Designing roles, scripts, and prompts to support CSCL in gStudy

Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh Designing roles, scripts, and prompts to support CSCL in gStudy q R Morris a, A.F Hadwin a,*, C.L.Z Gress b, M Miller a, M Fior a, H Church a, P.H Winne b a b University of Victoria, Dept of Educational Psychology, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 2Y2 Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Available online February 2009 Keywords: Computer-supported collaborative learning Roles Prompts Scripts Scaffold gStudy a b s t r a c t This paper addresses the paucity of computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) tools and research that focus on actual computer embedded supports, guides, and scaffolds to effectively support the collaborative process This paper: (a) explores the potential of support in the form of roles, scripts, and prompts to scaffold collaborative engagement in computer-based learning environments, (b) explores ways these supports might be implemented in a CSCL learning environment, namely gStudy, (c) describes how collaborative supports in gStudy might enhance opportunities for students to learn to self-regulate collaborative activity, and (d) uses examples from our research to propose ways these types of support tools might advance research in CSCL Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved Introduction Learning is an active and social process of constructing knowledge rather than simply acquiring information (Vygotsky, 1978) With peer support, learners can overcome obstacles they could not master if working alone and can increase their learning by working towards a common goal (McMaster & Fuchs, 2002) Thus, collaborative learning is pervasive in the education system today Collaborative learning has been used successfully in all academic disciplines, and the benefits of cooperative techniques and collaborative learning for reading and reading comprehension, in particular, have been well documented by researchers (Liang & Dole, 2006) Accordingly, small collaborative groups are used in classrooms (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1993), and more recently, in online settings (O’Donnell, Hmelo-Silver, & Erkens, 2005), to ensure that students maximize their own and other’s academic potential (Jenkins & O’Connor, 2003) For a variety of reasons, collaboration does not always lead to increased performance Although results show that students who elaborate and actively participate benefit from peer collaboration (Cohen, 1994), groups typically lack a diffusion of engagement and responsibility towards completing the task Lower achieving students are frequently ignored or are off task (Mulryan, 1992) and higher achieving students often dominate the group (Cohen, 1994) In addition, students with high status, often associated with ability, gender, race, or social standing within the class, contribute q Portions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, York University, Toronto, ON, May 26–30, 2006 * Corresponding author Tel.: +1 250 721 6347 E-mail address: hadwin@uvic.ca (A.F Hadwin) 0747-5632/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved doi:10.1016/j.chb.2008.12.001 more when compared to students with low status within the group (Webb, 1992) Effective collaboration requires an environment that promotes positive interdependence, or in other words, an environment where the outcome cannot be achieved without the contribution of each group member (Johnson & Johnson, 1989) Even if positive interdependence exists, however, the group may not possess the necessary cognitive skills to complete the task (Cohen, 1994) Incorporating instructional practices that structure group tasks can remedy this problem by distributing responsibility, ensuring that all members evenly contribute, and by providing scaffolds that help guide the cognitive process (O’Donnell, 1999) Methods of structuring interaction can include scripting interaction, having students assume a role, providing prompts to fulfill roles, giving specific task instructions, modeling, and providing instruction on specific discourse skills (King, 1999) Most commonly, roles, facilitated by scripts and prompts, are used to create structure In order for computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) to enhance productivity, teamwork, and learning in computer and online environments, there is a need for software tools to incorporate some of the instructional practices that support the collaborative process as well as the collaborative product These tools aim to assist students during collaboration activities by providing opportunities to share and collaboratively edit electronic documents, engage in group discussions and forums, and provide and receive peer feedback (Hadwin, Winne, & Nesbit, 2005) CSCL tools generally fall into two approximate categories: external support tools and internal support tools External tools support the learner or collaborator with assistance from outside the CSCL software environment or task context These include software applets such as online help directories, email web forms for submitting 816 R Morris et al / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 questions, and help menus External tools are similar to external resources and guides focusing heavily on task products or technical support and typically omit information on the collaborative process They usually take learners or collaborators away from the current tasks and activities to another program, tool, or source Internal tools, such as chat, discussion boards, white boards, and file sharing applications facilitate collaboration by promoting interaction in real time from remote locations To support the collaborative process some of these tools incorporate additional supportive features such as assignment to groups, roles, scripts, and prompts to facilitate productive collaborative discussion, encourage collaborative learning, and support self- as well as group regulation For example, scaffolding the process by which students provide feedback during collaboration might teach individuals how to give feedback, why it is important, how to receive it, and what to with it (Carroll, Neale, Isenhour, Rosson, & McCrickard, 2003) These types of tools are considered ‘‘internal” to the learning environment because the support is anchored in the immediate task and internal to the collaborative environment, rather than sending a user ‘out for help.’ The cooperative/collaborative literature in face-to-face (nonCSCL) environments provides empirical support for multiple effective internal supportive techniques to strengthen the collaborative processes (e.g., King & Rosenshine, 1993; O’Donnell and King, 1999; Slavin, 1995) This type of embedded, internal support, however, has not been fully examined in computer supported collaborative learning contexts For example, Hadwin, Gress, and Page’s (2005) review of supportive CSCL tools suggests that external support tools constitute approximately 80–90% of the kind of CSCL support described in the literature Few tools appeared to utilize guided chats, discussions, or engagement to guide or support the collaborative process Furthermore, Hadwin et al (2005) reported that tools described in the CSCL literature were typically not examined for their effectiveness In summary, the authors, found that the most common convention in the CSCL literature appeared to be providing CSCL collaborators with synchronous and asynchronous chat tools without guidance or scaffolding for using those tools to enhance the collaborative process To address the need for guided and scaffolded support for productive collaboration in the CSCL literature, this paper: (a) explores the potential of support in the form of roles scripts and prompts to scaffold collaborative engagement computer-based learning environments, (b) explores ways those supports might be implemented in a CSCL learning environment namely gStudy, (c) describes how collaborative supports in gStudy might enhance opportunities for students to learn to self-regulate collaborative activity, and (d) uses examples from our research to propose ways these types of support tools might advance computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) research Roles, prompts, and scripts 2.1 Roles defined Roles provide the structure to facilitate collaboration and task completion When structure is provided through roles, students perceive a sense of security and, therefore, are able to concentrate on the task Roles can be defined as prescribed functions that guide individual behaviour and group collaboration (Slavin, 1995) They may also be viewed as a scaffold in the learning process where the goal of collaboration is to acquire new knowledge, including cognitive and collaborative skills Assigning roles may foster interdependence while concurrently requiring individual accountability (Slavin, 1995) Roles can further be classified as procedural/functional roles and cognitive/intellectual roles (Palincsar & Herrenkohl, 2002) Functional roles focus on how to carry out a task by classifying and assigning particular kinds of task completion functions such as data collector, recorder/notetaker, or editor Classic functional roles include: a recorder responsible for note taking and recording information and a materials manager responsible for establishing the list of resources required for the task (Slavin, 1995) For example, Strijbos, Martens, Jochems, and Broers (2004) implemented the data collector role, where students were responsible for both an inventory of the literature database and the gathering of additional information Tasks were very action oriented, lending themselves nicely to a functional role However, academic learning tasks often involve more than just completing a task Academic work involves moving toward a cognitive outcome such as remembering, understanding, analyzing, applying, evaluating, or generating new ideas and concepts Academic tasks are about thinking processes directed toward thinking products (Doyle, 1983) This perspective puts learning ahead of doing Cognitive roles focus on supporting engagement in academic work by classifying and assigning relevant types of thinking, processing, and cognitive engagement into designated roles in a collaborative context Rather than scaffolding the ‘‘doing” of a task, cognitive roles scaffold the ‘‘thinking” of the task (O’Donnell, Hmelo-Silver, & Erkens, 2005) 2.2 Roles in the CSCL literature While the use of roles as collaborative supports in CSCL environments is still in its infancy, recent work suggests that CSCL environments have potential to provide innovative opportunities for learners to adopt and experiment with roles They may also be useful contexts for researching aspects of role taking on collaborative processes and outcomes For example, Robertson and Good (2003) examined the qualitative and quantitative effects of the commercial computer game, Ghostwriter, on the characterization in children’s imaginative writing Through team collaborative role-play, each student controlled a character in an adventure story Players moved the characters around the virtual world by collaborating through typed messages This encouraged students to engage with the story and, through discourse, aided planning and development of story content The researchers found that, as in the classroom, team collaborative role-play encouraged children to understand characterization in stories through empathizing with their character Students’ stories were far more descriptive with deeper development of the characters than the stories written by students in normal classroom circumstances Ghostwriter creates game-based opportunities for players to assume a cognitive role that interacts with the environment and other players Students of all abilities appear to have benefited from using Ghostwriter In fact, the authors purported that the virtual role-play environment was particularly successful for students with low literacy levels and behavioural problems Another innovative application of roles in a CSCL environment comes from work reported by Chou, Lin, and Chan (2002) Building on reciprocal tutoring where two students take turns playing the cognitive roles of tutor and tutee, Chou et al (2002) embedded scaffolding tools in a virtual ‘learning companion’ that was designed to support and facilitate reciprocal tutoring In this computer-based learning environment (CBLE), the learning companion supported the learner by fulfilling one of the collaborative roles: the tutor or the tutee Collaboration in this instance was limited to one actual learner and a highly skilled artificial tutor While some might argue this is not ‘‘real” collaboration, this type of reciprocal tutoring system’s value lies in its: (a) accessibility for students who can collaborate with the virtual learning companion at their convenience, and (b) adaptability to a learner’s specific tutoring strategy needs R Morris et al / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 These two studies are excellent examples of the innovative internal support tools emerging in the CSCL literature The design of these tools, however, is only the first step An important question that remains unanswered is whether students ‘‘learn” to collaborate better when these types of computer-based support are incorporated into the collaborative environments In other words, students become more adept in working with peers to complete cognitively based tasks after collaborative scaffolds are removed? Can CSCL tools be used to temporarily scaffold or support the development of collaborative skills and strategies that are then transferred by learners to future collaborative contexts? A second line of questioning with respect to these types of computer-based supports for learning might extend beyond examining the products or outcomes of these types of CSCL environments toward the ways supports change the quality or process of collaboration When students are provided with roles to use during collaboration, does it change the quality and quantity of engagement in the collaborative task? We posit that these two kinds of questions are central to advancing theory and practice in this area While outcome or product research dominates the field of CSCL, there are promising examples of research that target changes to collaborative processes For example, Hsieh, O’Neil, Harold, and Rossier (2002) examined collaborative problem-solving processes in a computer-based knowledge-mapping environment, where students were assigned two roles: leader or searcher They discovered that the nature of the task