Online Team Investigations in Science (OTIS)

Project leader(s):  Mark Jones

• Theme:  Online/onscreen STEM practice
• Project faculties:  STEM
• Status:  Archived
• Date:  October 2017 to August 2026

Motivated by the question of how the design of online team-working activities affects learning experiences we present an analysis of three such activities studied by advanced undergraduate and postgraduate distance-learning students in astrophysics and space sciences. The activities incorporate periods of team-working ranging from 1 to 9 weeks, and have varied assessment strategies. Our study focuses on participation rates, the nature of student interactions and the reported student experience and is informed by the content of asynchronous discussion forums and interviews with students. We find that variation in student participation differs between the three activities and we suggest reasons for this related to activity design. We identify major themes of student interaction, these being related to learning and development, group building and team self-organization. The incidence of communications in these thematic areas appears similar across all three activities. Our analysis framework includes sub-categories of these themes, and interactions indicative of peer-learning are found to be a major component of student communications. Such interactions are enhanced at the times at which teams are required to make major decisions to progress their joint work. Interviews with students reveal anxieties about participation in team work and unequal contributions to group outputs. They also present a range of views about the different assessment models used. Overall, interviewees from all three activities report having positive experiences in their teams and that they see the activities as being of value to their individual learning as well as being useful preparation for future employment.

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