A method for evaluating computer-supported collaborative learning processes

Understanding and analysing collaborative learning processes requires a fine-grained sequential analysis of the group interaction in the context of learning goals. Several researchers in the area of cooperative work take the quality of the group outcome as a success criterion. Nevertheless, recent findings are giving importance to the quality of the cooperation process itself. This paper presents a set of indicators the main objective of which is to evaluate the collaborative learning process. In this paper, our aim is to present a method, which can be used in analysing the interaction processes in a CSCL environment. We have defined an experiment to gather data from groups working on a simple task. These data are then used to build some cooperation indicators, which in turn allow us to estimate the quality of the work process.