is an important determinant for the relationship of group involvement and group productivity When the goal is group productivity, designing roles that can fulfill task interdependency and participation requirements is important for collaborative learning Besides focusing on process versus product, researchers have begun to answer questions about role type in CSCL For example, Strijbos et al (2004) examined the effect of functional roles on perceived group efficiency during CSCL They discovered that groups in the role condition appeared to be more aware of their efficiency compared to groups in the non-role condition, regardless of performance They also found that roles increased group coordination However, findings did not support the notion that roles affected group performance in terms of grades Future research in this area might extend beyond functional roles to examine whether cognitive roles yield different results Where functional roles clarify group efficiencies, cognitive roles can affect relationships during collaboration Van der Puil, Andriessen, and Kanselaar’s (2004) qualitative analysis explored the dependency of effective collaborative argumentation on interpersonal relational aspects that develop during synchronous interaction They found that discourse argumentation appears to affect the relations between participants in a negative way However, they found that role change shifted the focus in order to create distance from the argument Thus long-term, predefined roles appear to be too rigid Some research findings suggest that students borrow from other roles they have taken while enacting new roles (see Soller, 2001 for further discussion) While preliminary in nature, these findings point to the possibilities of computer supported collaborative role taking for promoting transfer in the form of changes to the way learners contribute and engage in collaborative discussions after roles and support structures have been removed To our knowledge, transfer effects of role taking have not been empirically examined Yet, computer-based learning environments provide optimal opportunities to examine the transfer effects associated with shifting roles or removing role structures from the environment This is an important avenue for CSCL research because it targets the potential of these environments to change students’ knowledge and behavior of collaboration beyond our CSCL tools 817 Using empirical findings to weigh the advantages of structured roles in online collaborative learning contexts, such as reporting a high degree of engagement in the collaboration (Soller, 2001), against the disadvantages, such as feeling much less control over the collaborative process (Soller, 2001), is important for making design decisions The challenge for the field is to target psychological process and outcome variables associated with learning and transfer in research about the effectiveness of computer supported cognitive role taking for collaboration Switching roles, having a computer simulate a student in role, or using software to guide roles all provide opportunities to extend our understanding about how CSCL contributes to changes in learning processes and outcomes Can roles in CSCL contexts help students learn to regulate, co-regulate or share in the regulation of collaborative activity at cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, and metacognitive levels? Can students carry that learning beyond a structured collaborative environment to new collaborative contexts? Do students gain declarative knowledge about the nature or purpose of particular roles in collaborative tasks? Do they develop procedural knowledge about how to enact specific roles? And, perhaps more importantly, students who have worked in CSCL environments develop conditional knowledge regarding when to use a certain role, once scaffolds are removed? If students are not able to apply what they learned to new situations then this type of scaffold may not be useful for helping students learn how to collaborate more effectively In addition, it is important to investigate the influence of roles on learning in authentic educational settings 2.3 Scripts and prompts Simply providing students with roles to aid collaboration may not be sufficient to change collaborative processes and outcomes Students may not know how to carry out the role or may need additional structure to feel confident to collaborate or complete a task The benefits of structure in collaboration are especially salient when tasks are demanding and may potentially result in cognitive overload To improve efficiency, students may require additional scaffolds to help deal with task completion and collaboration (Rummel & Spada, 2005) Providing structure or information about how to carry out a role does not have to involve human guidance in the CSCL environment (Ge & Land, 2004) Computer-based collaborative environments offer potential in that support for collaboration can be provided automatically through scripts and prompts Scripts describe how to fulfill a role step by step, whereas prompts guide what to or say within that role Both scripts and prompts can be embedded software environments as forms of collaborative support Scripts and prompts are both structures designed to support collaborators to instantiate specific roles 2.4 Scripts defined Scripts consist of instructions regarding how group members should collaborate and complete tasks through their respective roles Scripts are essentially tip sheets or recipes for acting out a particular role or coordinating multiple roles Cooperation scripts specify and sequence collaboration through complex instructions (Makitalo, Weinberger, Hakkinen, Jarvela, & Fischer, 2005) Scripts can further be subdivided into social or epistemic scripts Social scripts describe how to structure and sequence discourse and collaborative activities, whereas epistemic cooperative scripts describe the cognitive processes and strategies to be used in solving tasks (Weinberger, Ertl, Fischer, & Mandl, 2005) Providing structure through scripts has the potential to reduce uncertainty at both social and cognitive levels As online learners lack visual feedback from other students and are often deprived of knowledge about the quality of their contributions, they remain uncertain as 818 R Morris et al / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 how to proceed (Kester & Paas, 2005; Makitalo et al., 2005) Past research has found that social scripts motivate learners to refine their beliefs and actions because they focus attention on the fact that contributions will be reviewed by peers (Weinberger et al., 2005) When students are given explicit instructions on how to review a peer’s work, they are following a social script Epistemic scripts that facilitate cognitive processes may be more task-specific and focused on the domain studied (Palincsar & Herrenkohl, 2002) In one CSCL study, students used epistemic scripts to structure engagement in a problem-oriented peer-discussion environment and a peer-tutoring environment (Weinberger et al., 2005) 2.5 Prompts defined Prompts provide hints, suggestions and reminders for enacting a role in the moment (GE & Land, 2004) Prompts, also known as sentence openers or question stems, facilitate role taking and enacting of scripts (Weinberger et al., 2005) Question prompts are one way to direct the group to effectively collaborate, while providing a balance between structure and flexibility (GE & Land, 2004) Prompts encompass procedural prompts, reflection prompts, and elaboration prompts (GE & Land, 2004) Procedural prompts help students complete specific tasks and learn cognitive strategies ‘Another reason that is good .’ is an example of this type of prompt (GE & Land, 2004) Elaboration prompts help learners articulate thoughts and elicit explanations (GE & Land, 2004) ‘Why is it important .’ or ‘what is a new example of .’ are examples of elaboration prompts (King & Rosenshine, 1993) Finally, reflection prompts can encourage reflection on a metacognitive level An example of this type of prompt could be: ‘to a good job we need to .’ (Davis & Linn, 2000) Often the research examines all three types of prompts, without distinguishing between these different classifications 2.6 Review of the literature on prompts and scripts Prompts and scripts are not always clearly defined in the research literature and results on their effectiveness vary A review of the literature indicates mixed findings Some studies report that the use of scripts and prompts promotes collaboration and cognition during CSCL, whereas others report less conclusive findings on the effectiveness of scripts and prompts A salient theme in the literature seems to be finding a balance between the optimal amount of structure for supporting on task collaborative dialogue, and the optimal level of structure for promoting motivated engagement Scripts have been found, in some cases, to increase learning and discourse Rummel and Spada (2005) developed an instructional approach to improve CSCL by giving students the opportunity to learn from scripted collaborative problem-solving This mixed-methods design found that collaborating with a script had positive effects on process and outcome: Discourse levels were low with the unscripted group compared to the group that utilized scripts Scripts were also found to be particularly important for supporting novice learners to coordinate dialogue in the first few collaborative meetings In comparison, unscripted conditions were not effective for novice students Despite these positive findings in terms of increased discourse levels, qualitative findings indicated that dyads in the scripted condition had initial motivational issues as they found the scripts too rigid Overall, findings may suggest that complex cognitive skills benefit from scripting early in the collaborative process but may need to be phased out as students develop competency in order to maintain optimal motivation for engagement Beers, Boshuizen, Kirschner, and Gijselaers (2005) found that when individuals worked in multidisciplinary teams to solve complex problems, coercive scripts that constrained and directed discussion were associated with negotiating common ground or a common problem space However, as coercion decreased, the participants communicated more and about a wider range of topics Findings such as this point to the importance of continued research examining the optimal role of computer-based collaborative scripts in enhancing collaborative processes and products For example, when script coercion is reduced over time and after practice, does it continue to have positive effects on negotiating common ground, while also increasing communication and exploration of topics in a solution? Comparing types of scripts is another avenue for future research Makitalo et al (2005) claim that epistemic scripts have potential to reduce uncertainty resulting in more discourse and less information seeking in collaborative activities Their findings corroborated these hypotheses Collaborators who used epistemic scripts engaged in more active discussions and information seeking behaviours, but did not achieve better collaborative outcomes Makitalo et al (2005) interpreted these results as indicating that learning environments should provide some degree of uncertainty to necessitate beneficial interaction patterns, such as information seeking For instance, in Makitalo et al.’s (2005) research, the unscripted group sought information in a direct and successful manner, while the scripted group sought information more indirectly and less successfully It may be that the epistemic script restricted the learners too much in the sense that its prompts used closed questions and, therefore, did not facilitate elaborative processes Future research might examine the extent to which interaction should be structured on an epistemic level in order to support the way learners cope with the uncertain situation of online learning It appears that learning environments should provide some degree of uncertainty to necessitate beneficial interaction patterns including such things as information seeking Weinberger et al (2005) extended Makitalo et al.’s (2005) work by comparing epistemic scripts to social scripts Prompts were provided in both cases to support the scripts Findings indicated that social scripts were beneficial with respect to prompting elaboration and supporting individual acquisition of knowledge while epistemic scripts were not Weinberger et al (2005) interpreted these results as evidence that providing learners with an epistemic script may not always result in individual knowledge acquisition, and it may be important to augment epistemic scripts with social scripts Prompts, combined with scripts, were found to encourage students to explore and discuss alternative viewpoints However, too much structuring through prompts and scripts may further impede interaction of learners when the script divides labour into tasks that can be worked on by each learner individually The authors purported that, instead of receiving a task strategy, learners should be prompted to construct a conceptual model themselves Therefore, scripts may sometimes need to make tasks more difficult for learners In contrast, in Kester and Paas’ (2005) discussion of instructional interventions in CSCL environments, the authors purport that scripts sometimes enhance social and cognitive processes However, instead of suggesting that tasks need to be more difficult, Kester and Paas (2005) used cognitive load theory to suggest that collaborative tasks that are too scripted may lead to cognitive overload thereby hindering learning They further suggest that cognitive overload may be avoided by fading script support as expertise increases giving more group control over support Prompts are less structured than scripts, yet these types of support are often used in conjunction Providing prompts can aid complex discourse Ge and Land (2004) reviewed the effects of scaffolding ill-structured problem-solving processes using question prompts during CSCL They proposed that students not always engage in high-level discourse unless prompted to so R Morris et al / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 However, even when provided with question prompts, students sometimes fail to use the prompts, thereby failing to attend to important aspects of the task As such, Ge and Land (2004) made a number of suggestions to help guide future research about prompts For instance, Ge and Land (2004) suggest that prompts should consist of specific questions targeting cognitive and metacognitive responses