Enhancing collaborative argumentation by group awareness tools incorporated with adaptive scripts: a case study

Although group awareness tools show promise as scaffolding for collaborative argumentation, their inherent limitation of providing "tacit guidance" suggests the necessity of integrating them with scripts that offer explicit instructions. However, the combined impact of these two scaffolding on collaborative argumentation remains unexplored. In this case study, group awareness tools with adaptive scripts were designed and integrated into a collaborative learning platform to examine their effects on collaborative argumentation. Six master's students were randomly assigned to three groups and participated in a collaborative argumentative writing activity on the platform. The groups were exposed to different scaffolding: one used solely group awareness tools, one used solely adaptive scripts, and one used the combination of both. By scoring group essays and analyzing students' chat logs, it was found that the combined scaffolding most effectively improved groups' argument quality and regulation behaviors. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts revealed two dimensions of students' perceptions of the scaffolding: cognitive support and social support. These findings offer valuable insights for future practices in collaborative argumentation and the design of scaffolding for such activities.