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The trade-off between individuals and groups: role interactions under different technology affordance conditions

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Abstract

Virtual manipulatives running on tablets have been demonstrated to improve students’ conceptual understanding in previous studies. However, the differential effects on group interaction during face-to-face collaborative inquiry learning from the support of alternative technology affordances has received little attention. Technology affordances in collaborative learning refer to the types of support provided by instructional technologies to group members to facilitate the enactment of certain behaviors. Technology affordances in this study are provided by the mobile device–student ratio and external scripts. To explore the effect of technology affordances on group interaction in detail, this study compared four technology affordance conditions for collaborative inquiry learning (1) 1:1 with external scripts, (2) 1:m with external scripts, (3) 1:1 without external scripts, and (4) 1:m without external scripts. A total of 130 fifth-grade students volunteered to participate in three rounds of scientific collaborative inquiry experiments with assignment to technology affordance conditions. From the perspectives of role emergence, role coordination, and group structure, the role-based interactions of the participating groups were examined using thematic analysis, descriptive statistics, and social network analysis. The findings indicated that the different roles students played represented different social statuses in the group, which led to trade-offs in orientation to individual consciousness and collective rules. Moreover, we observed that a stable action orientation within groups during inquiry facilitates proper internal coordination, and that close interaction does not necessarily lead to efficient collaboration.

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Notes

  1. Note: In Fig. 9, the transparency of the dots is 80 %, and the color where the dots’ color does not match the figure legend indicates that there is more than one dot located in the same position. Therefore, the network density and the action orientation of several groups are the same.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the International Joint Research Project of Huiyan International College, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University (ICER202101).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Educational Technology, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Cixiao Wang

  2. Teachers’ College, Beijing Union University, No.5 Waiguanxiejie Road, Chaoyang District, 100011, Beijing, China

    Shuling Li

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  1. Cixiao Wang
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Correspondence to Shuling Li.

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Appendices

Appendix 1 Examples of "instructed script" and the "prompted script"

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figure 10

The example of "instructed script"

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Fig. 11
figure 11

The example of "prompted script"

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Appendix 2 Role transition probabilities

Table 6 Role transition probabilities from Lig. to Ele
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Table 7 Role transition probabilities from Ele. to Mag
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Wang, C., Li, S. The trade-off between individuals and groups: role interactions under different technology affordance conditions. Intern. J. Comput.-Support. Collab. Learn 16, 525–557 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-021-09355-5

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