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The aim of the study is to investigate the influence of gender and gender pairing on students' learning performances and knowledge elaboration processes in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). A sample of ninety-six secondary school students, participated in a two-week experiment. Students were randomly paired and asked to solve several moderately structured problems concerning Newtonian mechanics. Students' pretest and posttest performances were analyzed to see whether students' gender and the gender pairing (mixed or single-gender) were significant factors in their problem solving learning in CSCL. Students' online interactions were also analyzed to unravel the dynamic process of individual knowledge elaboration. The multilevel analyses revealed that a divergent pattern of knowledge elaboration was a significant predictor for students' learning achievement, and in mixed-gender dyads students' knowledge elaboration processes were more inclined to diverge from each other. Moreover, females in single-gender dyads significantly outperformed females in mixed-gender dyads. But this was not the case for male students.

The research issue in this study is how to structure collaborative learning so that it improves solving physics problems more than individual learning. Structured collaborative learning has been compared with individual learning environments with Schoenfeld's problem-solving episodes. Students took a pre-test and a post-test and had the opportunity to solve six physics problems. Ninety-nine students from a secondary school in Shanghai participated in the study. Students who learnt to solve problems in collaboration and students who learnt to solve problems individually with hints improved their problem-solving skills compared with those who learnt to solve the problems individually without hints. However, it was hard to discern an extra effect for students working collaboratively with hints-although we observed these students working in a more structured way than those in the other groups. We discuss ways to further investigate effective collaborative processes for solving physics problems.

The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of collaborative learning with hints and peer tutoring with hints, and individual learning with hints in chemistry laboratory education in a secondary school. A total of 96 eleventh graders participated in this study. The study has a randomized pre-test and post-test design with a delayed post-test. During the four-week intervention, students were required to carry out eight lab tasks in total. The students filled in a 17-item self-assessment of learning gain questionnaire on the last day. Analyses of students' learning achievements showed that students in both the collaborative learning and peer tutoring situations outperformed those learning individually with hints. The delayed post-test, which was administered three months later, revealed that students who had been in the peer tutoring situation outscored those in the collaborative learning situation. Student self-assessment questionnaires on learning gain provided further details in this regard.

This case study illustrates the sequential process of the joint and individual knowledge elaboration in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. The case comprised an Internet-based physics problem-solving platform. Six Dutch secondary school students (three males, three females) participated in the three-week experiment. They were paired based on self-selection. Each dyad was asked to collaborate on eight moderately structured problems concerning Newtonian mechanics. Their online interactions, including their textual and pictorial messages, were categorized and sequentially plotted. The three dyads showed three different collaboration patterns in terms of joint and individual knowledge elaboration.