Editorial Notes: Revitalising foundational concepts - Equipe Interaction, Technologies, Activités
Article Dans Une Revue International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Année : 2024

Editorial Notes: Revitalising foundational concepts

Résumé

Koschmann (1996) proposed that CSCL constituted an “emerging paradigm” (our italics), in the sense of Kuhn (1962), i.e. a framework, or “pattern” (Greek: paradeigma) of concepts, questions, methods and results that structure research, at least within what is termed normal science. Supposing that Koschmann was right: is the CSCL paradigm still emerging, or has it emerged? The latter would propose a more or less porous wall of incommensurability between CSCL and previous paradigms, such as educational psychology focussed on the individual and quantitative measures of learning. This is still open to debate in our field. The question of the status of CSCL as a fully-fledged paradigm, incommensurate with previous ones, turns on to two main fundamental questions: (1) Reductionism. Can the group of learners be studied purely as a (complex) function of the characteristics of individual learners of which it is composed, or not? In other terms, is the group reducible to a set of individuals? The work of Stahl (2006) is enlightening with respect to this question. (2) Tool-mediation. Does technology simply support, channel or influence collaborative learning activity, or does it fundamentally transform, mediate it? Is technology an ‘add-on’ to, an amplifier of, existing activities or should technology-mediated-activity be considered sui generis, the tool transforming the very structure of the activity? Although these questions are not presently resolved in CSCL, and thus it is not obvious that CSCL has completed its emergence as a paradigm, we can at least say that whilst the set of questions dealt with in CSCL research is expanding, together with the accumulation of a set of results, the field is also being revitalised by important developments in the way in which the some of the key phenomena it studies are being conceptualised. The four papers assembled in this issue of the journal are cases in point, in that they deepen and extend our understanding of a number of foundational concepts or questions in CSCL. These include the nature of group understanding, the role of the artefact within it, the creativity of dialogue, socially shared regulation and game-changing technologies in CSCL. Discussing these concepts and questions in relation to the four papers published in this issue of the journal seems to us a fitting end to this year 2024, the first of our co-editorship.

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Dates et versions

halshs-04841404 , version 1 (16-12-2024)

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Michael J Baker, Peter Reimann. Editorial Notes: Revitalising foundational concepts. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 2024, 19 (4), pp.395-400. ⟨10.1007/s11412-024-09440-5⟩. ⟨halshs-04841404⟩
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