Exploring Social and Cognitive Dimensions of Collaborative Problem Solving in an Open Online Simulation-Based Task

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is a complex construct comprised of skills associated with social and cognitive dimensions. The diverse set of skills within these dimensions make CPS difficult to measure. Typically, research on measuring CPS has used highly constrained environments that help narrow the problem space. In the current study, we applied the in-task assessment framework to support the exploration of CPS skills at a deep level in an open digital environment in which three students worked together to solve an electronics problem. The construct of CPS was defined in depth prior to the implementation of the environment through the development of a complex, hierarchical ontology. The features from the ontology were identified in the data and four theoretically-grounded profiles of types of collaborative problem-solvers were produced - high social/high cognitive, high social/low cognitive, low social/high cognitive, and low social/low cognitive. Results showed that students in the low social/low cognitive profile group demonstrated poorer performance than students in other profile groups. Further, having at least one high social/high cognitive member in a team facilitated performance. This study offers groundwork for future studies in measuring CPS with an approach suitable for less constrained collaborative environments.