ABSTRACT
Different from the group formation approaches led by teachers, learners’ generative learning objectives and the independent choice of collaborative partners are important in the Internet learning environment. This study takes the cMOOC (connectivist massive open online course) 5.0 “Internet + education: dialogue between theory and practice” as a case course. Data on learners’ interactive behaviours, generative texts, and personal attributes were collected through the course platform and questionnaires. Social network analysis and natural language processing were adopted to build a variety of collaborator relationship networks, and the quadratic assignment procedure was used to reveal the impact of the social, topic and attribute relationships of learners before collaboration on the collaborative relationship. The results show that individuals with close social relations, similar topics, similar age and learning experiences before collaboration are more likely to establish collaborative relationships; among them, close social relations and close ages are the key driving factors affecting the choice of partners. In addition, topic similarity can further promote the establishment of collaborative relationships among individuals with close social relations. The findings will help community-based courses optimise partner recommendation strategies and promote collaborative problem-solving and collective knowledge creation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Research Ethics Review Committee of Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. There was no animal involved in this study.
Informed consent
Consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Learners volunteered to participate in this study, and the data was reported anonymously by researchers.
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Notes on contributors
Cixiao Wang
Cixiao Wang, is a lecture at the Research Centre of Distance Education in Beijing Normal University. Her research interests include online learning, CSCL, and embodied learning.
Yaqian Xu
Yaqian Xu, is a doctoral candidate majoring in distance education at Beijing Normal University. Her research interests include connectivist learning, instructional interaction, learning analysis.