COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM: The Importance of a Collaborative Environment for Computer-Based Education

Cooperative behavior of students playing an educational computer game was investigated. The combination of gender and whether one or two computers were present significantly affected the level of achievement as measured by the number of puzzles completed in the game. Female/Female pairs playing on two computers, on average, completed less puzzles than any other pairs in any other condition. Differences were also observed for gender pairs sharing control of the mouse while playing on a single computer. Male/Male pairs had a higher number and percentage of refusals to give up control of the mouse. KEYWORDS Human-computer interaction, Computer-supported cooperative work, Computer-supported cooperative learning, Collaboration, Education, Gender, Games. INTRODUCTION This paper examines computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) issues in an educational domain. Computersupported cooperative learning (CSCL) is a new branch of research combining research from CSCW and education. We are interes..