This study investigated how different tools differentially mediate the way groups interact and how the differential tool use and interactivity influence interdependence in online collaborative activity. Activity Theory is used as a framework to examine and explain computer-mediated interactions among students during group work. The findings reveal…

Compares two contrasting perspectives of social contagion processes (structural equivalence and cohesion) associated with the organizational outcome variables of commitment and role ambiguity in organizations. Finds that structural equivalence was more associated with role ambiguity and that commitment was more associated with cohesion. (MS)

A mathematical model that describes attitude change in human communication networks is developed in this paper. The parameters of the model are drawn from a review of the literature related to network analysis, small group influence, mass communication, and attitude change. The literature review identifies key variables that influence attitude…

This article elaborates a model for understanding pedagogy in online educational forums. The model identifies four key components. Intellectual engagement describes the foreground cognitive processes of collaborative learning. Communication processes operating in the background accumulate an ever richer store of shared understandings that enable…

This book describes how talk is used to build social organization within face-to-face interaction among a group of urban black children, an analysis providing the opportunity to study language, culture, and social organization from an integrated perspective. Children from a southwest Philadelphia neighborhood were tape-recorded during peer-group…

Based on the belief that preadolescence is a highly stressful time of development and a period when people need support from peers to cope with stress, a network analysis was used to examine the social support networks of preadolescents and the behavior of central network members. Subjects, 24 sixth-grade children, completed specially constructed…