The ability to collaborate is becoming increasingly important in today’s world of work, where interdisciplinary collaboration and problem solving are highly valued.
There is a growing need to train students to develop effective collaboration skills. Dr Sebastian Strauß’ research aims to investigate how learning groups can be supported to collaborate and how learners acquire collaboration skills over time. He investigates the typical challenges of learners working together on a learning task, how they adapt their interaction to the challenges. The aim of the research is to find out how we can help learners to become effective members of a team and what role educational technology can play in this process. For example, one study investigated the circumstances in which groups benefit from support and when it is sufficient to receive a visualisation showing what is going on in the group (see KoLiB project). In his research, Dr Strauß combines traditional data collection methods such as questionnaires and videography with digital data such as trace data and log files.