Tools for Tracing the Development of Concepts through Discussions Mediated by a CSCL Environment A Case Study

This case study explores the use of learning analytics techniques to monitor students’ conceptual development evidenced in time-stamped logs of a CSCL environment that provides chat, shared whiteboard, and wiki features. The study was conducted in a graduate level research methods course, which included online assignments that required students to collaboratively discuss questions related to statistical methods in chat sessions and submit their answers through co-authored wiki documents. This paper demonstrates the use of some of the existing learning analytics techniques to develop practical strategies and interfaces for helping instructors to effectively monitor the collaborative knowledge building processes taking place at micro and macro levels. In particular, we demonstrate the use of topic segmentation, tag clouds and concordance analysis for the identification of excerpts where key concepts are discussed by the students