Teaching collaborative skills with a group leader computer tutor

Education and Information Technologies 1 75–96 (1996)

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Teaching collaborative skills with a group leader computer tutor MARGARET M. MCMANUS

Mathematics and Computer Science Department, La Salle University, 1900 West Olney Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19 141–1199, USA. E-mail: [email protected] ROBERT M. AIKEN

Computer and Information Sciences Department, Temple University, Computer Building (038–24), Philadelphia, PA 19 122, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

This paper discusses how a group leader computer tutor may aid students in learning collaborative skills in a co-operative learning environment. However, students need to learn collaborative skills and practice using them. The group leader computer tutor discussed in this paper is designed on the principles of co-operative learning, intelligent tutoring systems and computer-supported collaborative work within an intelligent collaborative learning system (ICLS). The group leader aims to facilitate group work on the task level and to teach students how to use collaborative skills in the discussion level as students work on networked computers in the Jigsaw method of co-operative learning. The ICLS and its group leader were used by two classes at a liberal arts university. Qualitative research shows that the students’ co-operative attitudes changed and academic achievement improved from pre- to post-treatment. Students, especially, used the communication skill of openness in comment type discussions. The students enjoyed working collaboratively through the ICLS and their teachers thought that the experience was valuable for them. KEYWORDS: higher education; artificial intelligence; collaborative learning; computer assisted instruction; learning systems; tutoring. INTRODUCTION Current educational research supports the benefits of a co-operative learning environment. However, many teachers do not know how or prefer not to use co-operative learning methods. On the other hand, some teachers used computer 1360–2357 © 1996 Chapman & Hall

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aided instruction (CAI) in which a student learns academic material on a computer, often through drill and practice. CAI is characterized as being adaptive and frameorientated, providing canned responses to the student, without an actual model of the student. Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) are an improvement to CAI because they include a computer tutor with some measure of intelligence, in addition to other features. Yet many such systems can tutor only one student at a time. To expand this learning environment to one in which students work in groups in a co-operative learning situation, computer-supported co-operative work (CSCW) provides some helpful techniques. The authors have designed and investigated the use of a group leader computer tutor which teaches students collaborative skills in a co-operative learning environment. Before the group leader computer tutor is discussed, the research areas of co-operative learning, tutoring with a computer and supporting group work are expanded upon.

Co-operative learning In a co-operative learning (CL) environment students work together in groups to achieve a common goal, such as completion of a worksheet, an assignment or a project (Glass and Putnam, 1988–9) and are guided by a teacher or group leader. Co-operative learning benefits a student by his/her observation of the activities of another student, by his/her contributions to a group project (Slavin, 1990) and by his/her participation in group discussions (Webb, 1989). Johnson and Johnson (1991) based their work in co-operative learning on Deutsch’s ideas of active, responsible participation in co-operative activities. Their components of co-operative learning and taxonomy of collaborative skills are used in this research. The idea of collaboration as convergence (Roschelle, 1992) is also significant in this research as one monitors the flow of discussions among students. Co-operative learning contains five components: positive interdependence, faceto-face primitive action, individual accountability and personal responsibility, interpersonal and small group skills, and group processing (Johnson and Johnson, 1991). In this paper, the importance of interpersonal and small group skills is concentrated upon, although the research does address all five components. Interpersonal and small group skills are developed as students learn to work effectively together. These skills include building trust for each other, using communication skills, which accurately convey their knowledge and feelings, accepting and supporting each other and resolving conflicts constructively. Collaborative skills, especially those used in discussion, may be viewed as techniques of the co-operative learning components. These skills identified by Johnson and Johnson (1991) include communication, building and maintaining trust, providing leadership and creative conflict. Students use these skills during their discussions, in the form of specific sentence opening phrases, each indicative of a particular skill. The opener is usually followed

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by additional text to complete the student’s thought. For example, a student might begin a comment type of discussion with the message ‘I think that your algorithm is very good’, in which he/she uses the opener ‘I think’ followed by his/her supplementary text. Collaborative skills may also be demonstrated through facial and physical gestures, such as a nod of the head; however, these techniques are not addressed in the research.

Communication skills These include ‘sending’ and ‘receiving’ skills (Johnson and Johnson, 1991). When a student uses sending skills he/she tells another student his/her ideas and beliefs; for example, the sentence opener ‘I think’ indicates the openness skill. The sender also seeks feedback from the receiver about the topic, by using the sentence opener ‘Do you understand this answer?’, indicative of the checking understanding skill. When a student uses receiving skills, he/she provides feedback to the sender about a communication. Feedback takes the form of paraphrasing the communication that was sent, as used with the content skill, indicted by the sentence opener ‘You think’.

