Miriam Hansen (née Bertholet)
[Person] [Project]
Miriam Hansen (née Bertholet), Dr.
Short Vita
- 1978:
- Born in Freiburg (Germany).
- 1997-2003:
- Study of Psychology at the University of Freiburg and at the RWTH Aachen (Germany).
- 03/2003:
- Graduation in Psychology at the RWTH Aachen (Germany). Thesis: "Entstehen Reaktionszeit-Redundanzgewinne auf einer attentiven oder auf einer prä-attentiven Stufe der visuellen Verarbeitung?".
- April 2003 - June 2006:
- PhD student of the VGK (with scholarship)
Contact
Phone: +49 (0) 761 / 203 9163
FAX: +49 (0) 761 / 203 2496
email: miriam.bertholet@vgk.de
WWW: My homepageDepartment of Psychology
University of Freiburg
Engelbergerstr. 41
D-79106 Freiburg (Germany)
Ph.D. Project
Topic: Instructional support for individual and collaborative demands on net-based problem-solving in dyadsSupervisors: Prof. Dr. Hans Spada (Freiburg), Prof. Dr. Rainer Bromme (Münster)
End of the Ph.D. project: June 2006
Summary
The aim of this dissertation was to develop effective instructional support for a net-based collaborative problem-solving task. The collaborative task used in the studies was similar to the referential communication task (Krauss & Weinheimer, 1966) which has been used a great deal to study communication (e.g. Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986; Clark & Krych, 2004). However, it contained additional individual cognitive demands and was thus more comparable to realistic collaborative tasks: Two persons sitting each in a different room had to solve a picture sorting task together. One participant took the role of the speaker and the other one the role of the addressee. Both participants saw a number of pictures differing only in terms of minor details. The order of the pictures was different for speaker and addressee. The speaker had to describe the pictures and the order on his display to the addressee; the addressee had to arrange the pictures on his display according to the speaker's description.
Specific research questions were identified and approached in two studies. In both studies two different sets of pictures (concrete and abstract) were used that differed according to their demands. The research questions addressed by the first study were (1) if the postulated individual cognitive demands and the demands due to interaction had an impact on process and outcome of the collaboration, (2) if the pictorial and textual shared applications provided were useful and what demand they mainly supported, and (3) how the collaboration process of well and badly performing dyads differed.
A 2x3 factor design (role of the addressee: able to talk/ not able to talk; availability of shared application: pictorial/ textual/ no shared application) with an additional within-subject factor (type of pictures: concrete/ abstract) was implemented. 120 students participated in the study. The analysis of the process as well as the performance measures showed indeed differences depending on the types of pictures. An effect interpreted as due to an illusion of simplicity (Nickerson, 1999) occurred for the concrete sets of pictures. Additionally, the process analysis revealed different domains of referential identity with specific problems. The shared applications were not perceived as being very useful as not all dyads that had a shared application available did use it. However, the shared applications were more used to support the demands due to interaction. Regarding the comparison of well and badly performing dyads, the way in which the speakers dealt with the demand predicted essentially for the solution of a task had an important impact on the outcome of the collaboration.
Based on the results of the first study and following the promising approach of Rummel and Spada (2005a, 2005b) instructional support measures were developed. They combined a model collaboration provided as on-screen video as well as a collaboration script and consisted of two levels: One supporting the individual cognitive demands (including hints for feature search and a subtask with an individual picture editor to mark the features) and a second level supporting the demands due to interaction (including hints for the labeling of the features and a subtask with a individual text editor to note the labels). The research questions addressed in the second study were (1) if the instructional support measures including two levels of support had an impact on collaboration process and outcome, (2) if the support levels reflected on process and outcome of collaboration, and (3) if non-interactive collaboration did also benefit from the instructional support measures.
A 2x3 factor design (amount of support: level 1 + 2/ level 1/ no support; mode of communication: interactive/ non-interactive) with an additional within-subject factor (type of pictures: concrete/ abstract) was realized. 96 students participated in the study.
The analysis of process data indeed showed an impact of the support measures. However, the measure's impact did not reflect on the performance measures unanimously, as there were no significant differences between the numbers of correctly placed pictures for the three support conditions. The impact of the training was not different for interactive and non-interactive conditions, but improved the collaboration process in both conditions.
