Analyzing Students' Emerging Roles Based on Quantity and Heterogeneity of Individual Contributions in Small Group Online Collaborative Learning Using Bipartite Network Analysis

TL;DR

The paper tackles the difficulty of separating individual contributions from group outcomes in small-group CSCL by introducing a two-dimensional, bipartite network approach that quantifies both the quantity and heterogeneity of student–subtask engagement. By constructing student–subtask networks across two projects (TP1 and TP2) and computing adjusted degree centralities and an entropy-based heterogeneity measure, the authors identify three emerging roles: comprehensive contributors, versatile participants, and free riders, and demonstrate that scripted leadership enhances both quantity and heterogeneity of contributions. Qualitative interviews validate the quantitative findings and provide insight into learning gains and perceptions. The study contributes a scalable analytic method, a conceptual framework for emerging roles, and implications for instructional design and feedback in CSCL settings.

Abstract

Understanding students' emerging roles in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is critical for promoting regulated learning processes and supporting learning at both individual and group levels. However, it has been challenging to disentangle individual performance from group-based deliverables. This study introduces new learning analytic methods based on student -- subtask bipartite networks to gauge two conceptual dimensions -- quantity and heterogeneity of individual contribution to subtasks -- for understanding students' emerging roles in online collaborative learning in small groups. We analyzed these two dimensions and explored the changes of individual emerging roles within seven groups of high school students ($N = 21$) in two consecutive collaborative learning projects. We found a significant association in the changes between assigned leadership roles and changes in the identified emerging roles between the two projects, echoing the importance of externally facilitated regulation scaffolding in CSCL. We also collected qualitative data through a semi-structured interview to further validate the quantitative analysis results, which revealed that student perceptions of their emerging roles were consistent with the quantitative analysis results. This study contributes new learning analytic methods for collaboration analytics as well as a two-dimensional theoretical framework for understanding students' emerging roles in small group CSCL.

Figures (8)

• Figure 1: A screenshot of the teacher interface on the collaborative learning platform. Teachers define the deliverables of TP1 and TP2 as well as the subtasks before starting a group project.
• Figure 2: A screenshot of a subset of subtasks for the first project (TP1). Students are required to self-organize the collaborative learning process to complete all subtasks of each project on the collaborative learning platform.
• Figure 3: Illustration of the student–subtask bipartite network.
• Figure 4: Bipartite network visualizations of student–subtask interactions for Team 3 in TP1 and TP2.
• Figure 5: The analysis results of the emerging roles based on the quantity and heterogeneity of individual contributions among the same cohort of students over two projects. The dashed grey arrows indicate the transition in emerging roles from the first team project (TP1) to the second team project (TP2) for students S16 and S20 from Team 3 (see Figure 4).