Simulating Classroom Interaction using Communicating Process Architecture

摘要

Small-group interaction is studied using real-time simulation based on the Java Communicating Sequential Processes (JCSP) library. Group members communicate over a producer-consumer subnetwork. Java, the JCSP library, and a theory from mathematical sociology make it possible to give a "thicker" description of decision-making and to show how the resulting communications generate a stable social order within in a task-oriented group. A statistical experiment is conducted: environmental factors are varied (processor quantity and speed, and the simulation time scale); theoretical parameters are varied (the probability that actors take status differences into account, and the probability that a tie forms between the sender and receiver). Increases in computational power are strongly associated with decreases in: K, inequality of participation; Γ, the correlation berween status and participation. Differences in the values of K and Γreported in this study and an earlier simulation are attributed to the effect of resource-sharing.