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Challenges in online collaboration: effects of scripting shared task perceptions

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Abstract

Difficulties with planning, such as negotiating task understandings and goals, can have a profound effect on regulation and task performance when students work collaboratively (Miller and Hadwin, Computers in Human Behaviour, 52, 573-588, 2015a). Despite planning being a common challenge, teams often fail to identify strategies for addressing those challenges successfully. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of team planning support in the form of awareness visualizations (quantified, nominal, and no visualization of individual planning perceptions summarized across group members) on the challenges students face during collaboration, and the ways they report regulating in the face of those challenges. Findings revealed differences across conditions. Individuals in the no visualization condition (a) rated planning as more problematic, and (b) were likely to encounter doing the task, checking progress, and group work challenges when they encounter planning challenges, (c) reported more time and planning main challenges compared to doing the task and group work challenges, and (d) reported that planning strategies (adopted as a team) were most effective for addressing planning challenges, followed by teamwork strategies which were less effective. In contrast, individuals belonging to groups who received one of the two visualizations (a) reported that both planning and teamwork strategies to be equally effective for addressing planning challenges, and (b) reported higher levels of success with their strategies than groups without a visualization support. Findings attest to the importance of supporting group planning with planning visualizations.

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Fig. 5: Decision pathways reporting average within student probabilities for regulating planning challenges across visualization conditions.
Fig. 6: Decision pathways reporting average within student probabilities for regulating dominant challenges across visualization conditions.

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Notes

  1. We use the term ameliorate to imply that successful teamwork does not require challenges to be eliminated. Rather, teams should respond to challenges in ways that resolve them or minimize their impact by making them more manageable/tolerable.

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Acknowledgements

Support for this research was provided by an Insight Grant for research to Hadwin, A.F., & Winne P.H. from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (435–2012-0529).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Rd, Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2, Canada

    Allyson F. Hadwin & Aishah Bakhtiar

  2. Technology Integrated Learning, University of Victoria, PO BOX 1700 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8V 8V8, Canada

    Mariel Miller

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  1. Allyson F. Hadwin
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  2. Aishah Bakhtiar
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  3. Mariel Miller
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Correspondence to Allyson F. Hadwin.

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Hadwin, A.F., Bakhtiar, A. & Miller, M. Challenges in online collaboration: effects of scripting shared task perceptions. Intern. J. Comput.-Support. Collab. Learn 13, 301–329 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-018-9279-9

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