Second, these responses should be stored in a database for review and re-examination by learners Finally, Ge and Land (2004) stressed the need to investigate the relationship between the effects of different scaffolding techniques and the level of learner knowledge and experience According to the authors, it is possible that question prompts are more useful at novice stages rather than later stages of content learning At later stages, examining how experts solve problems may become more effective Thus, there may be an interaction effect between type of question prompt and amount of prior knowledge and experience For example, reflection prompts may be more useful than procedural prompts for learners with more knowledge, since procedural prompts may be redundant Lazonder, Wilhelm, and Ootes (2003) conducted one of the few published studies to examine transfer effects of prompts They too reported mixed findings regarding the effectiveness of prompts in a CSCL context Prompts or sentence openers were implemented in a semi-structured chat tool that allowed students to compose messages in a free chat area or via sentence openers In a second study, the tool was used to explore the students’ unprompted use of sentence openers to examine transfer effects The authors examined alternative ways to use sentence openers more effectively The sentence openers they used occurred from natural dialogue, where typical opening phrases were taken from students’ chat history files The sentence openers were brief thus increasing the chance students would use their own sentence openers Also, the openers were not imposed and instead were implemented in a semi-structured chat tool Results indicated that students hardly used sentence openers and were skeptical of their usefulness These results are surprising as early studies show that students responded positively to sentence openers One possible explanation of these findings is that studies were based on synchronous interactions when CSCL, and particularly electronic chat discussions, were relatively new activities for learners A recent proliferation of chat tool use for personal and work-based communication means that students have already developed natural chat patterns, styles, and symbols These advanced chat users may feel constrained by chat tools that offer scripted prompts and resist their use On the other hand, advanced chat users send chat responses so rapidly, they often not reflect on the content Perhaps the use of prompts offers promise in that it slows down interaction, affording more opportunities for reflection This finding is supported when examining asynchronous writing where the researchers found that students were more reflective and thoughtful Nevertheless, differences in chat response rates, reflection activities, and use of prompts across users with varying degrees of text-based chat experience warrants further investigation In summary, the limited number of studies examining the effectiveness of scripts and prompts in CSCL environments report mixed findings regarding the psychological and social advantages and disadvantages It appears that too much structure constrains dialogue to the scripted role Too little structure, however, provides little support or guidance and results in a lot of talk that may not be on task Epistemic scripts increase discourse and decrease information seeking, yet not seem to affect product outcome, whereas social scripts appear to have some influence on group and individual product Furthermore, findings indicate that epistemic scripts may need to be paired with social scripts particularly for novice learners Some researchers have found prompts support scripts in many important ways; however, they appear to be most useful 819 for novices and, like all scaffolds, should be faded out The transfer effects of prompts and scripts have yet to be explored thoroughly Some researchers feel prompts and scripts should actually make tasks more difficult to promote cognitive growth, whereas others suggest that prompts and scripts introduce increased cognitive overload To compound the problem, online educators may not have the time nor the resources to adequately monitor roles supported by scripts and prompts To examine these issues more systematically, researchers need to be able to draw on tools that allow them to manipulate types of support, levels of support, and frequency of support while simultaneously collecting data about collaborative dialogue, behavior, beliefs, and regulation A challenge for conducting research about the effectiveness of different types of roles, scripts, and prompts across tasks of varying difficulty and for learners of varying levels of content, collaboration, and chat expertise is that the field lacks flexible chat tools for manipulating this range of experimental conditions 2.7 Introduction to cognitive tools for collaboration in gStudy gStudy (Winne, Hadwin, Nesbit, Kumar, & Beaudoin, 2005) is a powerful tool for supporting and researching solo and collaborative regulation of learning As a learning tool, gStudy provides users with a range of tools and prompts such as notetaking templates that guide the use of a range of notetaking and processing strategies, a strategy library for looking up information about strategies, a glossary for keeping track of new terms and concepts, and a chat tool with embedded prompts for supporting and guiding synchronous text-based chat discussions As an instructional tool, gStudy provides a shell for embedding instructional texts, activities, performance measures, images and organizing that information for learners As a research tool, gStudy: (a) provides a flexible arena for comparing different instructional and experimental conditions, and (b) records everything the learner does in terms of keyboard and mouse clicks, text and menu selections, and text inputs in a detailed time-stamped logfile These precise traces of student interaction within a learning tool provide data upon which to examine, among other events, the interaction between chat-based discussions and students’ actual learning and navigating activities Following, we describe how aspects of gStudy can be used to further our understandings of roles, scripts, and prompts for enhancing computer supported collaborative learning processes and outcomes across a range of learner, role, script, and prompt conditions 2.8 Operationalizing roles, scripts, and prompts in gStudy gStudy supports the use of roles, scripts, and prompts in collaboration through its sophisticated text-based chat tool (gChat) As with other chat tools, such as MSN and Skype, gChat (Hadwin, Gress, Winne, & Jordanov, 2006) enables multiple users to engage in synchronous, or ‘‘real time,” chat Participants can click on the gChat icon in gStudy’s interface and be instantly connected to other participants online Furthermore, gChat supports one-on-one chat, as well as multi-user chat in which multiple participants can chat simultaneously Messages in gChat are viewed in a split screen text box comprised of: (a) an upper box displaying the ongoing chat between the individuals (Fig 1), and (b) a lower box displaying what the user is typing prior to be submitted to the online discussion (Fig 1) Thus, participants have a private area to compose their text-based response and a public area to share and view