A wiki task for first-year university students: The effect of scripting students' collaboration

This study investigates the effect of a collaboration script - i.e. a set of instructions to improve collaboration between learning partners - for a wiki task. Participants were first-year university students in Educational Sciences (N = 186) collaborating in groups of five during a three-week period to create a wiki on peer assessment in education. Two conditions were contrasted: a scripted and a non-scripted condition. The effect of scripting was measured in four ways (questionnaires, log-file analyses, group product scores, and individual pre-post-test scores). Results show significant positive effects of scripting with respect to the collaborative group processes and students' feelings of shared responsibility. No significant effects of scripting were found with respect to the developed wiki products. As for students' individual learning outcomes, results showed a significant increase from pre- to post-test for all students. Although the increase was higher in the scripted condition, the difference between the conditions was not statistically significant.