Activity without intersubjectivity: A case study of side-by-side collaborative problem solving

Abstract

Collaborative problem solving is an activity which appears to require a high degree of intersubjective knowledge between participants about the sequence and content of activities prior to engaging in them. Without such intersubjectivity, collaborators would duplicate efforts and have to constantly explain their actions to one another. Conversational analysis research states that intersubjective knowledge is a precondition to engaging in activities which are content dependent. However, we show that this is not always the case. We present an analysis of two programmers working side-by-side in which intersubjective knowledge about their individual activities occurred during and not prior to activity engagement. This was possible because the media properties when working side-by-side allowed the collaborators to construct a shared working context in which they could notice opportunities to coordinate content-dependent activities. Moreover, individual-related grounding activities are the catalysts for constructing these contexts. We argue that the ability to easily shift from a personal to a shared workspace is a fundamental requirement for joint activity, as such shifts provide a media-rich context for more effective grounding and coordination of detailed activities. We end by discussing the implications of this research for theories of collaborative problem solving and for designers of remote collaboration tools. This research contributes to our understanding of the intricacies of human collaborative problem solving.