How shared concept mapping facilitates explanation activities in collaborative learning: An experimental investigation into learning performance in the context of different perspectives

Abstract

Studies in collaborative learning have shown that explanation activities drawing on diverse perspectives facilitate deeper understanding and metacognition. However, it is difficult to develop an explicit understanding of others’ perspectives and knowledge through communication in a computer-mediated environment. The present study investigated the use of a visually shared concept map interface, expected to facilitate dyadic awareness of different perspectives and thus improve learning performance during explanation activities. In this study, each dyad built a concept map about a key technical term in psychology, and generated explanations of the term and generated explanations of the term on mutually accessible concept maps. We predicted that learners would be able to (1) gain deeper knowledge through the shared explanations; and (2) explain the key term from different perspectives or knowledge sets. Twenty-six university students participated in this experiment, and we assessed their performance through free recall tests before and after they used the concept mapping tool. Our findings showed that learners were able to (1) gain learning performance and (2) explain a concept based on different perspectives. We discuss the implications of our findings and suggest directions for further research on the development of learning support systems.