Using groups ’ communication to detect the group roles and discover the group role influence on group learning performance Gwo-Dong Chen and Kuo-Liang Ou National Central University

outline Introduction Group roles Methodology Experience and Results Conclusion

Introduction The group members ’ influence As people are brought together, individual behaviors are influenced by members (Stott and Walker, 1995) The group members ’ interaction and influence must be managed (Sommerville and Dalziel, 1998)

Introduction To deal with interaction and influence Role theory was proposed and indicates the group role and its ’ functionality (Belbin and Thomas, 1966)(Heap,1977) Experience and methods are proposed to explore role influence (Henry and Steven, 1999 ; Sommerville and Dalziel, 1998) These roles could be obtained by a questionnaires (Belbin, 1981) However, on a web group learning environment, teachers need an on-line group role extractor and the influence explorer

Introduction Research Goal Extracting the roles of web group learning on-line by analyzing group interaction Exploring the influence of group roles on learning performance

Introduction Issues Group interaction are non-organized, and the number of interactions is large Group roles are hardly to be extracted from group interaction Influences of group roles on learning performance are complex and hardly to be discovered

Introduction Method Text Miner : extract the interaction topics and abstracts for teachers categorizing the interaction Classification : extracting the group roles by training data defined by teachers ’ expert knowledge Bayesian Belief Network : explore the role influence by causal network

Introduction The indicators of learning performance Group project grade Resource sharing Drop out rate

Group Roles Group Roles (Benne and Sheats, 1948) Group task roles Group building and maintenance roles Personal roles

Group Roles Group task roles (heap, 1977) Initiator-contributor Information-seeker Opinion-seeker Information-giver Opinion-giver Elaborator Coordinator Orienter Evaluator-critic Energizer Procedural technician

Group Roles Group building and maintenance roles (heap, 1977) Encourager Harmonizer Compromister Gate-keeper and expediter Standard-setter or ego ideal Group-observer and commentator follower

Group Roles Personal roles (heap, 1977) Aggressor Blocker Self-confessor Playboy Fence-mender Cover-the cracks Dominator Fellow-traveler Blue-nose Trouble-maker Cynical One track-mind Egocentric Problem orientated

Methodology IBM Intelligent Miner for text Extracting the communication topics Extracting the communication abstract IBM Intelligent Miner for data : Classification Teachers observe the communication topics and abstract Classify some roles of students as the training data with expert domain knowledge Remain students will be classified into roles by classifier BKD (Bayesian Knowledge Discover) (Open University, UK)(Ramoni, and Sebastiani,1997) Explore the influence of group roles on learning performance and presents with Bayesian Belief Network

Methodology The Data Schema of Communication From : group 10, To : group 10, Date : 2000,06,05 Subject : Could you give me some hint about chapter 4 Content : Dear Michelle, I am sorry to be late for the on-line conference of our group this morning. I have a question and need a favor from you. In the chapter 4, page 45, teachers have illustrated last week. Can you kindly tell me the purpose of a member function in an object in the object oriented programming language? Attribute NameGroup IDDeliver IDReceiver IDDate of Issue SubjectContent Data TypeNumber DateText

Methodology Categorizing Tool of Text Analysis Training Discussion in Category 1 Training Discussion in Category 2 Vocabulary of Category 1 Vocabulary of Category 2 Full Category Schema All the Discussion Documents Categorization Filter Categorized Documents

Experience and Results Communication topics classification Category ListRanking Score Question for Chapter Question for Chapter Question for Chapter Question for Chapter Inquiry for system and environment Gossips discussion ……

Experience and Results Communication abstract extracting what is the purpose of a member function in an object in object oriented programming language?

Experience and Results 11 group roles are detected Group rolesAccuracy of classification Initiator - contributor92.5 Information - giver95 Opinion - giver97.5 coordinator95 energizer97.5 Procedural technician60 encourager97.5 harmonizer77.5 Playboy92.5 dominator97.5 Fellow-traveler97.5

Experience and Results Significant of group roles influence on learning performance Group rolesAccuracy of classification Initiator - contributor0.000* Information - giver0.000* Opinion - giver0.185 coordinator0.000* energizer0.000* Procedural technician0.011 encourager0.000* harmonizer0.018 Playboy0.008* dominator0.000* Fellow-traveler0.003* * p < 0.01

Experience and Results Influence on group project grade

Experience and Results Influence on resource sharing frequency

Experience and Results Influence on drop out rate

Conclusion Successfully organize and categorize the group communication by extracting topics and abstracts Successfully detect 11 group roles by classifying group communications

Conclusion Explore the influence of group roles on learning performance by Bayesian Belief Network The initiator and dominator improve the group project grades The procedure technician improve the resource sharing frequency but follow-traveler not Both the playboy and follow-traveler have high probability to be dropped out before class end