state why teaching

should be ‘child-centred’ and how it could be implemented). This lack of deeper

reasoning created problems, since students mainly repeated their earlier views from

Phase 3.

Study limitations

This study took place in a naturalistic setting focused on qualitative differences in the

collaboration of groups in macro-scripted settings. Moreover, this study exploredmethods to investigate macro-scripts as a way of orchestrating learning. Regarding

the findings, the limitations of a case study approach should be kept in mind. In this

study, authentic settings and the use of a qualitative analysis meant abandoning the

psychological research tradition in which collaboration scripts are typically

investigated, and in which results are based on the notion of controlling variables

in large-scale settings (Collins 1999). This experiment was designed for a particular

learning context and for a small number of subjects. Therefore, the findings cannot

be generalised. However, the advantage of this study is its focus on developingmethods for investigating the qualitative differences of group collaboration in macro-

scripted authentic learning contexts, which we do not currently know much about.

The study is in line with the notion that there is a need to find methods to understand

collaboration, especially as it pertains to macro-scripted conditions with open-ended

tasks without fixed goals. All in all, the findings will help teachers to support the

knowledge construction of different groups.

Conclusion

This study indicates that despite the similar amount of activities during the learning

process, there were differences in the groups’ collaboration levels. That is, Group A

was oriented towards group goals and put more effort into shared knowledgeconstruction, while the level of collaboration in Group B was rather low. In other

words, a higher amount of shared knowledge construction emerged in Group A

during the task solution (see Excerpt 1). Group members’ orientation towards a

collaborative approach showed in their communication, as they actively shared

expertise and built new understandings based on each others’ ideas when solving

tasks. In consequence, this study demonstrates that not only should each group’s

activity level be taken into account, but the quality of collaboration also needs to

be analysed (i.e. functional roles of discussion and how meaningful they are forcollaboration). The findings also illustrate the differences in the effort that the

students put into the group work. In practice, Group A called on internal and

external resources more effectively than Group B. From a teacher’s perspective,

this means that groups need different real-time support in exploiting resources to

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enhance their collaboration activities (see also Arvaja 2007). For example, in this

study Group A was able to engage in productive interactions triggered by the macro-

script, while Group B would have needed the teachers’ real-time orchestration. For

the future, this sets challenges for empowering the relationship between real-time

teachers’ orchestration and the learners’ different needs in taking advantage of

macro-scripts in arousing high-level knowledge construction in higher education.

In conclusion, this study is in line with the notion that, at their best, macro

scripts introduce to the students the reason for collaboration and may enhance

shared knowledge construction in groups, (as happened with Group A). However,

one weakness of macro-scripts is that they do not guarantee high-level collaboration

(as demonstrated with Group B). Therefore, in the future, research is needed on

how to design, implement, manage and monitor the learning processes of non-

collaborative groups (such as Group B) towards shared high-level knowledge

construction. This may be done, for example, by helping the teachers use techno-

logical solutions to successfully orchestrate learning activities when problems occur

in collaboration, when the students use technologies to engage themselves in high-

level collaboration in complex, naturalistic learning settings.

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