Tacit guidance for collaborative multimedia learning

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Abstract

Collaborative multimedia learning is a scenario placing various demands on the learners that go beyond understanding complex issues and coordinating a learning discourse. On the one hand, individuals have to mentally interrelate multiple external representations in order to understand the learning material and the underlying concepts; on the other hand, during collaboration, learners have to use the differently coded information in order to exchange conceptual knowledge. In this paper, the development and experimental evaluation of a group awareness tool (collaborative integration tool) is presented that is intended to simultaneously support both individual and collaborative learning processes during dyadic collaborative multimedia learning. The tool was experimentally compared with an integration task that already proved to foster meaningful individual learning processes. The results suggest that providing group awareness can lead to better individual learning gains by reducing demanding processes and by tacitly guiding learner interactions.

Introduction

When learners try to understand complex conceptual issues by means of multimedia learning material, translating between multiple external representations and mentally integrating them is an important but difficult challenge (Ainsworth, 2006). While integrating multiple representations is, in the end, an individual process, the acquisition and exchange of knowledge about external representations often occurs during collaboration (Kozma, 2003), which places additional demands on learners (Dillenbourg & Bétrancourt, 2006). However, tools and instructional tasks that support learning with multiple representations usually focus on the individual. A main requirement in developing a tool that supports collaborative learning with multiple external representations is the simultaneous consideration of both individual and collaborative processes.

In this paper, facilitating group awareness is proposed as a suitable means for reducing unprofitable collaborative effort, and for tacitly guiding learning-relevant interactions while leaving the scope for individual learning processes and their support. The article presents the development and experimental evaluation of a group awareness tool that is intended to support collaborative multimedia learning in this manner.

Multimedia learning materials commonly comprise differently coded external representations, such as texts, formulas, and diagrams, in order to encourage learning in various ways (Ainsworth, 1999). However, learners are frequently unable to utilize the potentialities of external representations in a meaningful way. Particularly, systematically translating between multiple external representations has shown to be a challenging task (Ainsworth, 2006, Kozma, 2003). In addition, the simultaneous processing of differently represented information can require a considerable part of a learner’s working memory capacity (Chandler & Sweller, 1991). As a consequence, learners often concentrate on surface characteristics instead of thematically relevant structures of the external representations and, therefore, do not recognize the strengths of particular representations, resulting in disjointed mental representations.

In order to enable learners to take advantage of the potential of information represented differently, several methods have been suggested that attempt to support translation processes between representations: by reducing visual search processes, such as presenting text and pictures in a spatially integrated format (Chandler & Sweller, 1991), or linking multiple representations by various symbolic conventions, such as using the same color for corresponding entities in different representations (Chandler and Sweller, 1991, Kalyuga, 2008, Kozma, 2003). While these instructional suggestions have the potential to reduce cognitive workload, they do not directly support learners in active and constructive integration processes. Therefore, Bodemer and colleagues tried to initiate meaningful mental activity by enabling learners to systematically and interactively integrate differently represented components of learning material on a computer screen. This task of active integration improved the learners’ understanding in complex conceptual domains significantly (Bodemer and Faust, 2006, Bodemer et al., 2005, Bodemer et al., 2004).

External representations are beneficial not only for individual learning. They can perform important functions during collaborative learning that exceed supporting individual knowledge acquisition. For example, research has shown that by means of external representations, individual contributions can be illustrated and objectified (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995), but also coordinated and interrelated (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). Moreover, it was shown that the type of a shared external representation can influence the focus of the learning partners’ activities (Suthers & Hundhausen, 2003).

Most computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) tools use shared external representations in some way. However, there has been little research on collaborative learning with complex multimedia learning material. Most of the existing studies investigate collaborative learning with animations or simulations, focusing on dynamic and interactive aspects of multimedia material and not on the representational code (Rebetez et al., in press, Roschelle and Teasley, 1995, Saab et al., 2005, Sangin et al., 2008, Schnotz, 1999, Vahey et al., 2000). Those studies that focus on collaborative learning with multiple external representations have shown that learners can potentially interrelate their knowledge and construct shared meaning on the basis of differently coded external representations (Kozma, 2000, Ploetzner et al., 1999).

