Characterizing and assessing collective responsibility in computer-supported collaborative inquiry environments

Abstract

Collective responsibility, a responsibility for successful collaboration, has received increasing attention in current educational reforms, especially in the field of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). It emphasizes the shift of social and cognitive responsibility for learning from the teacher to students, as well as the distribution of this responsibility among all participants. However, students often lack the awareness and capability of taking collective responsibility, especially in the contexts of Chinese classrooms. This study investigates collective responsibility enacted by Chinese undergraduates engaged in collaborative inquiry discourse on an online platform called Knowledge Forum®, where two social configurations, fixed small groups and opportunistic collaboration, were combined. Four research questions addressed in the study are: 1) What characterizes collective responsibility among participants in a CSCL environment? 2) How do dynamics of collective responsibility mediate student-centered online discourse? 3) What are the roles of collective responsibility in students’ collaborative and individual understanding of knowledge? 4) What are students’ perceptions and experiences of enacting collective responsibility in the designed CSCL environment? The research includes two case studies, each of which was conducted in one intact class wherein online discourse was integral to an introductory research methods course, with support of a CSCL environment informed by principle-based design. Study One includes 27 participants, which explores the characteristics and dynamics of collective responsibility, addressing the first two research questions. Study Two includes 20 participants, which was conducted in the following academic year, addressing the four research questions. Special attention has been paid to examinations of the characteristics and dynamics of collective responsibility, the influences it exerts on the students’ knowledge understanding, their perceptions and interpretation about learning experience. Data sources in Study One include quantitative and qualitative data from online discourse, while Study Two consists of multiple data collected from students’ online discourse, focus group interviews, and assignment tasks. The characterization of collective responsibility based on social network analysis and content analysis reveals that the two undergraduate classes took relatively high levels of social and cognitive responsibility with regard to three dimensions: social awareness, complementary contributions, and distributed engagement. A multi-faceted examination of online discourse within and across different social configurations found that the participants were capable of enacting greater collective responsibility throughout the course despite some constraints. The analyses uncovered that collaborative and individual understanding were advanced along with the development of collective responsibility, as reflected by increasing note reading interactions and shared responsibility for responding more high levels of questions and ideas during online discourse. Further interview data analysis identified social and cognitive factors that affect the enactment of collective responsibility for collaborative inquiry. Theoretically speaking, this study offers insight into the characteristics and dynamics of collective responsibility taken over by students in CSCL environments. On the practical side, it contributes to the CSCL literature by providing empirical examples of incorporating online collaborative inquiry into regular Chinese undergraduate courses, through the incorporation of curriculum, pedagogy, and technology. It also introduces applicable methods in examining fine-grained dynamics of online discourse in CSCL studies from a methodological perspective.