January 2012 Volume 15 Number 1 - Educational Technology ...

collaborative task in terms of intersubjectivity. Also there were participants such as P108, P115, P106, P98, and
P104, with high scores on the epistemological beliefs questionnaire who performed poorly on the collaborative task.
Based on these mixed results, personal epistemology did not seem to be related to individuals’ contribution and
performance on the collaborative problem-solving context. Furthermore, an individual’s solo performance on the illstructured
problem did not seem to be related with the individual’s performance on the collaborative problem-solving
task. A good example of this is Dyad 8. Specifically, the two members of Dyad 8 were P116, who scored high on the
EBQ but had the poorest solo performance on the task, and P105 who scored low on the EBQ but had the highest
solo task performance. Together, P116 and P105 managed to achieve the highest inter-subjectivity index. The results
imply that contextual factors might affect an individual’s performance on an ill-structured problem-solving task more
so than their epistemological beliefs scores.
Dyad Member
ID
Epistemological
Stage
Solo
Thinking
Table 2. Paired thinking
# of
contributions
# of
interactions
# of
Disagreements
Intersubjectivity
index
1 P107 H Type B 56 17 6 0.40
P113 L Type B 30 17 6
2 P102 H Type C 17 8 1 0.33
P114 L Type B 38 10 3
3 P108 H Type B 26 6 2 0.28
P115 H Type B 35 11 2
4 P100 L Type C 21 6 2 0.32
P109 L Type B 16 6 1
5 P99 L Type C 30 7 4 0.35
P111 L Type A 19 10 0
6 P106 H Type B 42 11 0 0.28
P110 L Type B 38 11 0
7 P112 H Type B 24 9 6 0.45
P95 L Type B 27 14 9
8 P116 H Type A 14 11 0 0.58
P105 L Type D 22 10 2
9 P98 H Type D 30 11 1 0.24
P103 L Type B 56 10 2
10 P104 H Type B 32 12 0 0.30
P96 L Type A 57 15 2
Differences between solo and paired transcripts
The analysis of the solo and paired transcripts identified 19 different elements of thinking, and these are shown along
with their descriptions in Table 3.
Table 3. Elements of thinking
Elements Code Description
Information from reading materials Inf(M) Information present in the reading materials provided to
learners.
Cultural Identity CId Knowledge that is directly or indirectly related to, and
could only be known from, the learner’s culture, as
defined by his or her cultural identity.
Emotion E Knowledge, experience, event, or activity that is either
directly or indirectly emotionally charged
Information from personal experience PE Knowledge, experience, activity, or event that is derived
from the individual’s personal experience,
Information from other sources OS Knowledge, experience, activity, or event that is not
10