Summary of emergent concepts

Table 5-2 shows a summary of the sixteen concepts that emerged during the

qualitative data analysis relating the wiki as a tool to support collaborative group work.

Table 5-2: Summary of group working concepts Concept Comments

The wiki as a tool The wiki was considered effective to capture initial content but the students had mixed views on the ability of the wiki to enable group work thereafter.

The use of the

wiki There was a marked division between the two courses:

Computing – the wiki was used broadly as intended.

Business – the wiki was not used as intended to facilitate group work.

The Business students were highly critical of the wiki, though their judgement was coloured by the problems of using it for

collaborative authoring which are discussed in the next chapter. Knowing when

the wiki content had been updated

This was a major concern highlighted in both courses which undermined the wikis use to support group work. This issue led to the use of other tools to complement the wiki, especially e-mail. The widespread

use of e-mail E-mail was used by students on both courses mainly to keep up to date with changes in the wiki. While some groups adopted it for discussion there was no recognisable pattern as to which group would use e-mail in preference to the wiki for this purpose. The place for

discussion There was little favourable comment on the wiki’s ability to support discussion, and much hostility. (Factors leading to this attitude are considered in the two following concepts.) In the Business course, the forum provided a suitable supplementary tool that was well regarded by the students. In the Computing course various approaches were tried to address this issue, but none met universal approval.

Concept Comments

Visibility of

change Seeing where a change had recently been made to the wiki content was a source of major confusion; and the wiki was universally found wanting in its ability to support this aspect of group work. The lack of visibility undermined the wiki’s facility as a communication tool.

Interestingly, potential solutions to this issue were not confined to technological enhancements, but some students suggested that organisational changes – the appointment of a chair to manage discussions, for example – could help too.

Distinguishing contributions within a wiki

This was a major concern of the students undermining their confidence in the wiki as a tool to support their work. There were two aspects to this concern. Firstly, it made it difficult for students to follow the flow of a discussion. Secondly, they were not

confident that their contributions would be accurately identified for assignments.

The lack of inherent

structure within a wiki

This potential advantage of a wiki caused problems in both courses; and there was not the time in the course for suitable structures to emerge.

The initial overall structure and templates provided some guidance to the students, but there was a general feeling that the wiki should be set up in more detail to make it more usable from the start of the activity.

Student

motivation There was a marked division between the Computing and the Business courses that emerged as a consequence of the different intentions for including the collaborative learning activity in the courses. The Computing course was more successful at ensuring the students knew the activity was authentic and so was relevant to their studies.

Student socialising and forming a coherent group

The wiki had a very limited role in consolidating group formation, and was little used as a medium for socialisation.

The two courses both included an ice-breaker activity in which students introduced themselves to their group. The activity was completed by all students as shown by VLE statistics, but the interview comments suggest it did not lead to any socialisation. The Business course’s ice-breaker may be judged more successful than the Computing equivalent because it required the editing of others’ contributions. Consequently the barriers to editing others work was not such an issue in the Business course as inferred from the students’ comments.

Concept Comments

Maintaining a

group The wiki did not encourage maintenance of a group. Social chat did not take place in the wiki. Instead, such socialisation as did occur within groups took place in e-mails mainly. This is in accord with the general finding that the wiki is good for capturing content, but relatively poor, compared to other tools, at supporting discussion. Strategic learning That students adopt a strategic approach to their learning is an

inherent possibility in courses delivered as part of professional development; the students are focused on their professional development not the course. There is little evidence to suggest that the wiki influenced students’ attitudes towards strategic learning one way or the other.

Additional time

constraints This is primarily an issue with introducing collaborative activities into a course. The students have to meet the deadlines associated with the activity as well as those related to the assignments. However, the wiki had a detrimental effect on the students, because of the locking mechanism. This mechanism imposed an additional constraint on the students’ access to the collaborative activity. The constraint exacerbated the issue of making

submissions by a given deadline.

While the cause of the issue is the technical one of the locking mechanism, the impact could have been mitigated by

co-ordination within each student group. Roles within the

student groups Organisation of the group can play a key role in determining the effectiveness of the group. In this, there was a clear division between the Computing and Business courses.

The Business students were generally better organised. Moreover, they had the opportunity to apply the lessons learned from the first activity in the second.

The Computing students generally did not realise the benefits to be gained from assigning roles, and were not self-organising. There was a general realisation in both courses that the wiki would be easier to use if there were defined roles, especially for

administrative tasks. The role of the

tutor While notionally different, in practice both courses had the tutor in the role of ‘policeman’ to remind students of their need to contribute. However, the students did seem to appreciate it when the tutors took a more directing role, such as during the Business course ice-breaker activity.

Concept Comments

Establishing rules

within the group As with roles, the Business students were generally more organised and realised quicker that the wiki could be more effective if the rules for its use were made clear. Although the course teams intended that the students should define their own rules within the course, the limited time in the course seemed to prohibit this.