Delinquent or criminal? - How to foster conceptual understanding of technical terms in computer-mediated collaborative learning

Abstract

To ensure a complex understanding of the topics addressed in collaborative learning scenarios, learners have to develop a conceptual understanding of the relevant specialist vocabulary. To this end, they have to exchange and discuss their individual knowledge, which is usually gained through individual exploration of different learning materials. Based on the psycholinguistic concept of lexical alignment, the following study analyzes whether providing learners with different technical terms in their respective learning materials has a positive impact on information exchange, term understanding, and learning. Results showed that dyads whose materials contained different terminology exchanged more information and performed better in a subsequent knowledge test than did dyads whose materials contained the same terminology. The inclusion of illustrations containing different terminology enhanced these effects. Implications for the selection and design of learning materials as well as perspectives for further research are discussed.