Web-Based Collaborative Learning: An Assessment of a Question-Generation Approach

摘要

Students linked into a learning environment over the Internet may learn topics better by collaborating to create questions and answers. In research reported here, students used a learning aid for collaborative question generation called Army TEAMThink, a commercial program modified for Army use under a TRADOC Delivery Order contract Research was done at three US Army schools to assess the quality or doctrinal correctness of questions and answers generated by students and to measure any learning benefit. Students first completed a tutorial on how to write effective multiple-choice questions. Next, students wrote questions and reviewed questions written by other students. Based on the feedback from the reviews, authors were allowed to modify their own questions. Finally, students took a test of the questions that had been developed by students using the learning aid. Army subject matter experts judged that most of the questions developed were considered acceptable and could be repurposed for use in course exams. A majority of the question feedback was constructive, indicating that the collaborative process was helpful. Students who went through the process scored higher on a test of novel questions than those who did not use Army TEAMThink. They also scored higher than students who went through the process on a different topic from the test topic, demonstrating a moderate learning effect. The general finding of this research about a collaborative question-generation approach is that instructors can accumulate quality multiple-choice questions and monitor student comprehension, and students have an additional opportunity for better learning.