the chat Unlike conventional chat tools, gChat supports the use of roles, scripts, and prompts in collaboration In other words, it provides both structure and cues to scaffold collaborative work The use of roles and prompts is supported directly within gChat, while the use of scripts is facilitated by a number of different gStudy tools 820 R Morris et al / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 Fig gChat tool in gStudy with task manager role prompts highlighted (see Winne, Hadwin, & Gress (this issue) for a full description of gStudy tools) Additionally, roles, scripts, and prompts within gStudy and gChat are configurable on the fly by the researcher or instructor affording opportunities to investigate and facilitate a wide range of collaborative issues Roles in gStudy are enabled through gChat When users enter a chat they can choose amongst a set of pre-stocked collaborative roles that provide structure and cues to scaffold collaborative work A drop-down menu in the bottom right corner of the chat window provides a drop-down list of roles defined by a researcher or instructor (Fig 1) Selecting a role populates a list of sentence starters or prompts in a drop-down menu to the left of the role (Fig 1) When a user selects a prompt, it automatically populates the text entry window where it can be edited, augmented and/or sent to the chat For example, in Fior (2008) and Morris (2008), grade 10 secondary school students in classroom environment utilized gChat to engage in collaborative discussion of a difficult reading task gChat enabled these participants to choose between four reciprocal teaching roles to facilitate their discussion Roles were based on Palincsar and Brown’s (1984) reciprocal teaching roles: (a) summarizer, (b) questioner, (c) clarifier, and (d) predictor After reading and marking up a very challenging text in an independent study session, students came together in groups of four to discuss the text The role of the summarizer was to prompt the group to synthesize text information The questioner guided the group to ask questions regarding the text The clarifier guided the group to clarify and simplify terms or concepts that were unclear in the text Finally, the predictor helped the group to hypothesize about the kinds of things they would need to know for an upcoming comprehension test Each role was accompanied with specific guidance for enacting that role through both scripts and prompts described below Scripts in gStudy As participants may be unclear about how to carry out a particular role, gStudy can further reduce uncertainty and scaffold collaboration by providing users with detailed scripts, or instructions, for each role gStudy supports the use of scripts in at least two ways First, scripts for each role can be stocked in a multi-media kit in gStudy When participants select a script in the kit, they gain access to specific multi-media instructions for carrying out various collaborative roles and the purpose of each role As gStudy supports text, images, video and audio, script instructions can include multi-media examples and models of each script being instantiated Furthermore, participants can keep script information in gStudy visible while they participate in a collaborative discussion As such, each member of a group can monitor their chat activities to ensure they are adequately fulfilling their role in the collaborative task In Fior (2008) and Morris (2008), scripts for all for reciprocal teaching roles were stored in a collaboration kit within gStudy The scripts for each role were presented in this kit in much the same way that a textbook passage would be presented in a webpage Fig illustrates a script presented for a student assigned the role of questioner in a collaborative discussion The script includes information about the role of a questioner as well as when and how to enact the questioning role in a collaborative discussion While this example script is limited to text and images, it is also possible to augment the script with audio or video snippets In gStudy, learners are able to access script information via a table of contents in gStudy prior to engaging in their chat activity Learners can highlight scripts, make their own crib notes from the scripts, and create their own audio-, text-, or image-based examples of scripts In this way, the script becomes customizable and revisable by a student, rather than being a static document to be pulled up as a reference Furthermore, scripts can be kept visible throughout collaborative discussions so that learners can use them as a guide, add to them, or make links in the chat to specific instructions in the script Other tools in gStudy, such as chat logs, notes, labels and glossaries, can also help students to review, reflect upon and evaluate their use of scripts For instance, the contents of every gChat are recorded and saved as a chat log Chat logs can be uploaded in gStudy much like any other content document This affords opportunities for students to annotate, index, or graphically map connections between chats For example, students may be assigned a task of selecting strings of text in gChat and making links that correspond to various steps or activities outlined in the collaborative script Students can use this information to make data-based evaluations of their own strengths and weaknesses in contributing to the collaborative discussion through that particular role In addition, when chat logs are uploaded to gStudy, they become information objects just like any other text or note Thus, chat logs can be hyperlinked to reflection notes, to notes, annotation labels, glossary definitions, and other chat logs to facilitate future collaborative activity or ongoing collaborative project work Finally, after students have gained experience using roles, scripts, and prompts, script templates can be used to scaffold learners in generating their own collaborative scripts For example, building on the script example provided in Fig 2, learners may be asked to fill in a script note such as the one presented in Fig Prompts in gStudy gStudy provides additional structure for role engagement by facilitating the use of prompts in gChat In this environment, prompts are quick sentence starters and statements students can use to engage with their assigned chat role When R Morris et al / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 821 B Questioner Script What will I be doing? Yo u have already read a very difficult text on crystal methamphetamine To assist your group in understanding that text, you will be discussing it collaboratively To help you this, each person in your group has been assigned a different role (summarizer, questioner, clarifier, and predictor) Please the following things: Read about your role below In your group, take turns (explained below) using your assigned roles to guide the group discussion Use the prompts that you were shown in gChat (listed below) to help you with this task Try to answer any questions other group members ask What is my role? Yo u are the Questioner: As the questioner, you will get your group to generate questions For the main ideas that you read, have your group write down a question that the main idea will answer Good questions should include words like “who, “where”, “when”, “why”, and “what” For example, if you are