Collaborative information searching as learning in academic group work
| Pages | 2-27 |
| Published date | 15 January 2018 |
| Date | 15 January 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-03-2017-0063 |
| Author | Dan Wu,Shaobo Liang,Wenting Yu |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
Collaborative information
searching as learning in
academic group work
Dan Wu and Shaobo Liang
School of Information Management, Wuhan University,
Wuhan, China, and
Wenting Yu
State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China,
Beijing, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore users’learning in the collaborative information search
process when they conduct an academic task as a group.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper presents a longitudinal study for a three-month period on an
actual task. The participants, who were undergraduate students, needed to write a research proposalin three
months to apply for funding for a research project, including a three-hour experiment.
Findings –The results show that undergraduates’learning in the collaborative search process for academic
group work included knowledge reconstruction, tuning, and assimilation. Their understanding of the topic
concepts improved through the process, and their attitudes became more optimistic. Besides, the learning in the
collaborative information search process also enhanced participants’skills in communication, research, information
search, and collaboration. To improve learning outcomes, professional and appropriate academic resources are
required, as well as effective division of labor, positive sharing behaviors, and use of collaborative systems.
Practical implications –The future development of collaborative information search systems should
focus on the needs of academic research and support for elements such as instant communication and
knowledge sharing.
Originality/value –This paper contributes to research into searching as learning by understanding
undergraduates’collaborative search behavior for writing a proposal.
Keywords Information-seeking behaviour, Collaborative learning, Collaborative information search,
Collaborative queries, Group learning behaviour, Searching as learning
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Learning can include the act of acquiring new knowledge and values, modifying and reinforcing
existing behaviors and skills, and synthesizing information from different sources (Schacter
et al., 2009, 2011, p. 264). It occurs in workplaces, daily life, and all other sectors of life. Past
studies have shown that web-based learning activities can greatly help students to become
active and self-directed learners, which often involves information searching tasks (Bilal, 2000;
Hwang et al., 2008). Although searching used to be considered a process of interacting with
information, such as information finding, selection, and use, it is, in fact, a natural learning
behavior (Yin et al., 2013). Individuals search to acquire new knowledge or to restructure existing
knowledge structures to meet their information needs, as well as to support their learning.
Studies aboutlearning while searching havelong been active topics in informationliteracy,
which draws connections between information search andlearning skills. Morris and Teevan
(2010) defined collaborative search as “the subset of social search where several users share
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 70 No. 1, 2018
pp. 2-27
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-03-2017-0063
Received 9 March 2017
Revised 17 May 2017
Accepted 4 July 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2050-3806.htm
This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71673204), and also an
outcome of the Wuhan University independent research project (Humanities and Social Sciences)
“Human-Computer Interaction and Collaboration Team”(Whu2016020) supported by “The Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities.”
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AJIM
70,1
an information need, and actively work together to fulfill that need”(p. 2). It is common in
learning activities. Users will collaborate when completing a task for which they do not
have sufficient individual knowledge and will obtain help from others who are learning
individually. Thus, users can also learn from each other and make progress together.
Hence, learning in the collaborative information search process is not simply a set of search
results, it is also a process of learning together and learning from each other. Within this
context, we are curious about knowledge construction and its effect on people. Moreover,
as technologies develop, collaborative search systems are needed to foster and enhance the
learning experience during the search process, rather than for information searching only.
In this study, we aim to gain a further understanding of multi-member groups’learning when
they work as a group to complete an academic task that lasts for an extended period. We want
to understand their behavior characteristics during learning in the collaborative information
search process, the changes in their sentiments, and the role that the collaborative search system
played in this process. Thus, we propose the following research questions:
RQ1. How do undergraduates gain knowledge in the collaborative information search
process?
RQ2. What are the results and implications of undergraduates’learning in the
collaborative information search process?
We analyzed the time duration of different behavior in each group, the relations between
group members’queries, the use of learning resources in different stages, as well as the
labor division to respond to the RQ1. Then we studied the results of academic task
accomplishment, the members’sentiment changes in in different stages, and their learning
gains. Besides, we investigated the evaluation of and suggestions for the collaborative
search system, to respond to the RQ2.
This study does not only focus on the personal search behavior, but also focus on
behaviors in a more complex collaborative environment, which is based on the natural
longitudinal study. We revealed the learning phenomena in the collaborative information
seeking (CIS) process and enriched people’s understanding of CIS behavior.
The paper is organized as follows. First, we present a review of related works before
describing our research design and methods.Next, we report the findings and analysisof our
research results, and finally, our conclusions and suggestions for future works are given.
Related work
Computer-supported collaborative learning
Collaborative learning is a multi-disciplinary field that is relevant to areas such as
education, psychology, sociology, computer science, and information science and
technology. Dillenbourg (1999) argued that research on collaborative learning should
focus on defining four aspects: situation, interactions, process, and effects. Stahl et al.
(2006) considered that collaborative learning consists of individuals in groups as well as
activities such as communication and sharing. Recent studies have tended to consider
group task performance as a part of the evaluation of collaborative learning effects,
rather than focusing only on individual task performance (Dillenbourg, 1999; Stahl et al.,
2006). Reynolds (2016) focused on the relationship between process and learning results
through the collaborative information search and knowledge-building practice of
American middle-school students in school game design, and pointed out that student
tasks, collaborative information search forms, and query results are related. Researchers
also studied the benefits of collaborative systems or platforms for collaborative learning.
Social interaction is recognized as a factor in collaborative knowledge gains; Aalst (2009)
found that social interactions are one of the leading factors in group tasks.
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Collaborative
information
searching
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