Moreover, although spatial distribution of learners is a main potential of CSCL, studies on collaborative multimedia learning have concentrated on face-to-face scenarios and neglected computer-mediated knowledge communication. One reason for this might be the high complexity of such learning situations that combine the demands of multimedia learning and computer-mediated communication. As previously mentioned, learning with multiple representations is demanding even in individual learning settings. During distributed knowledge communication, learners encounter additional difficulties, such as (1) establishing references between external content and collaboration content (Buder, 2007), (2) constructing a mutual understanding and common ground (Clark & Brennan, 1991) and – associated therewith – constructing a representation of the learning partner’s knowledge or beliefs (Dillenbourg, 2006), as well as (3) interacting and discussing with each other in a structured and goal-oriented way (Bromme, Hesse, & Spada, 2005).

Taking into account both the demands of multimedia learning and those of computer-mediated knowledge communication, it should be noted that they both involve high cognitive load on the learners’ working memories. While this is a comprehensively investigated issue with regard to multimedia learning (e.g., Chandler and Sweller, 1991, Mayer, 2001), it is a rather novel perspective with regard to collaborative learning (Dillenbourg and Bétrancourt, 2006, Kirschner et al., 2009).

When developing an instructional task or a CSCL-tool intended to support learners during collaborative multimedia learning, it is useful to distinguish between different types of cognitive load. Following current developments of cognitive load theory (Sweller, van Merriënboer, & Paas, 1998), extraneous cognitive load – load that is imposed by information and activities that do not directly contribute to learning – should be minimized; on the other hand, learning-relevant germane cognitive load should be encouraged. These principles are basically applicable to CSCL just as well as to individual multimedia learning.

The aforementioned active integration task already intends to encourage germane load (actively translating between multiple external representations) and to reduce extraneous load (constraining to relevant components; producing an integrated format). With regard to the demands and difficulties of collaborative, computer-mediated learning, learners might be supported by (1) reducing extraneous load for establishing references between content of learning material and communication, (2) reducing their effort for grounding processes and for modeling the learning partner’s knowledge, and by (3) encouraging germane effort with regard to the learners’ communication behavior, such as discussing conflicting issues (cf., Doise & Mugny, 1978).

In the following, facilitating group awareness is proposed as a suitable means in order to support learners in using their cognitive capacities for meaningful individual and collaborative learning activities.

Group awareness describes the perception and knowledge of specific aspects of group members (e.g., Bodemer & Dehler, 2011; Gutwin & Greenberg, 2002), such as where group members are, what they look like, what they are doing, or what they are interested in. As group awareness is more difficult to establish during computer-mediated communication than face-to-face, various group awareness tools have been developed in order to support users in accessing and utilizing information about their communication partners. Accordingly, many group awareness tools are intended to provide communication conditions that are similar to face-to-face settings. Recently, however, it was emphasized that group awareness tools are suited to provide support that even surpasses the face-to-face level to some degree by assessing and feeding back information that is difficult to yield without technological support (Bodemer and Buder, 2006, Carroll et al., 2009).

With regard to CSCL-related group awareness tools in this line of research, the assessment and visualization of cognitive variables such as knowledge, attitudes, assumptions or rationales of learning partners is particularly promising and – therefore – has already been implemented in different ways (e.g., Buder and Bodemer, 2008, Dehler et al., 2009, Dehler et al., 2011, Xiao, 2008). Taking the demands, difficulties, and approaches of support for distributed collaborative learning into account that are delineated in this paper, group awareness tools can facilitate learning processes by (1) providing explicit references between the external content and the communication partners (e.g., ratings on contributions in a discussion forum), (2) providing relevant cognitive characteristics of the learning partners, and (3) providing information (and providing it in a way) that draws the learners’ attention to aspects suitable to induce meaningful learning processes (e.g., visualizing diverging conceptions). This visualized offer of information can be described as tacit guidance that – contrary to rigid instructive guidance approaches that explicitly prescribe meaningful learning behavior – enables largely self-regulated learning processes.

