Missing Something? Authority in Collaborative Learning

Past research in individual learning settings has shown that student dispositions such as self-efficacy are predictive of learning and other beneficial outcomes, but the relationship is less clear in a collaborative learning environment. This paper explores authoritativeness of stance within a conversation as a social factor influencing learning and related to self-efficacy in a computer-supported collaborative learning setting. Our results indicate that this authoritativeness measure predicts learning, where selfefficacy does not, and that student and partner authoritativeness predicts group self-efficacy. Further research is required to better determine the relationship between conversational authoritativeness, individual dispositions, and learning.