A method for evaluating computer-supported collaborative learning processes

Understanding and analyzing collaborative learning processes requires a ®negrained sequential analysis of the group interaction in the context of learning goals. Several researchers in the area of cooperative work take the quality of the group outcome as a success criterion. Nevertheless, recent ®ndings are giving importance to the quality of the cooperation process itself. This paper presents a set of indicators the main objective of which is to evaluate the collaborative learning process. In this paper our aim is to present a method, which can be used in analyzing the interaction processes in a CSCL environment. We have de®ned an experiment to gather data from groups working on a simple task. These data are then used to build some cooperation indicators, which in turn allow us to estimate the quality of the work process.