The effect of discourse analysis activity with KBDeX on students’ understanding about collaborative learning

Abstract

It is known that collaborative learning enhances deepening participants’ understanding because there are iterative processes of questioning and answering about subjects. One person finds incomplete points and asks questions about his/her partner’s explanation, and the asked person answers the questions. Although such iterative processes improve deepening understanding, Japanese first-year undergraduates typically divide tasks among group members and have little discussion. It suggests that students have difficulty to recognize the effect of collaboration because its processes are complicated. We provided following ones to the students to help analysis of constructive interaction: a simple discourse data of constructive interaction, discourse analysis support tool called KBDeX, and DASK which suggests the important points when analyzing constructive interaction. Students in 2013 “Learning Management” class studied the effect of collaborative learning through discourse analysis activity of constructive interaction. On the other hand, students in 2012 class only learn theories about the effect of constructive interaction from texts. The students in the 2013 class compared with the 2012 class using design research. We analyzed the students’ beliefs about collaborative learning using their reports. 38 reports in the 2013 and 41 reports in the 2012 were analyzed. The result is that the students of 2013 changed their beliefs from “dividing tasks” to “exchange one’s own thinking” than the students in the 2012 class. KBDeX and DASK supported finding characteristics of constructive interaction.