Chapter 5 DO FEWER LAPTOPS MAKE A BETTER TEAM?

Abstract: This study explores the effect of laptops on team of students working collaboratively around a table. Complementary quantitative and qualitative analysis have been performed with 8 groups of four participants who had to carry out a travel planning task with 2, 3 or 4 laptops. The analysis of subjects' gaze locations for each dialogue utterance shows that laptop owners look at their display in 65 % of the coded events. This ratio is quite independent of the number of laptops in the group. Consequently, the higher the number of participants with a laptop, the less attention is available for dealing with coordination. The coding of dialogue transcripts allows a qualitative analysis of the dynamic of roles and of group coordination. If group experience and individual differences remain determinant, having more laptops fosters parallel individual search. But, at the same time, laptops hamper the emergence of a clear strategy, reduce leadership and tight coordination and seem to result in poorer performance. These findings seem to indicate that collaborative learning could be more effective with an asymmetrical layout, i.e. with fewer laptops than team members. This might scaffold the emergence of roles and foster social interaction: team members with no personal displays tend to regulate the activities of other or at least pay more attention to group interaction. Due to our qualitative methodology, we present these are provisional results