In the upcoming 13th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) at London, UK, June 23-27, 2018, our lab members will offer two presentations. ICLS is a major international event, organized biennially by ISLS, which gathers people involved in all aspects of the field of the learning sciences, including empirical, conceptual, theoretical, design-based, practitioner and policy perspectives.
Short Paper Session: Building a Team Leadership Index through Computational Methods
Kui Xie, Gennaro Di Tosto, Lin Lu, The Ohio State University
Abstract: To help monitoring and controlling the latent social dynamics associated with leadership, we test a methodological approach that makes use of computational techniques to mine the content of online communications and analyze group structure to identify students who behave as leaders. The results allow us to quantify each individual’s contribution and summarize their engagement in the form of a leadership index. The proposed methodology is fully automated and has the potential to be easily replicable. The summary offered by the leadership index is intended as actionable information that can guide just-in-time interventions to help sustain student engagement.
Short Paper Session: Achievement Goals and Team Leadership in Online Small Group Learning
Lin Lu, Kui Xie, The Ohio State University
Abstract: Group learning is a common used learning approach in online education. However, there are limited studies addressing how to support online groups from the perspectives of motivation and team leadership. This study attempts to understand how achievement goals and leadership styles could influence collaboration experience and individual performance. The results showed that learners who adopted mastery goals tended to engage in group learning through promoting member relationships and group cohesion whereas leaders who adopted performance goals tended to concentrate on helping group complete tasks. High level of relationship-orientated leadership made performance-approach goal orientation a significant predictor of collaboration experience and reduced the negative effect of performance-avoidance goals on final grade. This study finally provides insights to online group activity design.