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Background: University students frequently prepare for exams or presentations in self-organized study groups. For this purpose, they often use videoconferencing software. During their collaboration, they need to regulate emerging problems to ensure effective learning. We suppose that regulation is facilitated when (1) the group perceives their regulation problems homogeneously, (2) they choose regulation strategies that have the potential to solve the problems immediately, and (3) they execute these strategies with sufficient intensity. Aims: We investigated which problems occur during online collaborative learning via videoconferencing and how homogeneity of problem perceptions, immediacy of the chosen strategies, and intensity of strategy use are related to regulation success. Sample: University students (N = 222) from two lectures in pre-service teacher education and educational sciences in 99 study groups. Methods: Students collaborated in a self-organized manner, that is, without a teacher present, to study the material of one lecture using videoconferencing software. After the collaboration, group members rated, individually, the intensity of different problems during collaboration, reported which strategies they used to overcome their biggest problem, and rated the success of their problem regulation, their satisfaction with their collaboration, as well as their learning gain. In addition, they answered a knowledge test. Results: We found that most students rated technical issues as their biggest problem. Multilevel modeling showed that homogeneous problem perception moderated by problem intensity--contrary to immediate and intensive strategy use--predicted successful problem regulation and satisfaction with the collaboration but not knowledge gain. Case analyses illustrate the assumed mechanism that a homogeneous problem perception facilitates socially shared regulation. Conclusion: We conclude that even in only slightly structured learning contexts, students might only need to jointly identify their problems, whereas the best possible regulation of these problems seems less relevant. Therefore, training students to foster regulation competencies might prioritize identifying problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Research has suggested that how learners act in CSCL environments is considerably influenced by their internal collaboration scripts. These scripts are knowledge structures that reside in an individual's memory and consist of play, scene, scriptlet, and role components. In its "internal script configuration principle," the Script Theory of Guidance suggests that as learners work in a CSCL environment, these components are dynamically (re-) configured, and that this (re-)configuration is influenced by the goals of the individual learner. However, this principle has not yet been tested empirically. Methods: In this study, upon entering a CSCL environment, we therefore experimentally manipulated the goals that students pursued while learning. In one condition, we induced learning goals while in the other condition, no goals were induced. A total of 233 pre-service teachers collaborated in dyads on the task to analyze an authentic, problematic classroom situation by aid of educational evidence. We measured their internal scripts both at pre-test (i.e., before collaboration and before goal induction) and post-test (i.e., after collaboration and goal induction), focusing on the scriptlet level. Results: Results show that goal induction had no effects on the kinds of scriptlets participants selected during collaboration. However, results from Epistemic Network Analysis show that learning goal induction led to significantly different combinations of scriptlets (especially to more relations between scriptlets that are indicative of pursuing learning goals) than no goal induction. Furthermore, participants from the learning goal induction acquired significantly more knowledge about educational theories and evidence than students from the control condition. Conclusion: This study is among the first to provide direct evidence for the internal script configuration principle and demonstrates the effectiveness of inducing learning goals as a scaffold to support students' knowledge acquisition processes in CSCL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested that self-organized study groups need to regulate their learning at three levels: the self-, the co-, and the socially shared level. Yet, little is known about how individual learner characteristics influence these regulation processes. In this study, we investigate how students' achievement goals are associated with regulation processes within groups. Two hundred and seventy-seven undergraduates were asked to imagine being part of a self-organized study group with comprehension-related and motivational problems and to name strategies they would apply to regulate their learning in this situation in an open-ended format. Achievement goals were measured using a standardised questionnaire. Results indicated that mastery- and performance-approach goals are positively associated with regulatory effort across all three levels of regulation. Performance-avoidance goals seem to have no significant relationship with regulatory effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argumentative scripts for computer-supported collaborative learning are scaffolds that prompt learners to take over distributed roles and to move through a sequence of activities that specify an argumentative learning discourse. Argumentative scripts may lead to suboptimal effects on learning outcomes when their level of scaffolding does not fit learners' prerequisites regarding argumentation. This study compares the effects of three different levels of argumentative scripts on learners' argumentation knowledge and learning motivation. Results show that university freshmen in the context of mathematics seem to learn best when the argumentative script targets a medium level, scaffolding the sequence of social discourse, but not necessarily the construction of single arguments. Non-significant results regarding the effects on motivational variables speak against the concern that a too detailed structure of scripts may be detrimental for learning due to reduced learning motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is often concerned with the question of how scaffolds or other characteristics of learning may affect learners' social and cognitive engagement. Such engagement in socio-cognitive activities frequently materializes in discourse. In quantitative analyses of discourse, utterances are typically coded, and differences in the frequency of codes are compared between conditions. However, such traditional coding-and-counting-based strategies neglect the temporal nature of verbal data, and therefore provide limited and potentially misleading information about CSCL activities. Instead, we argue that analyses of the temporal proximity, specifically temporal co-occurrences of codes, provide a more appropriate way to characterize socio-cognitive activities of learning in CSCL settings. We investigate this claim by comparing and contrasting a traditional coding-and-counting analysis with epistemic network analysis (ENA), a discourse analysis technique that models temporal co-occurrences of codes in discourse. We apply both methods to data from a study that compared the effects of individual vs. collaborative problem solving. The results suggest that compared to a traditional coding-and-counting approach, ENA provides more insight into the socio-cognitive learning activities of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scripts for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) offer socio-cognitive scaffolding for learners to engage in collaborative activities that are considered beneficial for learning. Yet, CSCL scripts are often criticized for hampering naturally emerging collaboration. Research on the effectiveness of CSCL scripts