Motivating Wiki-Based Collaborative Learning by Increasing Awareness of Task Conflict: A Design Science Approach

Wiki system has been deployed in many collaborative learning projects. However, lack of motivation is a serious problem in the collaboration process. The wiki system is originally designed to hide authorship information. Such design may hinder users from being aware of task conflict, resulting in undesired outcomes (e.g. reduced motivation, suppressed knowledge exchange activities). We propose to incorporate two different tools in wiki systems to motivate learners by increasing awareness of task conflict. A field test was executed in two collaborative writing projects. The results from a wide-scale survey and a focus group study confirmed the utility of the new tools and suggested that these tools can help learners develop both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations to contribute. This study has several theoretical and practical implications, it enriched the knowledge of task conflict, proposed a new way to motivate collaborative learning, and provided a low-cost resolution to manage task conflict.