Strategies, obstacles, and attitudes: student collaboration in information seeking and synthesis projects

Introduction. While group work that takes place in education contexts has been studied by researchers, student collaborative research behaviour has received less attention.This empirical case study examined the strategies that students use and the obstacles they encounter while working in collaborative information seeking contexts on an in-class assignment. Methods. Participants were college students working on an inclass group research assignment over a period of eight to nine weeks. Participants used an online collaborative search system, Coagmento, which recorded their actions in server logs. Participants also answered a series of questionnaires regarding their attitudes towards group work. Analysis. Server log data and questionnaires were used to analyse student group behaviour and perceptions of strategies used in group work, obstacles to successful group work, and changes in perceptions from before to after completing the project. Student collaborative activities were compared to the final project grades. Results. Results show that groups that received the highest grades had the highest number of bookmarks, the lowest average number of query terms, and lower number of total searches. Students valued using collaborative tools such as Google Docs, were concerned with unequal participation and procrastination, and characterised group work as both helpful and inefficient. Conclusions. This research contributes to our understanding of the behaviour and attitudes of students, and offers suggestions for instructors and designers to better support students in group work.