In this study, the gradual fading-out procedure for an external collaboration script guiding collaborative information search in a learning environment on genetic engineering continued for several weeks.
We call knowledge of such a collaborative practice an "internal collaboration script" and regard them as configurations of knowledge components about a collaborative practice.
To foster collaboration and improve the quality of students' discussions in mixed- and same- culture learner groups engaged in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), a collaboration script was introduced.
It is assumed that this guidance emerges as a consequence of the way in which these external representations influence collaborators' configuration of internal collaboration script components.
A straightforward consequence seems to be that it is more effective to first facilitate the development of the internal collaboration script and then collaboratively learn the subject matter knowledge (O'Donnell & Dansereau, 1992).
A 2 × 2-factorial design was used to examine the effects of using this collaboration script on students' online collaborative behavior and the quality of their discussions.
However, the individual will not have entered the situation without internal collaboration script components about other collaborative practices that may share at least some aspects (e.g., scenes) with the present situation.
Two versions of an external collaboration script (high vs. low structured) supporting collaborative argumentation were embedded within a Web-based collaborative inquiry learning environment.
An internal collaboration script is a configuration of knowledge components about a collaborative practice and its parts at different levels of complexity (the so-called internal collaboration script components) that guide the person's understanding of and actions in the collaboration.
In terms of the internal script reconfiguration principle, learners who experienced their selected internal collaboration scripts producing expectation failures during collaborative solving of ill-structured problems were more likely to reconfigure their internal collaboration script, thereby enabling them to better solve ensuing ill-structured problems.
Results suggest that the high structured external collaboration script supported the acquisition of domain-general knowledge of all learners regardless of their internal scripts.
