THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DISCOURSE ON THE SHARED KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTION

The computer-supported collaborative learning as an emerging branch of the learning sciences has evolved rapidly over the past two decades. In this field of study, many lines of research have emerged focused on exploring the discursive patterns that improve the shared knowledge construction; such discursive patterns are related with the cognitive process and the development of the concepts and ideas. At the same time, different researches point that the emotional elements and the skills of the students to regulate themselves have a strong incidence on the cognitive discourse. In this context, the proposal of this work was exploring two types of discourse in collaborative learning: cognitive discourse, related to knowledge construction, and regulatory discourse, related to the management of collaborative process. For it, a case study was conducted involving six groups of bachelor students; the groups worked collaboratively in an asynchronous communication forum over four weeks. The results show that the discourse focusing on configuration of positive expectations about the academic task, monitoring the development of the task, and the socioemotional support among the students enable an argumentative, profound and proactive dialogue. A positive effect of the cognitive discourse displayed by the groups on the cognitive processes of shared knowledge construction is concluded.