Trust skills These are used when the student realizes that the other students in the group will try to contribute to the good of the group (Johnson and Johnson, 1991). Trust is exhibited when students openly discuss their feelings, as used with the acceptance of help skill, indicated by the use of the sentence opener ‘Thank you for your help’.

Leadership skills These are put into action when a student helps the group complete its task by coordinating and checking on the progress of the group (Johnson and Johnson, 1991). For example, the listening skills is indicated by the use of the sentence opener ‘Do you understand?’ Using leadership skills the student encourages all members to contribute during the task completion, as shown with the use of the task completion skill, indicated by the sentence opener ‘Will you help me finish?’

Creative conflict This occurs when students disagree in a problem-solving situation (Johnson and Johnson, 1991). Each student explains his/her position to the other students until the opposing students understand each other’s position. For example, the structuring pro arguments skills is used with the sentence opener ‘The advantages of this idea are . . .’. Finally the conflict is resolved as the conflicting students develop a solution upon which all the students in the group agree, as shown with the conclusion skill indicated by the use of the opener ‘In summary, the idea . . .’. As the student uses co-operative skills, observation by and feedback from a teacher, companion, or group leader is helpful to the student in order to realize how well he/she is mastering the skill. Feedback should be given immediately, specifically and appropriately, of varying types: understanding, probing, supporting, interpreting, or evaluating (Johnson, 1993). For example, understanding feedback should

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be given in the early stages of acquiring the collaborative skills, while evaluative feedback should be given in later stages. Several methods of co-operative learning have been developed with varying degrees of group and project structure (DeVries and Edwards, 1973; Slavin, 1978, Sharan and Hertz-Lazarowitz, 1980; Kagan, 1985). However, the Jigsaw method (Aronson et al., 1978) of co-operative learning is used in this research. The Jigsaw method of co-operative learning (Aronson et al., 1978) is a highly structured method in the organization of groups and phases, and the modularity of the students’ projects. A project is built modularly by a group in two phases: the expert group phase and the home group phase. The effective use of collaborative skills promotes successful interactions in the expert and home group phases, and promotes the achievement of the co-operative learning components. In the expert group phase, the subject material is divided into several discrete topics. The students are divided into the same number of expert groups as discrete topics, with each expert group examining one of the discrete topics. Co-operative work on the task level results, since a simple report, outline or algorithm is developed by the expert group. Co-operative learning occurs and collaborative skills are used on the discussion level as the students in an expert group discuss their topic. An expert group task used in this research was to write, sort and search algorithms of a database management system for a video store. In the home group phase, the students are rearranged into a number of home groups composed of one expert from each of the expert groups. Each home group works on the same project goal. The home group works on the task level and produces a group project based on the combined expert topics. A home group task used in this research was to complete the database management system of the video store, containing all the algorithms for menuing, loading, printing, sorting, searching, adding and deleting records to the video database.

Tutoring with a computer Computer software known as computer-aided instruction (CAI) has been developed to tutor a student about some academic material. However, CAI mainly provides drill and practice to the student. Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), also computer software, use an artificial intelligence foundation to improve the tutoring techniques of CAI. The tutoring by an ITS goes beyond that of CAI regarding student control, knowledge representation, interaction and student modelling (Wenger, 1987; Aiken, 1989). An ITS is more intelligent, interactive and flexible than CAI; an ITS possesses these attributes by virtue of its components. Most ITS are composed of four components, as described in (Wenger, 1987): domain expertise, pedagogical expertise, student model and interface. The domain expertise is a knowledge base of information about the domain to be taught. Most ITS research has been conducted using the domains of mathematics, physics, geography, meteorology or novice programming.

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Pedagogical expertise provides the teaching techniques to be utilized by the computer tutor. There are a variety of techniques to be used, such as coaching, Socratic dialogue, discovery learning, plan development or bug identification. The student model provides an image of the state of the student, his/her knowledge, his/her reasoning and possibly his/her misconceptions. The student model is updated as the student progresses through tutoring sessions. The interface provides a mechanism for communication between the student and the tutor. At best, natural language processing is used as the medium of communication, but a limited natural language interface is also beneficial. Many ITS have been developed to enhance student learning in a domain, while working individually with a computer system. However, current education theory states that it is advantageous for students to work in co-operative learning environments. Some ITS have begun to address the need for students to work co-operatively in various aspects, such as computerized companions (Chan and Baskin, 1990), collaborative partner (Cumming, 1990; Cumming and Self, 1990; Self, 1990; Blandford, 1994)) and simulated groups (Stevens, 1989). Other systems address the need for peer evaluation of work (Katz and Lesgold, 1993) and for students to work in pairs sharing a computer (Roschelle, 1992).

