Developing Adaptive Collaboration Support: The Example of an Effective Training for Collaborative Inferences

Abstract

Adaptive support for computer-mediated collaboration aims at supporting learners' collaboration in a way that is tailored to their actual needs and by fostering their self-regulation, leading to the acquisition of new collaboration skills. This review gives an example of developing support for a specific collaboration skill: the co-construction of genuinely new knowledge by drawing collaborative inferences. The review shows how the development of increasingly detailed and accurate collaboration models and the implementation of an online assessment led toward the development of an effective training with adaptive tutoring support. In doing so, it outlines and illustrates a sequence of four steps in developing and testing adaptive collaboration support: deciding which collaboration skill(s) to support; conceptualizing the individual and collaborative activities underlying the skill; specifying rules for providing adaptive support based on an online assessment of collaboration indicators; and evaluating adaptive collaboration support.Collaborative learning and problem solving in computer-mediated settings are becoming more and more important in our increasingly globalized and specialized society. However, students typically need training and assistance before they can engage in effective computermediated collaboration. Research in the field of computer-supported collaborative learning, in particular, has aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of such support. Recently, the focus of this line of research has been moving from providing fixed to increasingly adaptive support (Baghaei et al. 2007;Carmien et al. 2007;Gweon et al. 2006). One reason for this shift has been the insight that students enter collaboration already equipped with more

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