References
Clark, H.H., & Krych, M.A. (2004). Speaking while monitoring addressees for understanding. Journal of Memory and Language, 50, 62-81.
Clark, H.H., & Wilkes-Gibbs, D. (1986). Referring as a collaborative process. Cognition, 22, 1-39.
Krauss, R.M., & Weinheimer, S. (1966). Concurrent feedback, confirmation, and the encoding of referents in verbal communication. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 14, 343-346.
Nickerson, R.S. (1999). How we know - and sometimes misjudge - what others know: Imputing one's one knowledge to others. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 737-759.
Rummel, N., & Spada, H. (2005a). Instructional support for collaboration in desktop videoconference settings: How it can be achieved and assessed. In R. Bromme, F. W. Hesse, & H. Spada (Eds.), Barriers and biases in computer-mediated knowledge communication and how they may be overcome (pp. 59-88). New York: Springer.
Rummel, N., & Spada, H. (2005b). Learning to collaborate: An instructional approach to promoting collaborative problem-solving in a desktop-videoconferencing setting. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 14(2), 201-241.
Publications
Bertholet, M. & Spada, H. (2004). Wissen als Voraussetzung und Hindernis für Denken, Problemlösen und Entscheiden. In G. Reinmann-Rothmeier & H. Mandl (Hrsg.) Psychologie des Wissensmanagements. Perspektiven - Theorien - Methoden (S.66-78). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Bertholet, M. (2004). Cooperative problem-solving and learning in computer-mediated settings: The role of shared pictorial and textual applications in free and restricted communication. In Y. Kafai, W. Sandoval, N. Enyedy, A. Scott Nixon & F. Herrera (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the Learning Sciences (p. 649). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bertholet, M. &, Spada, H. (2005). Cognitive analysis of a remote collaborative problem-solving task and experimental validation of the resulting demand model. In K. Opwis & I.-K. Penner (Hrsg.), Proceedings of the German Cognitive Science Conference 2005 (pp. 15-20). Basel: Schwabe.
Hansen, M., & Spada, H. (2006). Designing instructional support for individual and collaborative demands on net-based problem-solving in dyads. In S.A. Barab, K.E. Hay, & D.T. Hickey (Eds.) Proceedings of the 7th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2006) (pp. 229-235). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Presentations and Posters
Bertholet, M. & Spada, H. (2003, September). Supporting cooperation in computer-mediated joint problem solving under specified communication conditions. Poster presented at the Summerschool of the Virtual Ph.D. Program Knowledge Acquisition and Knowledge Exchange with New Media. Tübingen.
Bertholet, M. (2004, June). Supporting computer-mediated synchronous communication in an instructed problem-solving task. Poster presented at the Sixth International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2004). Santa Monica, USA.
Bertholet, M. & Spada, H. (2004, June). Cooperative problem-solving and learning in computer-mediated settings: The role of shared pictorial and textual applications in free and restricted communication. Paper presented at the Doctoral Consortium, ICLS 2004. Santa Monica, USA.
Bertholet, M. & Spada, H. (2004, September). Netzbasiertes kooperatives Problemlösen: Die Rolle von gemeinsamen externen Repräsentationen bei eingeschränkter und freier Kommunikation. Poster vorgestellt auf dem 44. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie. Göttingen.
Bertholet, M. & Spada, H. (2005, September). Cognitive analysis of a remote collaborative problem-solving task and experimental validation of the resulting demand model. Paper presented at the German Cognitive Science Conference 2005. Basel, Switzerland.
Bertholet, M. & Spada, H. (2005, September). Netzbasierte kooperative Aufgabenbearbeitung: Förderung von Kommunikation und individueller kognitiver Leistung. Paper presented at the 10. Fachtagung Pädagogische Psychologie 2005. Halle, Germany.
Hansen, M. & Spada, H. (2006, June). Cognitive analysis of a remote collaborative problem-solving task and experimental validation of the resulting demand model. Paper presented at the 7th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2006). Bloomington, Indiana.
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Last update 09 Jan 2007
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