Understanding the small group processes on computer-mediated collaborative learning.

In today’s world, the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to assist learning processes is on the increase. One of the main purposes of ICT use in learning processes is to facilitate collaboration and, therefore, improve learning by means of sharing and distributing knowledge. This paper describes a study aimed to investigate the effects that a small group has on the individual and collaborative learning. In our study, a chat was used to simulate a virtual environment (VE), which allowed us to study the dynamics of human social behavior. Our results seems to support the hypothesis that even in virtual environments are functioning social scripts in the interaction between individuals, or it is possible to develop social strategies for problem solving. This study, combined with the chat content analysis, may suggest useful advices about collective reasoning and e-learning dynamics, which are nowadays very relevant topics in the study of web communities and educational communities.