Instructional or personal? A study on utterance annotation in online collaborative learning

Abstract

Students' online collaborative learning is an important topic in higher education. In this study, we aim to investigate how to facilitate students' text-based discussions in online collaborative learning through innovative online collaborative learning tool design. Based on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) literature and Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), we argue that using utterance annotation could be an effective way to achieve such goals. We also explore how different utterance annotation approaches (i.e., instructional annotation vs. personal annotation) would affect students' online discussion participation pattern and learning performance. To achieve that, we implement these different utterance annotation approaches in our newly developed online collaborative learning tool. Using group-based case study as the collaborative learning context, we investigate the research questions by conducting field experiment in an adult learning course. We believe this study will largely contribute to the CSCL literature and provide important practical contributions for both educators and learners.