This study aimed to understand the effect of task motivation on online group creative performance and interpersonal interaction. A total of 150 university students were recruited to collaborate online on creativity tasks in dyads. The members' task motivation was manipulated, resulting in three groups that differed in their motivation composition.…

This study aims at investigating the change of cognitive presence (CP), which is one of the basic variables for effective learning in online discussions, based on the cognitive style. Cognitive styles of the participants were identified based on the group embedded figures test (GEFT). The participants of the study took part in online discussions…

Literature circles [LC] are student-centered discussion groups that use various roles to make reading meaningful, comprehensible and enjoyable. The current research investigated the questioning effects and students' perceptions of integrating EFL [English-as-a-foreign-language] literature circles through student-led Facebook Groups. Findings…

The present study examined the social dynamics of interpersonal immediacy, a manifestation of social support, during collaborative small-group discussions. The temporal sequence of three forms of immediacy behaviors identified from 24 discussions in two fifth-grade classrooms were analyzed using statistical discourse analysis. The preliminary…

This study examined the effects of group composition based on the learners' personality types as measured by the Myers-Briggs type indicator as they interacted in threaded discussions. Three groups comprised introverts, extroverts, and mixed introvert-extrovert classifications. Ninety-six participants were divided into 24 groups of 4 participants…

Describes a theoretical framework of distributed representations to explore the representational properties in group problem solving. The experiment shows that different distributed representations across two individuals produced dramatically different group problem-solving behaviors; and two minds could be better than one mind, depending on how…

Tools for measuring cognitive engagement within online groups have been concerned only with measuring an individual participant's cognitive engagement, without any concern for measuring cognitive engagement within groups. There remains a serious need for a scheme that measures cognitive engagement of groups and the validation of such a scheme…

Analyzes students' visual renderings of concepts related to the term "hypermedia" to determine whether groups, membership of which was based on a mixture of learning styles or a mixture of hypermedia knowledge, constructed concept maps that differed in terms of several factors. Learning style seemed to explain the types of interactions more than…

Explains why high-level verbal interaction is the key to learning in collaborative groups. Discusses influences on high-level verbal interaction in collaborative groups, including prior achievement, friendships, and status and expectations. Notes ways that teachers can train students in high-level verbal interactions. (SR)

To provide a theoretical base for investigating the influence of inferential error on group decision making, current literature on both inferential error and decision making is reviewed and applied to the Watergate incident. Although groups tend to make fewer inferential errors because members' inferences are generally not biased in the same…

This document focuses on four children in a small group, solving word problems aloud. Different aspects of how children in small groups approach problems were revealed; certain characteristics of their attempts to solve problems suggest a variety of questions for further research. These pupils were part of a project that involved six groups of…

Research that identifies factors that facilitate information processing and enhance performance without reducing group confidence and decision satisfaction may influence future development of groupwork systems. This paper contains a review of the literature on cognitive and motivational issues in both group decision-making and learning contexts…

The study described in this volume investigated the talk of thirteen-year-old boys and girls, recorded while they were working in small groups on tasks set by their teachers. Specifically, research focused on the interplay between cognitive and communicative functions of speech in contexts planned for learning. "The Children and Their Talk"…

The purpose of this study was to examine the potential of asynchronous discussion forums (ADFs) as a medium to facilitate reflective thinking among preservice teachers. Of particular interest was the extent and manner in which this potential varies with respect to (a) the structure of the ADF, (b) the focus of the ADF, and (c) group dynamics.…