Development and Evaluation of a Grouping Method for Supporting Collaborative Review of Argumentation in Distance Learning(<Special Issue>Informal Learning in the Information Society)

Abstract

In this study, the system called "Re:" supporting collaborative review of argumentation written in Japanese are developed for high school students who are native speakers of Japanese. Three viewpoints are set for collaborative review: contents, structure, and language use. Experimental group and control group are compared before and after use of "Re:" system in the score of argumentation. Learners have diversity in their good abilities about three viewpoints in experiment group. Although, there are no diversity in control group. As a result, there is significant difference in whole score in after use condition of experiment group. Additionally, differences in whole scores in each learning group are more constant in experimental group than control group. On the other hand, there are also significant differences between two groups in some evaluation items that have deep relation about quality of facts. Therefore, suggested grouping method might guarantee constant learning effect for more distance learners.