reading an article about the extinction of the dinosaurs, you might find the following main idea: “Most scientists now believe that the extinction of dinosaurs was caused by a large meteor striking the earth.” Yo u could then write this question: “What event most scientists now believe caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs?” Also, have your group think about the types of questions other people (including themselves) may have about the text When I ask questions? Section 1: neurological effects • As the questioner you will ask your question, after the summarizer’s question has been answered • Yo u will continue your group’s discussion by getting your group to create a question that relates to the first paragraph Yo u may want to use one of the prompts in gChat to help you get started • After the question has been created, the clarifier and predictor will take turns asking their questions that relate to the first paragraph Try to answer at least one of the questions your group asks • When each of you has had a turn asking a question, move on to the second paragraph and after the summarizer’s question has been answered, continue your group’s discussion by getting them to create another question that relates to the second paragraph • Repeat this process for the last paragraph Section 2: social issues • Now that you have some experience helping your group create questions, decide when it makes sense to this for the social issues text • Don’t forget to answer questions and use the prompts provided How I ask questions? Use the Prompts in gChat: • • • • • Did you have any questions about What are you curious about? What might your mom or dad ask about this? What might a friend ask about this? What question will the main idea answer? Fig Example of a questioner script presented in gStudy (Fior, 2008; Morris, 2008) students participating in multi-user chat select a particular role, they gain access to role-specific prompts situated in a drop-down menu in the gChat interface (see Fig 1) When a user selects a prompt, it immediately appears as text in the send field The user can augment, edit, or simply use the prompt in order to facilitate their participation in the discussion As previously discussed, prompts elaborate the meaning of the role by providing a series of statements that illustrate what someone in that role might say to the group Second, prompts provide a quick way for users to contribute to the chat discussion In Fior (2008) and Morris (2008), each collaborative role was stocked with a specific set of prompts to facilitate role engagement Participants gained access to prompts through a drop-down menu in the chat window As students engaged in a collaborative activity to increase comprehension of a difficult text, participants were guided to use these prompts to gain a better understanding of the function of their role, to provide cues about the type of contributions a person in his or her role might make to the discussion, and to quickly add statements or text to the chat (Table 1) In addition to supporting the use of roles, scripts, and prompts in collaboration, gStudy also enables systematic investigation of this type of support by recording time-stamped detailed records of both chat content and participants’ instantiation of roles and 822 R Morris et al / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 Fig (continued) Fig Script note template for creating new scripts prompts For instance, each time a chat participant utilizes a prompt within a particular role, gStudy provides a time-stamped record of its use Furthermore, gStudy also records fine-grained trace data of students’ interaction with scripts in the gStudy browser by recording activities such as mouse clicks, scrolling, and engagement with tools, such as labelling and notes As such, the roles, scripts, and prompts embedded in gStudy enable the investigation of a number of pertinent questions in this field, such as the type and degree of support students require in different types of collaborative tasks For instance, Fior (2008) utilized gStudy roles, scripts, and prompts in a grade 10 classroom environment to investigate whether students who receive more 823 R Morris et al / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 Table Examples of roles, scripts, and prompts Roles Scripts Prompts Predictor You are the Predictor: As the predictor, your role will be to help your group see how one part of the text is related to or predicts other parts of the text You will also help your group hypothesize what the consequences may be for an action or event described in the text For instance, if you read about the introduction of a foreign species to a fragile ecosystem, you may want to ask your group about the consequences of that action Summarizer You are the Summarizer: As the summarizer, you will ask your group questions to help them sum up the information in the text The article can be summarized across sentences, across paragraphs, and across the article as a whole Stop after each paragraph or major section of the passage Ask your group to construct a sentence that sums up only the most important idea(s) that appear in that part Good summary sentences include key concepts or events but leave out less important details - Questioner You are the Questioner: As the questioner, you will get your group to generate questions For the main ideas that you read, have your group write down a question that the main idea will answer Good questions should include words like ‘‘who, ‘‘where”, ‘‘when”, ‘‘why”, and ‘‘what” For example, if you are reading an article about the extinction of the dinosaurs, you might find the following main idea: ‘‘Most scientists now believe that the extinction of dinosaurs was caused by a large meteor striking the earth.” You could then write this question: ‘‘What event most scientists now believe caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs?” Also, have your group think about the types of questions other people (including themselves) may have about the text - Clarifier You are the Clarifier: As the clarifier, your role will be to get your group to clarify anything that is unclear Sometimes in your reading you will run into words, phrases, or whole sentences that really don’t make sense Here are some ways that you can get your group to clarify the meaning:Unknown words If your group comes across a word whose meaning they not know, suggest they read the sentences before and after to see if they give clues to the word’s meaning.Unclear phrases or sentences Suggest your group rereads the phrase or sentence carefully and try to understand it Get them to think of other interpretations or examples structure (in the form of roles, scripts, and prompts) in a collaborative reading comprehension discussion participated more in group discussions Fior (2008) found that the relationship between participation and self-efficacy is different when students are given roles, scripts, and prompts to guide their discussion as opposed to when they just engage in open text-based chat about an assigned reading Specifically, she found that students who were given roles, scripts, and prompts were less likely to have participation rates that were highly correlated with their initial self-efficacy for collaboration In comparison, students who were not supported