This study investigates the effects of using design thinking on students' problem solving and creativity skills, applying a constructivist learning theory. A course where students use design thinking for analyzing real problems and proposing a solution, was evaluated. The study involved 910 novice university students from different disciplines who…

The present study aims at investigating whether events of socially shared metacognitive regulation (SSMR) differ from each other when comparing their characteristics. These differences are labelled "variations in SSMR". The study is conducted in a peer tutoring setting at university and includes video data (70 h of video recordings) on…

This study investigates (1) the impact of structuring versus reflection-provoking support on university students' adoption of socially shared metacognitive regulation (SSMR) during face-to-face peer tutoring (PT) and (2) the relation between SSMR and group performance. A quasi-experimental design was adopted, involving 72 educational sciences…

This study examines the effects of a design thinking intervention on first-year students' teamwork skills from a multi-actor perspective. A design thinking course was evaluated throughout a semester. Six-hundred-and-forty university students participated, guided by twenty-six facilitators. The students received in-class training and worked in…

We aimed to investigate how metacognitive regulation is characterised during collaborative learning in a higher education reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) setting. Sixty-four Educational Sciences students participated in a semester-long RPT-intervention and tutored one another in small groups of six. All sessions of five randomly selected RPT-groups…

The present study investigates collaborative learners' adoption of key regulation activities (i.e., orienting, planning, monitoring, and evaluating) and a deep-level regulation approach in relation to characteristics of their collaboration on the cognitive and communicative level. More specifically, the correlation of collaborative learners'…

Although successful collaborative learning requires socially shared metacognitive regulation (SSMR) of the learning process among multiple students, empirical research on SSMR is limited. The present study contributes to the emerging research on SSMR by examining its correlation with both collaborative learners' content processing strategies and…

Learning paths have the potential to play an important role in the way educators serve their learners. Empirical research about learning paths is scarce, particularly in a secondary education setting. The present quasi-experimental study took place in the context of a biology course involving 360 secondary school students. A 2 × 2 factorial…

This study focuses on the reliability of intra-group peer assessment (PA) of the collaboration processes in a wiki. First-year university students (N = 659) were subdivided in groups of 8 to create wikis. They were to assess their group members on four criteria (contribution, discussion, sources, and social). The main research question focused on…

This study was conducted in an authentic university setting with fourth-year Educational Sciences' students operating as online peer tutors to facilitate freshman tutees' online collaboration and knowledge construction in a blended "Instructional Sciences" course. Taking into account prior research uncovering weaknesses in online peer tutor…

The present study focuses on comparing the impact of role assignment and cross-age peer tutors on students' level of knowledge construction in 15 asynchronous discussion groups of nine students each in a first-year university course (N=135). Content analysis was applied to analyse the level of knowledge construction in students' online postings.…

Research in the field of computer supported collaborative learning stresses the need to foster the collaborative process in view of attaining optimal cognitive involvement of all participants, a higher level of metacognitive regulation and an increased level of affective involvement. The present study involved 80 third-year university students,…

This study aims to understand teachers' perspectives on their roles in higher education, their views about the adoption of a social-constructivist approach to teaching and learning and the integration of online collaborative learning in blended learning environments in higher education from a cross cultural perspective. We interviewed 60 Chinese…

This study was set up in a Chinese university in Beijing by implementing a Flemish e-learning course in a Chinese setting. A main feature of the e-learning environment is the asynchronous "task-based" online group discussion. The purpose of the study is to understand Chinese students' perceptions of a collaborative e-learning environment…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a cultural gap in student perceptions of online collaborative learning and to investigate to what extent student perceptions, motivation, and learning strategies change over time due to the actual involvement in a collaborative e-learning environment (ELE).…