An analysis of the interactional patterns in one-to-one and one-to-many collaborative concept mapping activities

Abstract

This paper reports on a study to investigate the effects of collaborative concept mapping in a one-device-per-student (1:1) digital learning environment, as compared with one-device-to-many-students (1:m), in terms of students' overall learning gains, knowledge retention, quality of the concept maps, interactional patterns, and learning perceptions. Guided by the methodology of quasi-experimental research, we adopted Group Scribbles (GS) 1.0 in our empirical study where students carried out collaborative concept mapping activities in two different settings: (a) students working in pairs with one Tablet PC assigned to each of them; (b) multiple students sharing a Tablet PC. In particular, we investigated the students' learning process, identified and compared various interactional patterns exhibited by the student groups who were engaged in both settings, and discussed how such group dynamics might have affected the quality of the student artifacts produced by individual groups.