Supporting co-operative work on a computer The support of multiple individuals working together with computers, especially through networks, gained importance in the 1980s and was defined as the area of computer-supported co-operative work (Greif, 1988; Bannon and Schmidt, 1991). The main components of computer co-operative work in CSCW are a shared database and real-time communication among the users who are working together with a common application programme. Collaboration is encouraged by networked systems with a shared database which stores the work being produced by the group (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1993–4) and historical databases of activities, the ideas, and hyper documents and objects (Hahn et al., 1991). Besides the shared database, each user has his/her own individual database of his/her own work. Real-time communication of messages and data among the users is implemented by situating them on a local area network (LAN) or in a distributed environment. The application package, such as a word processor or a drawing package, provides the software to build the project. The appropriateness of CSCW techniques to co-operative learning has recently been identified, spawning the area of computer-supported co-operative learning (CSCL), ‘the more focused study of the use of collaboration technology in education’ (Koschmann, 1993–4, p.219). This study encompasses systems for collaborative project work and the creation of virtual classrooms, such as the computer-supported intentional learning environment (CSILE) (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1993–4), learning circles (Riel, 1990; 1992), Earth lab (Newman, 1991), just-in-time open learning (JITOL) (Boder, 1992) and the computer mediated tutorial laboratory (CMTL) (Myers et al., 1990).

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CSCL systems support and monitor groups of students working in groups on projects with a common application, communicating with each other synchronously or asynchronously, and sharing information in a common database. In live groups, a facilitator leads the group to accomplish their project. In CSCW and CSCL systems, some features of a facilitator are incorporated into the system, such as the means to organize meetings and agendas. However, these features do not include those of a group leader who monitors and guides the group participants in the effective use of collaborative skills. DISCUSSION

Tutoring collaborative skills by a computer In this research, the authors have designed and implemented an intelligent collaborative learning system (ICLS) with a group leader computer tutor which supports, fosters and promotes co-operative learning among students working on projects in structured groups in a networked environment (McManus, 1993; McManus and Aiken, 1993). The group leader computer tutor monitors and guides the interaction of students working in the Jigsaw method of co-operative learning. The knowledge structures for the group leader paradigm are based in the methodology of ITS, and its heuristics and functions are defined in the principles of CL, ITS and CSCW.

Model of the system The model of the ICLS (Fig. 1) is a composite of the ITS and CSCW components promoting CL processes. The ITS components of domain expertise, group and student model, pedagogical expertise and interface, and the CSCW components of real-time communications and common database, together form the inner core of the ICLS. The core promotes the CL components of group processing, face-toface promotive action, and interpersonal and small group skills, shown in the model by the bi-directional arrows from the inner core to the CL layer. These processes in turn promote the goal-orientated components of CL: positive interdependence, and individual accountability and personal responsibility. This model is an enhancement of a process model of Johnson and Johnson (1991, p. 47), in which the authors have incorporated the ITS and CSCW components into the core. The components of co-operative learning are facilitated by the interaction of the ITS and CSCW components in the ICLS in the following ways: (1) Face-to-face promotive action is accomplished through the electronic communications and project sharing. The students teach each other by sharing their project solutions from the database, help each other with the project by giving suggestions and give feedback to each other on their performance through the discussion interface. (2) Interpersonal and small group skills are used as the students communicate using the limited natural language interface. This interface presents the sentence openers for each particular type of discussion–comment, request,

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Figure 1. Intelligent collaborative learning system (ICLS) model

promise or debate. As the student selects an opener he/she gains experience in using the collaborative skills of communication, trust, leadership and creative conflict. The group leader computer tutor monitors the students’ use of the skills as the discussion progresses towards convergence, tutoring the students about using the skills and updating the student model. (3) Group processing occurs when the students assess themselves at the conclusion of their Jigsaw home group session. In the ICLS, the students rated themselves on a five-point Likert scale regarding questions about how well they worked in the group. The group leader receives the assessments and produces a profile for each student and his/her group. (4) Positive interdependence is achieved as the expert group masters the topic through sharing its work electronically. Likewise the members in the home group depend on each expert to contribute their work toward the complete project. (5) Individual accountability and personal responsibility are achieved as each student’s work is evaluated. Through the show work interface, a student’s work is evaluated by other group members who can subsequently discuss it and provide feedback to the author during the discussion phase.

