Computerized collaboration scripts and real-time intergroup competition for enhancing student collaboration and learning with multi-touch tabletop displays

This study introduced computerized collaboration scripts with an intergroup competition mechanism to foster students’ within-group collaboration in a multi-touch tabletop classroom, investigating whether the scripting effects could be further improved by integrating intergroup competition. As such, this study utilized an experimental design to investigate the effects of intergroup competition on student teamwork performance, collaborative skills and learning achievement. A real-time intergroup competition mechanism was designed and integrated into a scripted multi-touch platform that supported collaborative designs. Forty-nine fifth-grade students from two classes at an elementary school in Taiwan were assigned to distinct groups, with and without intergroup competition. The participating students were required to accomplish a tessellation-related design project in small groups on a multi-touch platform. The findings showed that the students learning with the scripts under intergroup competition on multi-touch tabletop displays demonstrated better teamwork performance, collaborative skills and learning achievement than their counterparts who did not experience intergroup competition. These findings provide empirical evidence as to the effectiveness of integrating collaboration scripts with intergroup competition to computer-supported collaborative learning in multi-touch technology enhanced classrooms, delivering a better understanding of how learning with computerized collaboration scripts can be improved and how group awareness is related to this learning setting.