Learning and knowledge building with wikis: the impact of incongruity between people's knowledge and a wiki's information

The study reported in this article aims at empirically testing a theoretical model of collaborative knowledge building with wikis which was recently introduced by Cress and Kimmerle (2007; in press). This model assumes that individual learning and collaborative knowledge building are based on the interplay between people’s knowledge and the information available in the wiki. This interplay takes place in the form of externalization and internalization respectively. Individual learning is considered as happening through internal processes of assimilation and accommodation. Collaborative knowledge building happens through activities of external assimilation and accommodation. This study demonstrates these four processes in an experimental setting. As postulated by Cress and Kimmerle, the results show that a medium level of incongruity between people’s knowledge and a wiki’s information supports individual learning. A medium level of incongruity also leads to more external accommodation processes, despite the fact that high and medium levels of incongruity result in the same amount of text complements.