has shown divergent results. This article reports a meta-analysis about the effects of CSCL scripts on domain-specific knowledge and collaboration skills. Results indicate that CSCL scripts as a kind of socio-cognitive scaffolding can enhance learning outcomes substantially. Learning with CSCL scripts leads to a small positive effect on domain-specific knowledge ( d = 0.20) and a large positive effect on collaboration skills ( d = 0.95) compared to unstructured CSCL. Further analyses reveal that CSCL scripts are particularly effective for domain-specific learning when they prompt transactive activities (i.e., activities in which a learner's reasoning builds on the contribution of a learning partner) and when they are combined with additional content-specific scaffolding (worked examples, concept maps, etc.). Future research on CSCL scripts should include measures of learners' internal scripts (i.e., prior collaboration skills) and the transactivity of the actual learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration scripts have repeatedly been implemented in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) to facilitate collaboration processes and individual learning. However, finding the right degree of structure is a subtle design task: scripts that are too rigid may impair self-regulation and hinder learning; scripts that are too flexible may fail to evoke high-level interactions. This study investigated whether making collaboration scripts adaptable would be a way to raise their effectiveness. Three experimental phases were realized: In a first phase (exposure phase), all students solved three problem cases by aid of a collaboration script in an asynchronous, text-based CSCL environment. In a second phase (treatment phase), another three cases were presented that were to be solved by aid of a different theory that was presented to the learners through a summary on a sheet of paper. During this phase, a three-groups between-subject design was realized: (a) an unscripted condition, in which students received no specific guidance how to structure their collaboration, (b) a non-adaptable script condition, in which students' collaboration was guided by the collaboration script they were trained in before, and (c) an adaptable script condition, in which students were allowed to modify parts of the trained script based on their self-perceived needs. In a third phase (subsequent transfer phase), students received a new case that they were to solve without guidance. N = 87 university students participated. Results showed that during the treatment phase, planning processes were most often performed in the unscripted condition. Yet, the adaptable script substantially increased students' engagement in metacognitive activities of planning compared to learning with a non-adaptable script, and increased monitoring and reflection activities when compared to learning without script. Mediation analyses showed that the adaptable script facilitated learners' use of self-regulation skills in the subsequent, unscripted transfer phase through the promotion of co-regulation processes of reflection in the treatment phase. The results reveal that adaptable scripting is a promising means of implementing flexible scripting and promoting self-regulation in CSCL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent paper, Pierre Tchounikine has suggested to advance the Script Theory of Guidance (SToG) by addressing the question how learners appropriate collaboration scripts presented to them in learning environments. Tchounikine's main criticism addresses SToG's 'internal script configuration principle.' This principle states that in any collaboration situation, the learners' set of goals and perceived situational characteristics influence how they dynamically configure internal collaboration scripts. Tchounikine's critique is that SToG is not very clear about how exactly 'the learner's set of goals' and particularly 'perceived situational characteristics' influence the way learners understand and act in a CSCL situation. In response, we argue that SToG, at its core, is deeply concerned with appropriation of external scripts by focusing on how external scripts influence the (re-)configutration of internal scripts. Here, we lay out different aspects of appropriation in line with the basic assumptions of SToG, namely perception, interpretation, and implementation. The process of appropriation may be followed by an internalization of the result of appropriation (or appropriated external guidance). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A challenging demand for mathematics teacher students is to produce acceptable scientific mathematical argumentations. We investigated to what extent mathematics teacher students with different levels of prior achievement who collaborated in dyads can be supported in their development of mathematical argumentation skills by two different instructional approaches that were systematically varied in a 2 × 2-factorial design: collaboration scripts (with vs. without) and heuristic worked examples vs. problem solving. An experimental study was run in the context of a two-weeks preparatory course for beginning mathematics teacher students (N = 101). Mathematical argumentation skills were conceptualized as consisting of an individual-mathematical and a social-discursive component. Results indicated positive effects of both scaffolds on the social-discursive component. Moreover, the effects of both scaffolds on both components were dependent on learners' prior achievement (high-school GPA). Heuristic worked examples and collaboration scripts were particularly effective in the facilitation of mathematical argumentation skills for teacher students with higher general learning prerequisites. Possible process-based explanations for this pattern of results as well as ways to more specifically address the needs of teacher students with lower prior achievement are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article presents an outline of a script theory of guidance for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). With its 4 types of components of internal and external scripts (play, scene, role, and scriptlet) and 7 principles, this theory addresses the question of how CSCL practices are shaped by dynamically reconfigured internal collaboration scripts of the participating learners. Furthermore, it explains how internal collaboration scripts develop through participation in CSCL practices. It emphasizes the importance of active application of subject matter knowledge in CSCL practices, and it prioritizes transactive over nontransactive forms of knowledge application in order to facilitate learning. Further, the theory explains how external collaboration scripts modify CSCL practices and how they influence the development of internal collaboration scripts. The principles specify an optimal scaffolding level for external collaboration scripts and allow for the formulation of hypotheses about the fading of external collaboration scripts. Finally, the article points toward conceptual challenges and future research questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Peer assessment is an important component of a more participatory culture of learning. The articles collected in this special issue constitute a representative kaleidoscope of current research on peer assessment. In this commentary, we argue that research on peer assessment is currently in a stage of adolescence, grappling with the developmental tasks of identity formation and affiliation. Identity formation may be achieved by efforts towards a shared terminology and joint theory building, whereas affiliation may be reached by a more systematic consideration of research in related fields. To reach identity formation and affiliation, preliminary ideas for a cognitively toned, process-related model of peer assessment and links to related research fields, especially to research on collaborative learning, are presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]