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Research Areas Goals

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Figure 2. ICLS design with the Jigsaw method

Four goals have also been added which are shown on the perimeter of the model: educational foundation, discussion level, pedagogical environment and assessment. Each goal is achieved by the interaction of the ITS and CSCW components promoting CL. The educational foundation goal represents the task level, defined in the domain expertise of ITS and the common database of CSCW. The discussion level goal is concerned with the communications of students with each other and the computer group leader. It is achieved by the limited natural language interface of ITS and communications facilities of CSCW. The pedagogical environment goal is achieved by the group leader computer tutor or pedagogical expertise of ITS. The assessment goal is facilitated by the group leader and student model of ITS. The ICLS design may also be viewed using the Jigsaw methodology, as shown in Fig. 2 (McManus and Aiken, 1993). As in a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces fit together cohesively to form the whole. The four goals of an ICLS provide a structure to the puzzle (shown row-wise in the jigsaw puzzle): pedagogical environment, educational foundation, assessment and discussion level. The research areas of an ICLS also provide a structure to the puzzle (shown column-wise in the jigsaw puzzle): CL, ITS and CSCW. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are elements of each research area which are appropriate to the ICLS. Notice that the group leader computer tutor is located on the upper border of the puzzle because it frames the ICLS and unites the CL, CSCW and other ITS features. A thorough explanation of how the puzzle pieces form a cohesive whole according to the four goals is presented in McManus and Aiken (1993).

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Issues concerning the group leader computer tutor The discussion of the group leader paradigm of the ICLS includes several key issues, such as the intelligence capabilities of the group leader. ‘Intelligence’ has many different meanings, including a dictionary definition: ●

‘the ability to learn or understand; the ability to cope with a new situation’. (Guralnik, 1984; p. 316)

and a perspective from artificial intelligence: ●

‘In order to orchestrate these reasoning capabilities it [ITS] must also have explicit control or tutorial strategies specifying when to interrupt a student’s problem-solving activity, what to say and how best to say it; all in order to provide the student with instructionally effective advice. Without such intelligent guidance, the student is liable to struggle uselessly with a conceptual roadblock that he is ill-equipped to handle, or to gloss over other situations that could have high instructional impact given his current state of knowledge.’ (Sleeman and Brown, 1982; p. 2)

The group leader computer tutor possesses enough intelligence to be an effective tool and resource in the ICLS: it monitors students working collaboratively in groups, reacting to them, by providing feedback and advice on how to communicate better. The capabilities of the group leader of the ICLS are embodied by the roles of a group leader in CL and a facilitator in a meeting. The purpose of the group leader in CL is to foster a more effective collaborative learning environment, as described by Johnson and Johnson (1991; p. 161): ●

‘Responsible group membership and leadership both depend on flexible behaviour, the ability to diagnose what behaviours are needed at a particular time in order for the group to function most efficiently, and the ability to fulfill these behaviours or to get other members to fulfill them.’

Leadership entails the group leader encouraging all the students to work effectively with each other, and encouraging other students to work together, sharing and communicating well (Johnson and Johnson, 1991). A facilitator in the Jigsaw method is one who ‘helps members look at how they are working together, and examines how they can improve their interaction in order to accomplish some task’ (Aronson et al., 1978; p. 49). A facilitator should monitor the participation of group members (Dubs and Hayne, 1992). A facilitator in a meeting with an electronic meeting system should take ‘an active role in the meeting to improve group interaction by, for example, providing process structure in co-ordinating verbal discussion’ (Nunamaker et al., 1991; p. 50). Structure in a conversation is viewed as three stages: displaying, confirming and repairing (Roschelle, 1992). The facilitator should also direct the sequence of the members’ activities (Nunamaker et al., 1991).

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The group leader computer tutor and the domain expertise of collaborative skills in the ICLS enable the group leader to conduct a structured co-operative learning classroom and to teach collaborative skills. In contrast, some human teachers do not know how to manage a co-operative classroom or how to teach collaborative skills. Some human teachers are reluctant to have a co-operative classroom for fear of loss of control. The group leader facilitates communication among groups of students connected through a LAN environment. The paradigm gives the group leader the potential to facilitate communication among groups of students who are not co-located, but who are connected via a wider network in a virtual classroom setting. A human teacher can only facilitate communication among students who are co-located with him/her. Even with the use of electronic mail and computer mediated communication, the human teacher can monitor only one discussion at a time. The group leader, however, can monitor many discussions which are occurring simultaneously. The group leader enables and encourages students to participate on both the task and the discussion levels of their co-operative work. The group leader encourages all the students to work on the task level, especially by making their modular projects available to inspection by other students in their group. This encourages the co-operative learning components of individual accountability and personal responsibility. The human teacher must assume additional administrative duties to facilitate the task level among the students. The group leader also encourages all the students to participate on the discussion level by monitoring their discussions and tutoring them regarding interpersonal collaborative skills. The group leader enables the students to use the sentence openers indicative of collaborative attributes. Through practice, the students may acquire the habit of using these openers in a face-to-face discussion. A human teacher may not know how to tutor the students regarding the use of collaborative skills. Reticent or introverted students often have difficulty participating in a face-to-face group situation. However, this type of student may be more willing to participate in a discussion which is conducted electronically by the group leader, rather than by a human teacher.

