Building consensus: Students' cognitive and metacognitive behaviours during wiki construction

Abstract

Wikis are a web-based technology that has been adopted in the classroom to allow students to engage in collaborative practices via group work. However, group work can often emphasise product, rather than the processes that lead to the production of an artifact. Furthermore, co-writing activities also cause problems with the clear identification of group member contributions and the assessment of educational objectives. Wikis are implemented in the anticipation that students are applying knowledge, sharing, and engaging in cognitive and metacognitive processes as a group, however, exactly which cognitive and metacognitive processes occur behind the 'edits' of the wiki? This paper examines students' "invisible" behaviours as they co-construct a wiki response to a problem-based learning question. Our analysis confirms the complex nature of assessing "process" behaviours. The discussion space proved to be a valuable tool for students in the consultation and production of the wiki response and a number of cognitive and metacognitive behaviours emerged in the discussions.