in their collaboration through roles, scripts, and prompts had participation rates that were highly correlated with their entering selfefficacy Other pertinent avenues of research enabled by gStudy’s facilitation of roles, scripts, and prompts in collaboration include examination of the effectiveness of these tools in supporting students to engage in both individual and shared regulation of collaborative processes as well as the co-regulation of group collaborative processes For instance, as roles, scripts, and prompts are configurable by the researcher, they can be modified to target different types of collaboration The scripts included in Fior (2008) and Morris’ (2008) studies targeted individual self-regulation of collaboration by scaffolding students’ engagement in different types of comprehension roles Future directions: Using roles, scripts, and prompts in gStudy to support and research self-regulated learning In our continued work examining ways to support students in self-regulating learning we plan to use these tools to compare different types of roles, scripts, and prompts such as those targeting cognitive processing versus those targeting self-regulatory processes to explore the effectiveness of these roles on the development of strategy knowledge, strategy use, monitoring activity, and learning outcomes One set of roles, scripts, and prompts will target cognitive processing of information such as selecting important ideas and concepts, monitoring understanding and recall, - What might we need to know? What might happen if How might that affect How might that relate to Are there consequences to What is this part about? What was the main point? What did you get from this? Can you put that in your own words? Can you give a general summary of ? Did you have any questions about What are you curious about? What might your mom or dad ask about this? What might a friend ask about this? What question will the main idea answer? Can anyone explain What you think that means? Are there any other interpretations? Can you think of an example? How can we make sense of that? assembling or making connections between ideas, rehearsing to be learned concepts, and translating concepts into a group’s own words and graphical, textual, or pictorial representation A second set of roles, scripts, and prompts will target the self-regulatory cycle proposed by Winne and Hadwin (1998): defining or coming to a common understanding of the assigned task, articulating goals and plans for completing the task, enacting the task by drawing on a repertoire of strategies and techniques for task completion, and continually evaluating and adapting self-, task-, group-, and concept knowledge and processes Harnessing the configurability of roles, scripts, and prompts in gStudy and gChat, these studies facilitate addressing questions such as: What kinds of roles, scripts, and prompts promote the development of strategy use and strategy knowledge in collaborative settings? What kinds of roles, scripts, and prompts result in better task understanding and performance? A second line of research will compare roles, scripts, and prompts that focus on modeling and explaining processes to peers in a group to those focusing on questioning and prompting members of a group to engage, and to a third set of roles, scripts, and prompts that emphasize co-constructing meaning with fellow group members Specifically, we examine three questions: (1) How students use collaborative scripting tools designed to guide small groups in sharing the regulation of learning? (2) Are these collaborative scripting tools effective for promoting socially shared regulation of learning (e.g., common task perceptions, shared goals, collective efficacy, and collective strategy knowledge)? (3) To share in the regulation of learning, students require well-developed self-regulatory knowledge and skills? Acknowledgements Support for this work was provided by grants to Philip H Winne from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-2002-1787; 512-2003-1012, R Azevedo, A F Hadwin, S Lajoie, J Nesbit, & V Kumar, -Co-Investigator), the Canada Research Chair program, and Simon Fraser University; and to Allyson Had- 824 R Morris et al / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 815–824 win from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-2001-1263) References Beers, P J., Boshuizen, H P A., Kirschner, P A., & Gijselaers, W H (2005) Computer support for knowledge construction in collaborative learning environments Computers in Human Behavior, 21, 623–643 Carroll, J M., Neale, D C., Isenhour, P L., Rosson, M B., & McCrickard, D S (2003) Notification and awareness: Synchronizing task-oriented collaborative activity International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 58, 605–633 Chou, C., Lin, C., & Chan, T (2002) An approach to developing computational supports for reciprocal tutoring Knowledge-Based Systems, 15, 407–412 Cohen, E G (1994) Restructuring the classroom: Conditions for productive small groups Review of Educational Research, 64, 1–35 Davis, E A., & Linn, M (2000) Scaffolding students’ knowledge integration: Prompts for reflection in KIE International Journal of Science Education, 22, 819–837 Doyle, W (1983) Academic work Review of Educational Research, 53, 159–199 Fior, M N (2008) Self and collective efficacy as correlates of group participation: A comparison of structured and unstructured computer-supported collaborative learning conditions Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Victoria GE, X., & Land, S M (2004) A conceptual framework for scaffolding ill-structured problem-solving processes using question prompts and peer interactions Educational Technology Research and Development, 52, 5–22 Hadwin, A F., Gress, C L Z., Page, J., & Ross, S (2005) Computer Supported Collaborative Work: A review of the research 1999–2004 Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, London, ON, Canada Hadwin, A F., Gress, C., Winne, P H., & Jordanov, M (2006) GChat: A chat interface with scaffolds to enhance collaborative effectiveness (version 1.0) [computer program] Burnaby, BC: Simon Fraser University Hadwin, A F., Winne, P H., & Nesbit, J C (2005) Annual review: Roles for software technologies in advancing research and theory in educational psychology [Invited Annual Review Article] British Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 1–24 Hsieh, I G., O’Neil, J R., Harold, F., & Rossier, A B (2002) Types of feedback in a computer-based collaborative problem-solving group task Computers in Human Behavior, 18, 699–715 Jenkins, J R., & O’Connor, R E (2003) Cooperative learning for students with learning disabilities: Evidence from experiments, observations, and interviews In S Graham, K Harris, & L Swanson (Eds.), Handbook of Learning Disabilities (pp 417–430) New York: Guildford Johnson, D W., & Johnson, R T (1989) Cooperation and competition: Theory and research Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co Johnson, D W., Johnson, R T., & Holubec, E J (1993) Circles of Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom (4th ed.) 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What kinds of roles, scripts, and prompts result in better task understanding and performance? A second line of research will compare roles, scripts, and prompts