Applying multimodal learning analytics to examine the immediate and delayed effects of instructor scaffoldings on small groups’ collaborative programming

Abstract

Background Instructor scaffolding is proved to be an effective means to improve collaborative learning quality, but empirical research indicates discrepancies about the effect of instructor scaffoldings on collaborative programming. Few studies have used multimodal learning analytics (MMLA) to comprehensively analyze the collaborative programming processes from a process-oriented perspective. This research conducts a MMLA research to examine the immediate and delayed effects of instructor scaffoldings on small groups’ collaborative programming in K-12 education context with an aim to provide research, analytics, and pedagogical implications. Results The results indicated that the instructor provided five types of scaffoldings from the social, cognitive, and metacognitive dimensions, and groups had seven types of responses (i.e., immediate uptake and delayed use) to five instructor scaffoldings, ranging from the low-to-medium and high level of cognitive engagement. After the scaffolding was faded, groups used the content from the high-control cognitive scaffolding frequently to solve problems in a delayed way, but groups did not use the instructor’s scaffolding content from the social and low-control cognitive scaffoldings from the pedagogical perspective, instructors should consider scaffolding types, group states and characteristics, as well as the timing of scaffolding to better design and facilitate collaborative programming. From an analytical perspective, MMLA was proved to be conducive to understand collaborative learning from social, cognitive, behavioral, and micro-level dimensions, such that instructors can better understand and reflect on the process of collaborative learning, and use scaffoldings more skillfully to support collaborative learning. Conclusions Collaborative programming is encouraged to be integrated in STEM education to transform education from the instructor-directed lecturing to the learner-centered learning. Using MMLA methods, this research provided a deep understanding of the immediate and delayed effects of instructor scaffoldings on small groups’ collaborative programming in K-12 STEM education from a process-oriented perspective. The results showed that various instructor scaffoldings have been used to promote groups’ social and cognitive engagement. Instructor scaffoldings have delayed effects on promoting collaborative programming qualities. It is highly suggested that instructors should integrate scaffoldings to facilitate computer programming education and relevant research should apply MMLA to reveal details of the process of collaboration.

Using Epistemic Network Analysis to Explore Primary School Students’ Computational Thinking in Pair Programming Learning

“…However, students’ learning behavior patterns in PP are different (Hopcan et al, 2022). The formative evaluation method can be combined with summative evaluation to further explore students’ CT development trajectory in PP learning and to compare the characteristics of students with higher CT levels with those with low CT levels on the CT development trajectory (Lye & Koh, 2014; Ouyang et al, 2022; Zhong, Wang, Chen, et al, 2016). The findings can effectively guide educators to design and implement teaching strategies.…”

“…Younger students can also attain significant learning achievements, new programming languages, partnership, and understanding of the programming concepts faster in the context of PP learning (Iskrenovic-Momcilovic, 2019; Zhong, Wang, & Chen, 2016). Thus, PP is an effective approach which can be used to improve learners’ CT skills in K-12 programming courses (Ouyang et al, 2022; Wei et al, 2020).…”

“…Students’ learning behavior patterns in PP were observed to differ significantly (Hopcan et al, 2022). Recording and analyzing students’ discussion of the programming process can fully reflect students’ input thought processes and the level of skills (Lye & Koh, 2014; Ouyang et al, 2022). Analyzing students’ discourse in collaborative learning to understand learners’ cognitive activities can provide teachers with more clues to formulate corresponding teaching strategies (Vandenberg et al, 2021).…”

“…Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) is a discourse analysis method. Due to its ability to reveal the interaction, support, and temporal process in the collaboration (Zhang et al, 2022), ENA has been used in many studies to understand the development trajectory of learners’ ideas in scientific creativity tasks (Sun et al, 2022), higher-order thinking (Ba et al, 2022), metacognitive patterns (Wu et al, 2020), social-cognitive engagement (Ouyang et al, 2022), and even to compare metacognitive differences between low- and high-scoring groups (Wu et al, 2020; Zhang et al, 2019). ENA can model the connections between features of student dialogue by quantifying their co-occurrences in the dialogue, and thus produce a weighted network of co-occurrences and visualizations linked with each data analytical component.…”

Developing of STEM-based charta learning media to improve critical thinking ability student on plant structure and function material

“…The use of charta learning media accelerates the teaching and learning process. This can happen because learning runs more effectively and efficiently (Rajendra & Sudana, 2018;Siagian et al, 2014), thereby providing a conducive atmosphere because it can make students understand more quickly (Ouyang et al, 2022). On the other hand, learning that does not optimize the use of media is only monotonous and uninteresting.…”