Generative preparation tasks in digital collaborative learning: actor and partner effects of constructive preparation activities on deep comprehension

Abstract

Deep learning from collaboration occurs if the learner enacts interactive activities in the sense of leveraging the knowledge externalized by co-learners as resource for own inferencing processes and if these interactive activities in turn promote the learner's deep comprehension outcomes. This experimental study investigates whether inducing dyad members to enact constructive preparation activities can promote deep learning from subsequent collaboration while examining prior knowledge as moderator. In a digital collaborative learning environment, 122 non-expert university students assigned to 61 dyads studied a text about the human circulatory system and then prepared individually for collaboration according to their experimental conditions: the preparation tasks varied across dyads with respect to their generativity, that is, the degree to which they required the learners to enact constructive activities (note-taking, compare-contrast, or explanation). After externalizing their answer to the task, learners in all conditions inspected their partner's externalization and then jointly discussed their text understanding via chat. Results showed that more rather than less generative tasks fostered constructive preparation but not interactive collaboration activities or deep comprehension outcomes. Moderated mediation analyses considering actor and partner effects indicated the indirect effects of constructive preparation activities on deep comprehension outcomes via interactive activities to depend on prior knowledge: when own prior knowledge was relatively low, self-performed but not partner-performed constructive preparation activities were beneficial. When own prior knowledge was relatively high, partner-performed constructive preparation activities were conducive while one's own were ineffective or even detrimental. Given these differential effects, suggestions are made for optimizing the instructional design around generative preparation tasks to streamline the effectiveness of constructive preparation activities for deep learning from digital collaboration.

Keywords: digital collaborative learning; knowledge acquisition; learning activities; prior knowledge; text comprehension.

Figure 1

Summary of the relationships examined. (A) refers to research question 1. (B) refers to research question 2.

Figure 2

Experimental design and procedure. NO, CC, and EX refer to the note-taking, compare-contrast, and explanation task conditions, respectively.

Figure 3

Follow-up-analyses of the significant interaction effects between task type and actor's prior knowledge on self-performed constructive preparation activities. The respective effects are visualized and reported in terms of simple slopes, consonant with the actor's prior knowledge at the 10^th, 25^th, 50^th, 75^th, and 90^th percentile of the distribution. Unstandardized regression weights are reported. All continuous predictors were centered prior to the analyses. Asterisks indicate significance at the 5% level as determined by the 95% bias corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals.

Figure 4

Summary of the moderated mediation analyses (RQ 2). Only interactive collaboration activities are presented as mediator and included in tests for indirect effects, as constructive collaboration activities have been excluded as potential mediator during the preceding a-path and b-path analyses; see Appendix D in the Supplementary material for details. Unmoderated paths are indicated by solid lines and labeled with the according main effect. Moderated paths are indicated by dotted lines with the respective effects being detailed in Figure 5. Since all to be estimated a*b-paths include an a-path coefficient which has been indicated to be moderated by the actor's and/or the partner's prior knowledge, each indirect effect is reported in terms of simple slopes consonant with prior knowledge at the 10^th, 25^th, 50^th, 75^th, and 90^th percentile of the distribution. Unstandardized regression weights are reported. All continuous predictors were centered prior to the analyses. Asterisks indicate significance at the 5% level as determined by the 95% bias corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals or, in case of indirect effects, the 95% Monte Carlo confidence intervals.

Figure 5

Follow-up-analyses of the significant interaction effects between constructive preparation activities and prior knowledge on self-performed interactive collaboration activities. (A) Actor effect of constructive preparation activities on interactive collaboration activities as function of actor's prior knowledge. (B) Partner effect of constructive preparation activities on interactive collaboration activities as function of partner's prior knowledge. (C) Partner effect of constructive preparation activities on interactive collaboration activities as function of actor's prior knowledge. The respective effects are visualized and reported in terms of simple slopes, consonant with prior knowledge at the 10^th, 25^th, 50^th, 75^th, and 90^th percentile of the distribution. Unstandardized regression weights are reported. All continuous predictors were centered prior to the analyses. Asterisks indicate significance at the 5% level as determined by the 95% bias corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals.