Analyzing groups’ problem-solving process to characterize collaboration within groups

Collaborative learning has gained much research attention in the past few years given the cognitive benefits attributed to it. We are investigating automatic adaptive support to groups in a computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) system. In this paper, we report a study in which we observed the joint-problem solving processes of a teams of three learners. We adopted a Sudoku puzzle as our learning task. We analyze data collected from groups’ problem-solving to identify different states of individuals’ participative activities within groups. We also determine indicators, activators and inhibitors of collaboration during joint problem-solving (JPS) to characterize group learning activities. Our findings together with the related work provide a foundation for further studies that will design an appropriate technological solution for a shared-activity group environment. This environment will be enhanced to gather collaboration data, evaluate the level of group interaction, determine the need and kind of support to groups and finally, provide real-time adaptive support to learning groups for enhanced collaboration.