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Collaborating, like it or not

Peter Davidson, Information Age

14/10/2005 15:19:12

People who really like computers will exploit them to produce better work than those who merely accept them as a part of life alongside ATMs, telephones and taxes. Right?

Seems self-evident perhaps, but a recent study at the University of NSW examining perceptions of, preferences for and performance in computer-based collaboration found that a predilection for technology did not necessarily mean improved performance.

Researcher Kerrie Miller and her supervisor Dr Geoffrey Dick were expecting better results in collaborative exercises from students with an avowed bent for technology, but not so.

Miller's research for her first class honours thesis in UNSW's Business IT program also examined a number of other student characteristics including gender, age, previous experience, perceived performance and perceptions of collaboration.

These factors did not influence results either.

While anxious to point out that their research was a "one-off" exercise with a particular group of university students, Dr Dick (senior lecturer, School of Information Systems, Technology and Management) says that the research gives educators and managers new data to aid in the design and deployment of computer-based learning and training modules.

"There are limitations to the study: learning styles were not included, nor was the specification of the computer-based task, participants were sampled from one course at one university, and data from students performing the same task in a face-to-face environment would have supplemented the study's findings.

"Even so, it is an area which has not been researched before and it shows that experience and gender do not play as big a part as previously thought.

"A demographic different from the 19 to 21-year-old students we sampled might produce a correspondingly different result, but it's a useful first block in the foundations for more relevant and effective learning solutions."

Technology getting ahead of research Over the last four years, the NSW Government has spent $260m putting 77,000 computers in state schools and plans another 25,000 over the next three years.

"While it is important that current technological advancements are continually being implemented in the classroom, it would be reckless to do so without justifying such implementation with endorsement from the research community, and in particular, with research regarding the likely effect of these advancements on student performance in the classroom," Miller says.

"Further, with the never ending advancement of technology and its many possible implementations, the amount of un-researched implementations will only increase, which in turn increases this need for more research."

With the drive for online learning being fuelled by increasing access to the Internet, outstanding issues in computer-based learning (CBL) are "critical to today's educators".

"The primary motivation for our study was to offer a contribution that researchers and practitioners can use, and to begin to bridge the growing gap between the implementation and research of computer-based learning - particularly how perceptions and characteristics might affect performance in the classroom by the use of technology," she says.

"There is a movement away from CBL technologies being helpful tools to educators becoming reliant on their use, driven by political, commercial and inevitability pressures rather than researched knowledge."

Dr Dick agrees: "It's no wonder that researchers are finding it difficult to keep up with the pace of technological advances. As organisations and educational institutions race to adopt educational techniques, they find they are doing so without completely understanding them.

"Researchers and practitioners need to work together to investigate and harness the benefits from these innovations in practice by moving from studies that focus on 'does technology influence learning?' to asking 'how can technology enhance learning?'"

Self-efficacy has no bearing on outcomes Their findings tend to contradict earlier work: they cite research by Compeau and Higgins in 1995 into the influence of self-efficacy, prior performance and outcome expectations on performance.

"They hypothesised that individuals who expect positive outcome from their use of computers will exhibit higher performance than those who do not," Dr Dick says. "They concluded that student perceptions of self-efficacy potentially play a very important role in student performance.

"That our research findings disagree completely with their hypothesis can be attributed, at least in part, to the exponential development of information technologies over the decade since their research, and the pervasive nature of ICT; primary school kids are using instant messaging to collaborate on homework assignments and think nothing of it.

"The average student has been born into an information age, and young users are effectively driving the development of CBL."

Methodology Three basic questions drove the research:

• What factors influence student preferences for face-to-face versus computer-based collaboration? • Does student preference for face-to-face versus computer-based collaboration influence student performance in computer-based collaboration? • What factors influence student performance in computer-based collaboration?

Students enrolled in a UNSW course with computer-based collaboration as one of the lecture topics were selected as the target population, and as part of their course work, they would be completing tutorial work with the use of collaborative software.

Participants were asked to: • complete a pre-collaboration questionnaire during their week six tutorial; • allow marks from their week seven collaborative tutorial to be used in the study; • provide the transcript from their week seven collaborative tutorial to be used in the study; and • complete a post-collaboration questionnaire to be included with their week seven submission.

The collaborative task was designed for all levels of student competency as it was directed at assessing a student's ability to collaborate to produce a report, not their intelligence or inherent academic ability.

So the task was simple and relied on a collaborative effort by the students who were required to produce an individual report before collaborating online with a fellow student to produce a joint report.

A marking guide was prepared for the class tutors to ensure consistency of performance evaluation. Marks from this tutorial work were collected from the tutors and tied to responses to the individual questionnaires; 144 students participated in the study at some level.

According to Miller, "The major finding of this study is that student preference for or against computer-based collaboration did not significantly influence their performance in a computer-based collaborative task. Whilst further research is needed, this information, as well as the other findings of this study, can be used by educators in the design of educational programs to ensure a better implementation and better outcomes for students.

"Given student experience, gender, age and individual performance were not found to influence student preferences for face-to-face versus computer-based collaboration or performance in computer-based collaboration, educators planning collaborative courses with components similar to that used in this study can decide on implementing face-to-face or computer-based components without regard to students' previous experience, gender, age or individual performance.

"Similarly, student perception of computer-based collaboration was not found to influence student performance in computer-based collaboration. With this information, educators can assume that when they are being assessed, students will not perform better or worse due to their perception of computer-based collaboration. This, of course, should not prevent educators from striving to create enjoyable learning experiences for students.

"There may be implications in this study for the workplace: while managers will have to cater for people from potentially very different demographics to those who participated in this study (given participants in this study were university students with experience using computer-based collaborative tools and from within a limited age bracket), there are indications here that experience and gender do not play as big a part as previously thought. This may also be true for the preference or non-preference for computer-based collaborative work.