Structuring Collaboration Scripts: Optimizing Online Group Work on Classroom Dilemmas in Teacher Education

Serious games can facilitate workplace learning, for instance when collaboration on solving professional problems is involved. The optimal structure in collaboration scripts for such games has appeared to be a key success factor. Free collaboration does not systematically produce effective learning, but imposing too much structure by design might easily disturb the genuine notion of spontaneous collaborative learning. In this study we compare a 'high-structured' and 'low-structured' version of a mastership game where teachers-in-training discuss solutions on classroom dilemmas. Adequate solutions are discussed and elaborated during small group play, reported in individual advisory reports, and independently assessed by both two teachers and the group peers. We collected data on the differences in learning effects and student appreciation. The most interesting result shows that reports delivered by students that played the low-structured version received significantly higher teacher grades when compared to the high-structured version. Clear differences in peer-assessments were not found. Practical implications of these findings for future research into collaborative scripting will be discussed.