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This paper investigates the impact of the proposed 'Make It Explicit!' technique on students' learning when participating in scripted collaborative activities. The method posits that when asking students to proactively articulate their own positions explicitly, then improved peer interaction is triggered in a subsequent collaborative session. Forty-two (42) students worked collaboratively in dyads on a peer-review-scripted task with the aid of a Web-based technological system. Students were asked to individually study the same material and produce answers to study questions, review their peer's work and, finally, produce collaboratively revised common answers to the study questions. Dyads were randomly assigned in two conditions: low coercion (LC) and high coercion (HC). In the HC condition, students were required to write and submit to the system their reviews, prior to the task of producing the common answers to the study questions. In the LC condition, instead, submitting the individual review to the system was optional. By collecting and analysing both quantitative (preand post-test scores, measures of individual and collaborative learning) and qualitative (interviews, log files) data, it is shown that students in the HC condition applied better collaboration patterns and outperformed students in the LC condition in acquiring domain conceptual knowledge. Overall, this work analyses key aspects of implementing the 'Make It Explicit!' technique and concludes that it can efficiently improve collaborative learning outcomes by increasing script coercion.

This study was designed to investigate the impact of question prompts that guide students to focus on context-related issues when learning through cases in an illstructured domain. Three groups of undergraduate students studied cases during a labsession time period using a web-based environment. The first group studied without any question prompts. The second group studied the same material while prompted to provide written answers to embedded questions in the cases. The third group studied while having only to think of possible answers for the question prompts. In this study, we explored how the questioning intervention affected students' conceptual knowledge of the domain and their problem-solving ability. Post-tests did not reveal significant statistical differences in the groups' performance, indicating that under specific study conditions the prompting impact is not traceable in the learning outcomes. This result, however, is discussed in the light of a previous study, which showed that this context-oriented prompting method had a beneficial effect on student learning in a prolonged study-time setting, where students were able to self-regulate their study activity.Keywords Question prompts Á Case-based learning Á Learning in ill-structured domains Á Learning in context Á Technology-enhanced learning This study was designed to investigate the potential of question prompts to facilitate students' processing of complex contextual information presented in cases in an illstructured domain, where contextual issues play a crucial role. The effectiveness of questioning strategies to support learning has been highlighted in several situations. In reviewing the literature, Ge (2001) concludes that scaffolding strategies, such as coaching through prompts (e.g., King 1992;Scardamalia et al. 1984) and guiding students to selfgenerate questions (e.g., King 1991;Rosenshine et al. 1996), may promote comprehension, monitor cognitive thinking, and facilitate general problem solving and reflective thinking. P. M. Papadopoulos (&) Á S. N. Demetriadis Á I. G. Stamelos Á I. A. Tsoukalas

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This study provides field research evidence on the efficiency of a "free-selection" peer review assignment protocol as compared to the typically implemented "assignedpair" protocol. The study employed 54 sophomore students who were randomly assigned into three groups: Assigned-Pair (AP) (the teacher assigns student works for review to student pairs), Free-Selection (FS) (students are allowed to freely explore and select peer work for review), and No Review (NR) (control group). AP and FS student groups studied and reviewed peer work in the domain of Computer Networking, supported by a web-based environment designed to facilitate the two peer review protocols. Our results indicate that students following the Free Selection protocol demonstrate (a) better domain learning outcomes, and (b) better reviewer skills, compared to the AP condition. Overall, the study analyzes the benefits and shortcomings of the FS vs. AP review assignment protocol, providing evidence that the FS condition can be multiply beneficial to students who engage in peer review activities.