Abstracts - Earli

Knowledge acquisition and opinion formation in science museums: The role of a discussionterminal for collaborative elaboration on controversial issuesKristin Knipfer, University of Tübingen, GermanyCarmen Zahn, Knowledge Media Research Center, GermanyToday, science museums are often challenged by having to present highly controversial issues.Beyond presenting objects, facts and figures, the museums have to provide visitors with theopportunity to participate in public debates about those issues. In this paper we present a projectthat focuses on the potentials of discussion terminals for this purpose. A study was designed toinvestigate whether a discussion terminal for asynchronous communication among museumvisitors can support deep elaboration of controversial information and formation of well-foundedopinions in visitors. More specified, the salience of relevant arguments and active expression ofone’s own opinion are expected to result in deeper elaboration of content and higher degrees oflearning. Additionally the study investigates the impact of other visitors’ opinion on learning andopinion formation. Social comparison processes can stimulate elaboration of arguments and thedevelopment of visitor’s own well-founded opinions. It is assumed that salience of arguments,active positioning, and social comparison are crucial factors for both learning and opinionformation. Elaboration of information should be deeper when arguments are salient and activepositioning is possible. Social comparison should stimulate elaboration of arguments andevaluation of visitors’ own opinion if a cognitive conflict between one’s own opinion and others’opinion is elicited. Depending on salience of arguments and on individual variables ourparticipants should use simple cognitive strategies like assimilation or real knowledge buildingactivities on condition of inconsistent feedback about others’ opinions. Attitudes that are based onmore information are more stable in time. When people are actively engaged in judging acontroversial topic, relevant knowledge should be better and more accessible than for people whoonly visited the exhibition passively as recipient of information.Gate for collaboration: Stimulating collaborative knowledge construction with a 3D gameenvironment in the context of distributed workJohanna Bluemink, University of Oulu, FinlandPiritta Leinonen, University of Oulu, FinlandSanna Järvelä, University of Oulu, FinlandThe aim of this study is to examine how to support distributed teams in their collaborativeknowledge construction. A virtual 3D multiplayer game "Gate for collaboration" will be used as acatalyst for the distributed teams in their shared activities. Currently there is an increasing need tocreate new solutions for distributed teams to ease the knowledge construction and multiplayergames could offer a rich medium for collaborators that engages players and creates a strongcommon context. This study builds on modern research on collaborative learning, which gives astrong theoretical understanding of how collaborators understand each other. An experimentalstudy will be arranged in April 2007 with Executive Master of Business Administration studentsand several types of data will be collected, such as videodata and tracing asynchronouscollaborative problem-solving before and after the game sessions.Combining and comparing physical and virtual manipulatives in physics educationZacharias Zacharia, University of Cyprus, CyprusThe purpose of this study was to investigate the value of combining physical manipulatives withvirtual manipulatives with respect to changes in students’ conceptual understanding of electric-– 194 –