In order to facilitate collaborative multimedia learning, a tool has been developed that is intended to support learners in meeting the various demands. A main requirement in developing such type of tool is the simultaneous consideration of both collaborative and individual learning processes. This tool was based on the previously mentioned active integration task (Bodemer et al., 2004) that has repeatedly been shown to foster individual integration processes during multimedia learning. This task of individually assigning components of different representations to each other has several characteristics that enable it to be used in a collaborative scenario as well. Regarding the difficulties specified in this paper, (1) it constrains content information in a way that allows for the interrelation of information gathered from the learning material and from a learning partner, (2) it provides information about a learner’s knowledge that can be easily compared to represented information about a learning partner’s knowledge, (3) it guides learning processes tacitly and adaptively by externally representing assigned and unassigned information, thereby potentially enabling learners to switch between individual and collaborative processes in a self-directed way.

Matching the characteristics of the integration task with the aforementioned characteristics of group awareness tools, a collaborative integration tool was developed that enables two spatially distributed learning partners to simultaneously integrate components of multimedia learning material on computer screens. Learners are provided with a shared visualization that contains the current state of integration of both learning partners (cf. Fig. 1). While interactively integrating different sources of information is intended to support individual elaboration processes by means of external and mental structure mapping, there are other supporting functions that address the collaborative scenario.

As learners can assign multiple representations independently of each other, the collaborative integration tool visualizes information about each learner’s knowledge. However, as the tool displays corresponding assignments of both learners side-by-side, it additionally visualizes information about group knowledge (Buder & Bodemer, 2008), such as which part of the learning material is covered by at least one of the group members. Furthermore, the spatial contiguity of assignments allows for the comparison between both learners for each subset of representations. With regard to this comparison, four cases of knowledge distribution can be distinguished that are visualized by the tool (cf. Fig. 1): None of the learning partners has assigned a subset of representations (OO), only one learner has assigned it (XO), both learners have performed the same assignment (XX), learners have performed different assignments (XY).

The visualization of the learning partner’s knowledge in the collaborative integration tool has the potential to support collaborative learning in several ways. (1) It provides a kind of basic communication vocabulary consisting of particularly relevant algebraic and graphical components of the learning material. (2) It may reduce grounding costs, as each learner is provided with information about the learning partner’s assumptions. (3) It may structure a learning discourse on the basis of the four cases of knowledge distribution. If learners have assigned a subset of representations identically, they can easily recognize that there is probably no need to deeply discuss the underlying concept. On the other hand, if a subset of representations could not be assigned by any of the learners individually, a joint problem-solving process might help to solve the integration task. If only one learner has assigned a specific subset of representations, it is apparent that the learner who is not knowledgeable with regard to this subset might benefit from explanations by the learning partner. In this case, the visualized awareness information can also help in the formulation of questions and answers that are adapted to the difference in knowledge between the learning partners. A very important case with regard to knowledge construction occurs if both learners have assigned different representation components. Such conflicting issues are supposed to be especially fruitful for the learning discourse (Doise & Mugny, 1978). It is assumed that learners benefit much more from discussing conflicting issues than from repeating issues they both agree about. Moreover, as it has shown that conceptual controversy produces curiosity (Lowry & Johnson, 1981), the visualization of conflicting assumptions might tacitly guide learners to discuss and resolve those conflicts.

In order to evaluate the potential benefits of a collaborative integration tool, an experimental study has been conducted comparing two different kinds of support in a collaborative learning scenario: the collaborative integration tool described in this section and the active integration task investigated by Bodemer et al. (2004, 2005). As the collaborative integration tool is intended to facilitate individual and collaborative learning processes during collaborative multimedia learning, both higher individual learning outcomes as well as more beneficial discussion processes are hypothesized if learners are supported by this type of tool. Differences regarding overall cognitive load are not expected because the collaborative integration tool intends not only to reduce mental collaborative effort (grounding and model building activities) but also to enhance it (conflict discussion and mutual relation processes).

Section snippets

Method

In this experiment, spatially separated dyads were learning in two consecutive learning phases. (1) In an individual learning phase, they were individually provided with paper-based learning material about various statistics concepts underlying the one-way analysis of variance. The learning material differed within the dyads in an interdependent way in order to prompt different perspectives on the learning subject that go along with the representational code the material focuses on. While one

Discussion

This paper reports on the development and experimental evaluation of a group awareness tool that is intended to support collaborative multimedia learning. The tool is based on an external integration task that proved in earlier studies to facilitate the individual mental interrelation and integration of multiple representations. The newly-developed collaborative integration tool enhanced the original version by visualizing the learning partner’s assignments of representations as indicators for

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