Observations of Collaborative Behavior in COMPS Computer Mediated Problem Solving

COMPS is a web-delivered computer-mediated problem solving environment for student collaborative exploratory learning. The primary mode of interaction is typed dialogue, but COMPS also provides problem-specific affordances for exploring a problem. This paper reports qualitatively on dialogues from students employed in four different activities: two logical reasoning problems in a quantitative literacy class and two different problems in object-oriented Java in an elementary programming class. In all domains we observe behaviors consistent with quality collaborative learning experiences: co-construction of knowledge, mixed initiative dialogue, coming to common agreement, and students adopting different roles in the problem-solving process. These observations confirm that COMPS indeed facilitates true collaborative activity.