Issues concerning the students The group leader computer tutor monitors the students in their use of collaborative skills as the students work on a generic project. The project itself may be from the domain of computer science, social studies, mathematics or science. The group leader computer tutor attempts to teach the students collaborative skills, regardless of the domain of the project. The authors’ research presents the design of a unique learning environment in which students work co-operatively in groups in a networked environment, supported by CSCW components and under the guidance of ITS components,

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especially the group leader computer tutor. A comparison of this environment to other environments regarding these features is discussed in McManus and Aiken (1993). Privacy is a key issue in the information age: fair information practices should guarantee an individual’s protection of data about him/herself, including in the areas of mail and electronic mail (Kling, 1992). The group leader computer tutor of the ICLS should not violate a student’s rights to privacy. However, the group leader needs to examine how well the students use interpersonal and small group skills by monitoring their communications. To insure the student’s rights over their communications, permission was requested from the students to monitor their conversations.

Justification for a group leader computer tutor The justification for a group leader computer tutor in the ICLS is based on four underlying questions regarding the usefulness of students working in groups, with an intelligent computer system containing a group leader tutor. (1) Why is it useful for students to work in groups? Students (a) learn the domain, (b) learn how to interact with each other to maximize learning (Johnson et al., 1990), (c) share ideas and listen carefully to each other (Sharan and Sharan, 1987; Hilke, 1990), (d) improve their interactions and relations within the group (Aronson et al., 1978), (e) have a greater liking of school (Slavin, 1978), and (f) avoid the ill-will typical of individualistic and competitive situations (Johnson and Johnson, 1991). (2) Why is it useful for students to work in groups with a computer system? A computer system (a) enables people to work together through CSCW features (Greif, 1988; Olson and Aiken, 1989), (b) enables students to actively work together to learn a subject (Hiltz, 1990), (c) enables students to solve problems in groups (Smith et al., 1991), (d) improves group communication and group processes (Nunamaker et al., 1991), (e) enables students to share information more than those without use of the technology (Hodgson and McConnell, 1992), and (f) increases writers’ willingness to participate in joint writing projects (Kiesler et al., 1988).

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(3) Why is it useful for students to work in groups with an intelligent computer system? An intelligent computer system (a) adapts to changes within the learning environment (Sleeman and Brown, 1982), (b) alerts the user to new information (Seybold, 1987), (c) encourages group work and project development (Sathi et al., 1988), (d) takes some responsibility for the student’s learning, (e) communicates with the human at the task and discussion levels (Cumming and Self, 1990), (f) provides appropriate advice to each student, and (g) helps students collaborate with a companion (Chan and Baskin, 1990). (4) Why is it useful for students to work in groups with an intelligent computer system with a group leader computer tutor? A group leader computer tutor may (a) help students attain better academic achievement; (b) enable students to gain more control as they work in groups and structure their own learning; (c) develop students’ interpersonal and small group skills; (d) encourage better social skills, especially when the students are at remote locations; (e) facilitate mediation (Levin, 1992); (f) provide effective teaching and learning strategies (Waggoner, 1992); and (g) fulfill the merger of CSCW and CSCL in teaching collaborative skills.

Implementation of the group leader computer tutor The group leader computer tutor was implemented as a computer process in the ICLS system (McManus, 1994). The group leader process runs co-operatively with processes for the other participants: the students and the human teacher. The group leader computer tutor and the ICLS use many data structures, including the collaborative skills network and the common database of knowledge. The collaborative skills network represents the collaborative skills identified by Johnson and Johnson (1991) and is described in detail in McManus (1995) and McManus and Aiken (1995a, b). The common database of knowledge stores information about the students, their groups, their projects and discussions, and the group and student models and is described in McManus (1995) and McManus and Aiken (1995a, b). The ICLS was implemented in a multi-user environment using FoxPro 2.5 for DOS on an Ethernet network.

Testing the group leader In addition to the development of the group leader computer tutor in the ICLS, the authors’ research also tested the ICLS and its group leader in an actual learning environment. The research questions studied pertain to the students’ use of the

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ICLS during their group work and, in particular, their attitudes and academic achievement and their use of collaborative skills. Specifically, the research questions studied were: ● ● ●

Do the students’ attitudes before using the ICLS change after using the ICLS, confirming or refuting Aronson’s studies? Do the students’ academic achievements of modular programming concepts before using the ICLS change after using the ICLS? To what extent and in what ways does the ICLS seem to be used in co-operative learning activities?

