Fostering group norm development and orientation while creating awareness contents for improving net-based collaborative problem solving

Empirical studies have demonstrated that being aware of the knowledge structures and of the underlying information of other group members improves computer-supported collaborative problem solving. While such studies used pre-made individual concept maps as awareness tools, empirical studies that used individual concept maps created by the group members themselves have not shown an advantage for group performance. An assumed reason is that individual members' concept maps differ too much structurally so that using them would need a lot of effort. This experimental study compares 20 triads whose members can observe the map creation process of the other members in their group with 20 triads without this possibility. The results demonstrated that access to the map creation process of the other group members while building one's own concept map led to a group norm of how to create such a map. As a result, group members created more structurally similar maps, which led, as in prior studies with pre-made maps, to improved group performance. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.