Types of feedback in a computer-based collaborative problem-solving group task

Large-scale and small-scale assessment programs increasingly use collaborative group tasks in which students work together to solve problems or to accomplish projects. This study attempts to improve Chung, O'Neil, and Herl's (1999) computer-based collaborative knowledge mapping study, where most of the team processes variables were found to have no relationship with team outcomes. By changing the task to a "group task" to fulfill task interdependency and by providing different types of feedback (knowledge of response feedback and adapted knowledge of response feedback), this study tries to explore the effects of students' teamwork and problem solving processes on students' knowledge mapping performance. Knowledge of response feedback simply informed students of a correct or incorrect response. Adapted knowledge of response feedback not only provided the information in knowledge of response feedback but also informed students how much they have improved from the last feedback access and provided students strategy to improve their map. The effects of two types of feedback on teamwork and problem solving processes were also investigated.; Ten Asian American young adults (5 groups) were used in the pilot study to test the modified computer system. The system was feasible. After the pilot study, 120 Asian American high schools students (60 groups) participated in the main study. The students were randomly assigned either to be a group leader whose responsibility was to construct the map or to be a group searcher whose responsibility was to help the leader construct the map by seeking information and accessing feedback from the Web environment. Results showed that adapted knowledge of response feedback was more beneficial to group outcome than knowledge of response feedback. In addition, as predicted, adapted knowledge of response feedback groups were found to use more decision-making messages than knowledge of response feedback groups. In contrast with the Chung et al. (1999) study, interactions between group members and decision making process were found to have positive relationship with group outcome in this study, but only for adapted knowledge of response feedback groups. In general, most of the hypotheses were supported.