Two experiments were conducted, one in the Fall 1993 semester and the other in the Spring 1994 semester, at a local liberal arts university in a first computing science course. The students in each class used the ICLS facilitated and monitored by the group leader computer tutor during closed laboratory periods. The ICLS, installed on an Ethernet network, enabled the students to work electronically using the Jigsaw method of co-operative learning. In the first experiment in the Fall 1993, the subjects were 18 students: 13 male (72.2%), five female (27.8%); 14 Caucasian, three African–Americans and one Asian. The majority were mathematics, computer science, or math-education majors; more than half were first-year students. Most had some computer experience, although most had no other computer course in college. The task for the students was to write computer algorithms for elementary operations on a database. For example, the operations included inserting, deleting and printing records in the music store inventory. The procedure for the experiment included the following sequence of events. First, the proposed research was viewed by the Institutional Review Board of the university. Upon approval, the evaluation study was conducted during a five week period. In the first week, the subjects completed an informed consent form and a profile questionnaire. The teacher presented the academic material theoretically, and the students took the pretest examination. The researcher conducted the pretreatment interview addressing the subjects’ attitudes about liking of school, self-esteem, competitiveness and the ability to learn from others. In the second week, the teacher and the researcher conducted a team-building exercise. Then the students used a single-user demonstration subset of the ICLS. In the third week, the students used the ICLS during the closed laboratory period to work collaboratively on the task in the expert group meeting. The group leader computer tutor co-ordinated the following activities during the expert group meeting. First each student was notified of the other group members and of their task. Each student individually developed a solution for their task using a simple editor tool kit. Then the students viewed each other’s work through a split screen interface. Next the students voted on a solution to represent their expert group. The group leader determined which solution had been selected and made that solution the group’s solution. Each student could then view the expert group solution.

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In the fourth week, the students used the ICLS during the closed laboratory period to work collaboratively on the task in the home group meeting. The students met electronically in their home groups, where each home group was composed of one expert from each expert group. The students each developed a complete project, using the results from each expert. Next the students viewed each other’s complete project through the split screen interface. After they voted on a solution to represent the complete project of the home group, the group leader determined which solution had been selected and made that solution the home group’s final project solution. Next the students were interviewed individually by the researcher to discuss their attitudes post-treatment. Finally, the students took the post-test examination. In the second experiment in the Spring 1994, the subjects were nine students: five male (55.6%, four female (44.4%); seven Caucasian and two Asian. The students had a variety of majors: mathematics, computer science, math-education and business. All the students were at least second semester first-year students and half had a previous college computer course. All of the students had some experience using computers. The task for the students was to write computer algorithms for elementary statistical operations. Example operations included computing the mean, median and range for numerical data. The procedure for the second experiment was similar to that of the first experiment with the change that questionnaires were used to gather data about the students’ attitudes, rather than interviews. As in the first experiment, the group leader computer tutor co-ordinated the activities as the students met electronically in their expert and home groups. However, the ICLS and group leader included the additional features of discussion handling and group processing in the second experiment. In both the expert and home groups, the students participated in electronic discussions after they had viewed each other’s work. The students in each group discussed their work electronically, using the limited natural language interface of the system. Through this interface, the students chose sentence openers which were indicative of the collaborative skills of communications, trust, leadership and creative conflict. The group leader computer tutor monitored the discussions as they progressed towards convergence and assessed the students’ use of these collaborative skills, ready to generate feedback or tutoring advice. Following the discussions, each student could individually work on his/her project again before the group voted on a solution. After the group project was complete, the group leader requested that the students assess the extent of their participation in this collaborative effort through the group processing phase of the Jigsaw method. In both experiments the students ran the student process on their networked computers, while the group leader process ran on a separate computer in the network.

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The students did not seem to realize that the group leader process co-ordinated their work and their discussions. The ICLS ran more slowly in the second experiment than in the first experiment, due to a three-step hand-shaking procedure used to initiate each student into the next jigsaw step. The group leader also needed additional time to handle the discussion processing.

