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What make students improve argumentation skills in online collaboration? The effects of students’ motivation and preference for group work
Citation
Chen, W., Pi, Z., Chai, A. S. C., Tan, J. S. H., & Wang, X. (2020). What make students improve argumentation skills in online collaboration? The effects of students’ motivation and preference for group work. In L.-H. Wong, H. Cheng, C.-P. Lin, R. Huang, S. Guo, & J. Guo (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24th Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education (GCCCE 2020) (pp. 673-680). Northwest Normal University.
Abstract
Online collaboration is considered as one of the effective strategies to improve students’ argumentation skills. This strategy reduces the effects of production blocking and evaluation apprehension on group performance. There are currently few studies that examine the role of students’ characteristics in argumentation skill improvement via online collaboration. During a fifty-minute argumentation lesson conducted by the secondary school English language teacher, students learned to construct argumentation by establishing ideas, claims, and evidence in an attempt to address contemporary issues via an online collaboration system. Prior to the lesson, students completed a motivation scale and preference for group work scale and an argumentation writing task. A similar argumentation writing task was also completed by the students after the lesson. Overall, this study demonstrated that explicit instruction in argumentation skills via online collaboration has positive effects on student’ argumentation skills gains, especially on students with a high preference for group work. Results showed that students’ extrinsic goal orientation negatively predicted their argumentation skills, whereas students’ task value and preference for group work positively predicted their argumentation skills on the posttest. The implications of the findings on the teaching practices of argumentation skills are discussed.
Date Issued
2020