Blended Learning as a Strategy to Improve Collaborative Task Performance

Abstract An empirical study was used to analyse how groups of learners work together in e-learning and blended learning environments. We compared three pure e-learning courses with one course whose e-learning phases alternated with face-to-face phases (blended learning). The participants of these courses formed learning teams consisting of four members who met at three points in time. They were instructed in certain topics in Psychology via five virtual rooms (pages) on the Internet (virtual classroom, electronic bulletin board, etc.). All learners received two types of learning material: joint material, to build shared knowledge, and additional information that was different for each group member (unshared knowledge). After a period of 2 weeks of individual e-learning the learning teams met as an asynchronous newsgroup, as a synchronous chat group, as a synchronous videoconference group, or as a face-to-face group (blended learning condition). In these learning teams students were requested to solve four different types of tasks together. The tasks differed with regard to whether they were already known from the individual learning phase and with regard to whether they referred to shared or unshared knowledge. Among other variables we analysed were the students' extent of online activity (e.g. number of logins), the groups' task performance, and the coherence of the group discourse. The performance in the e-learning conditions was compared with the performance in the blended learning condition. The empirical results show that achievement in a group of learners does not depend solely on the communication setting. An interaction between the communication setting and the type of task could be observed. If the group members had to share and exchange their knowledge to come to a joint solution they achieved better results in synchronous settings, especially in the videoconference and the face-to-face setting. These findings are supported by the results of a content analysis of the communication undertaken. Learners in the blended learning condition who worked together face-to-face led a much more coherent discourse than learners in the pure e-learning conditions.