Evaluating the students’ co-operative attitudes Co-operative learning benefits students by improving their liking for school and self-esteem, increasing their belief that they can learn from other students, and decreasing their feelings of competitiveness (Aronson et al., 1978). The first research question studied these co-operative attitudes, to confirm or refute Aronson’s studies. In the first experiment, data was gathered by interviews with nine items on a seven-point Likert scale given pretreatment (before the use of the ICLS) and post-treatment (after use of the ICLS). These pre- and post-treatment data collected from the interviews were compared for each attitude using t-tests. To interpret the results of t-tests, the convention is to consider a probability (p) of 0.05 or less as significant. Since the research is exploratory, a probability of 0.10 could be considered as a possible trend which would merit further study. The results (Table 1) indicate that there was a small change in the attitudes of the students from before their use of the ICLS to after their use of the ICLS. As expected, their liking for school increased (p = 0.135), and the positive change in their belief that they can learn from others may be considered a trend (p = 0.055). However, the change in the other attitudes did not agree with the results of Aronson, because the ratings for self-esteem decreased and the sense of competitiveness increased (p = 0.009). These ratings might be a result of the students’ difficulties in understanding the questions, especially about competitiveness. In the second experiment, the data were gathered at the same intervals, but through questionnaires. The results for the attitudes (Table 2) indicated that there were no

Table 1.

t-test results for attitudes in the first experiment

Like school Self-esteem Learn from others Competitiveness a

–Minimum –and –First –Second –maximum –measurement –measurement –STD –values –(Mean) –(Mean) –Difference –DEV

OneSTD tail Error– p

–5–13a –3–21

– 6.3529 –16.9412

– 6.8235 –16.6471

–0.4706 –0.2941

–1.700 –1.312

0.412 0.318

0.135 0.185

–1–7

– 5.9412

– 5.5294

–0.4118

–1.004

0.243

0.055

–2–14

– 4.6471

– 5.8235

–1.1765

–1.845

0.448

0.009

One item scored negatively.

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Table 2.

t-test results for attitudes in the second experiment

Like school Self-esteem Learn from others Competitiveness a

–Minimum –and –First –Second –maximum –measurement –measurement –STD –values –(Mean) –(Mean) –Difference –DEV

OneSTD tail Error– p

–5–13a –3–21

– 6.556 –15.000

– 5.556 –14.625

–1.000 –0.375

–3.775 –2.669

1.258 0.944

0.225 0.353

–1–7

– 5.778

– 5.667

–0.111

–1.054

0.351

0.380

–2–14

– 6.556

– 6.778

–0.222

–4.177

1.392

0.439

One item scored negatively.

significant changes in the attitudes because the one-tail probability value was greater than 0.10. However, it should be noted that this result could also be due to the small sample and number of degrees of freedom.

Evaluating the students’ academic achievements Use of collaborative learning skills often leads to better academic performance (Johnson and Johnson, 1991). The second research question pertains to the students’ academic achievements of modular programming. Pretest and post-test examinations, administered and graded by the teacher, measured the students’ abilities to design algorithms and implement functions and their headers, and to use proper parameter passing techniques in the C programming language. Descriptive statistics for the students’ scores on these examinations were compared. In the first experiment the test results (Table 3) show that the students improved in their knowledge of modular programming concepts from the pretest (mean = 13.7333) to the post-test (mean = 15.5333). The t-test results include a one-tail probability of 3.7%, which indicates that the results are significant and the null hypothesis, that there were no significant differences in the test scores, can be rejected. Table 3.

t-test results for academic achievements in the first experiment

Number of cases Minimum score Maximum score Perfect score Mean Standard deviation Standard error One-tail probability

Pretest

Post-test

15 5 28 28 13.7333 6.397 1.652

15 5 27 28 15.5333 7.130 1.841

Difference

1.800

0.037

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t-test results for academic achievement in the second experiment

Number of cases Minimum score Maximum score Perfect score Mean Standard deviation Standard error One-tail probability

Pretest

Post-test

8 0 11 15 9.0 4.309 1.524

8 0 15 15 15.0 0.000 0.000

Difference

6.000

0.003

In the second experiment, the test results (Table 4) show that the students improved in their knowledge of modular programming from the pretest (mean = 9.0) to the post-test (mean = 15.0). The t-test results include a one-tail probability of 0.003%, which indicates that the difference from the pretest to the post-test was significant. However, these results could be due to the fact that the post-test, which tested the same material as the pretest, was the students’ final programming project.

Studying the use of collaborative skills In the second experiment, the authors also studied a question regarding to what extent and in what way does the ICLS seem to be used in co-operative learning activities. In particular, which collaborative skills were used by the students during the expert and home group meetings were studied, and in what kinds of discussions these skills were used. In the expert and home group meetings, there were nine students, divided into three groups of three students each, the recommended group size for co-operative groups. Therefore, there were only three discussions possible at one time. Two students at a time took turns speaking, and the third Table 5. Collaborative skills used in the expert and home group meetings in the second experiment Discussion types

Comment

Request

Opener

1 6 8 11 30 32 11 1 17

Skill

Openness Perception checking Expressing acceptance Asking for information Acknowledge positively Appreciation Asking for information Openness Listening

Count Expert group

Home group

18 0 1 1 2 3 1 1 1

10 1 2 1 1 0 0 0 0

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person ‘listened’. The group leader monitored the discussions through computer observation, but did not generate any actual feedback to the students due to their correct use of the sentence openers and to the lack of special requests for statistics or suggestions. For the discussions which occurred during the expert group meeting, certain collaborative skills were used, as summarized in Table 5. Most students participated in comment type discussions and used the sentence opener ‘I think . . .’, indicative of the openness communications skill.

