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Scripted collaborative learning with the cognitive tutor algebra

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Abstract

With the aim to promote students’ mathematics learning, we extended the Cognitive Tutor Algebra (CTA), a computer-based tutoring system for high school mathematics, to a collaborative setting. Furthermore we developed a collaboration script to support students’ interactions. In an experimental classroom study, we compared three conditions: scripted collaborative learning, unscripted collaborative learning, and individual learning. After a 2-day learning phase, posttests assessed individual and collaborative reproduction of knowledge and skills, and future learning. First, with the collaboration script we aimed to improve students’ interaction. Second, we assumed that due to an improved interaction students would benefit more from the learning opportunities during collaboration and, in consequence, their learning would increase as compared with the other conditions. To investigate the first assumption, we compared the interaction of a scripted dyad and an unscripted dyad. The in-depth process analyses revealed a positive impact of the script on student collaboration and problem solving during scripted interaction and in subsequent unscripted interaction. While this effect was mirrored in the learning gains of the two dyads, we could not establish a general learning effect in the quantitative between-condition comparison of student performance. Particularly for students with low prior knowledge, the removal of the script in the test phase initially entailed a decline in reproduction performance as students had to get used to the unscripted problem-solving situation. A notable finding was, however, that the collaborative conditions yielded the same outcomes as the individual condition in the individual reproduction test even though students had solved fewer problems during the learning phase and had only solved them collaboratively.

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Notes

  1. For the first problem of the learning phase, video data of Telemann’s interaction during this sequence were not available; therefore, the analysis is based on log data.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center, NSF Grant # 0354420, by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung, Germany, and by the Virtual PhD Programm, VGK (DFG). We thank Bruce McLaren for his valuable contributions during initial stages of the project. We are grateful to Jonathan Steinhart, Erin Walker, Dale Walters and Sung-Joo Lim for their support concerning the technical implementations of the Tutor environment; and to Kathy Dickensheets and Lars Holzäpfel for their support in “getting the math right”. Further we would like to express our gratitude to the teachers from CWCTC for their motivated involvement in the project. Also, we would like to thank our student research assistants Martina Rau and Katharina Westermann, and Michael Wiedmann, for their help on data coding and data analysis. Special thanks go to Katharina Westermann for her help in preparing this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Educational Research, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsstraße 150, 44801, Bochum, Germany

    Nikol Rummel

  2. Institute of Psychology, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

    Dejana Mullins & Hans Spada

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  1. Nikol Rummel
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Correspondence to Nikol Rummel.

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Rummel, N., Mullins, D. & Spada, H. Scripted collaborative learning with the cognitive tutor algebra. Computer Supported Learning 7, 307–339 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-012-9146-z

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