Blending Facebook discussions into seminars for practicing argumentation

• Facebook’s self-regulated interactions can be fostered with apps for group awareness and argumentation.
• Group awareness tools (GATs) and scripts were combined to foster learning and attitude change in SNS.
• Long-term use of the GAT facilitated declarative knowledge and communication attitudes.
• The change towards multi-perspectivity correlates with declarative learning outcome.

Social media like Facebook can blend classroom work with collaborative online learning. Different instructional approaches may support such online learning phases. Group awareness tools provide collaborating learners with additional information about the processes and the knowledge in the group and how these are distributed within a group to support the regulation of learning. Scripts are a form of external regulation of collaborative learning processes. Scripts may complement group awareness tools and promote active processing of the additional group information. In a 1 × 3 (group awareness tool with script vs. without script, and control group) quasi-experimental field study (N = 63) we observed long-term effects of a group awareness tool and its combination with a script on processes and outcomes of argumentative learning in a seminar accompanied by Facebook discussions. In addition to domain-specific learning outcomes, this study explores attitude change as a potential outcome of prolonged periods of argumentative knowledge construction. Results showed a main effect of group awareness tools on declarative knowledge, but no significant effects on argumentative knowledge. Participants with group awareness tool (with script vs. without) attained an attitude which aligned with the learning goals. This attitude change partly correlates with the significantly higher learning outcomes on declarative knowledge.