Comments from the participants In addition to the responses to the interview, questionnaires and computer observation, additional comments were also gathered from both the students and their teachers. The students in both experiments liked working with the system and were happy to participate in the study. The students from the first experiment provided some interesting comments. One student commented that he liked being able to see one another’s work in a shared screen. Another said that she would especially like to use the system if she were working with someone from another school, indicating the appropriateness of the system for virtual classroom. Yet another said that he had never worked together in a group using a computer before and found the approach very interesting. The teacher in the first experiment thought that the experiment went well. She noted that the students became very involved with it and were willing to share their work with others. Some students were disappointed if their work was not chosen to represent the group’s solution. The teacher also thought that the students learned a great deal about working in groups and seemed happy doing so. Likewise, the students in the second experiment also enjoyed the new experience of working in groups with computers. One student indicated that she enjoyed conversing with fellow students using the ICLS because the teacher was busy with other students. Another student noted that projects could be completed more easily and that working in a group allowed everyone to apply and collaborate on discussing their ideas. The teacher in the second experiment thought that it was valuable for the students to experience group work on a computer. She thought that they were awed that this could be done, especially since they realized they did not have to be in the same room to work in a group. The teacher suggested a future improvement to the system would be to allow a group to continue to the next Jigsaw step without waiting for all groups to finish. CONCLUSIONS The research conducted with the ICLS and its group leader computer tutor led to some valuable conclusions. First, one was able to design and implement a system which contained the five components of co-operative learning: positive inter-

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dependence, face-to-face promotive action, individual accountability and personal responsibility, interpersonal and small group skills, and group processing. In particular, the group leader computer tutor has the ability to monitor and tutor students in the use of the collaborative skills of communication, trust, leadership and creative conflict. Overall, the students’ group interactions were very good and their construction of group projects seemed to be beneficial both to their co-operative attitudes and academic achievement. However, a few improvements to the system would be needed to make the system a truly useful tool. First, the speed of the system should be improved. The version of the system used in the second experiment included a more complex method of starting each jigsaw step, in order to ensure that a participant was active. In addition, the processing of messages in the discussions took more time. Therefore, the handling of these features should be enhanced to improve the speed of the system. Second, the discussion interface should be simplified. The interface screen for the discussion phase was somewhat complex because of the need to display sentence openers, explanation text and other buttons. This screen should be simplified according to Shneiderman’s (1992) suggestion for simplicity and functionality. Third, additional experimental testing should be conducted. The initial research involved exploratory qualitative research. Future research possibilities include using the system in a non-computer science class to emphasise that generic projects can be produced. Another task is to develop and run a quantitative experiment comparing a control group which works co-operatively without the use of the system to an experimental group which uses the system. Overall, the authors feel that ICLS research shows tremendous potential, and that one day this mode of learning will be routinely integrated into many courses. REFERENCES Aiken, R.M. (1989) The impact of artificial intelligence on education: Opening new windows. In J. Siekmann(ed.) Lecture notes in artificial intelligence. In V. Marik, O. Stepankova and Z. Zdrahal (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education CEPES-UNESCO International Symposium Proceedings. pp. 1–13. Berlin: Springer-Verlag Aronson, E., Blaney, N., Stephan, C., Sikes, J. and Snapp, M. (1978) The Jigsaw Classroom. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Bannon, L.J. and Schmidt, K. (1991) CSCW: Four characters in search of a context. In J.M. Bowers and S.D. Benford (eds) Studies in Computer-Supported Co-operative Work. pp. 3–15. North-Holland: Elsevier. Blandford, A.E. (1994) Teaching through collaborative problem solving. Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 5(1), 51–84. Boder, A. (1992) The process of knowledge reification in human-human interaction. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 8(3), 177–85. Chan, T. and Baskin, A.B. (1990) Learning companion systems. In C. Frasson and G. Gauthier (eds) Intelligent Tutoring Systems: At the Crossroads of Artificial Intelligence and Education. pp. 6–33. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors thank Professors L. Elliott and J. Turk and their students for all their participation in the experiment. The first author also thanks Temple University for a summer research grant and La Salle University for course reduction and dissertation completion grants.