Support of group working: tools for the analysis of web-based collaborative working behaviours

Functional roles may be able to explain the learning performance of groups. However, it is not at all easy for teachers in either conventional classrooms or web learning systems to identify the functional roles played by students in a group and the relationship between roles and group performance. In a web learning system, interactions among group members can be recorded in a database. Tools can then be developed to assist teachers to recognise the roles played by group members and hence to know what is the best intervention strategy to support group learning. This study designed a methodology for automatically identifying the role played by students through an analysis of their web collaborative learning interactions. A regression prediction strategy is also proposed to predict group performance according to the identified functional roles. Teachers can therefore recognise the status of group members’ participation and suggest strategies to the students which might increase their learning performance.