KDC-Mainport Schiphol program: Judgements of learning in collaborative learning environments

Professional environments such as Air Traffic Control are characterized by increasing interdependency and complexity. As the complexity of the situation and environment increases, it becomes more unlikely that an individual will be able to manage the situation alone. Therefore, organizations are increasingly using teams to handle difficult, complex situations. Many studies on effective team performance show that effective teams have developed specific team behaviors such as supporting each other, re-allocating tasks to share workload, taking initiative, and providing relevant information to other team members (Stout, Cannon-Bowers, Salas & Milanovich,1999). Such behaviors rely on team members having an adequate awareness of other team member’s performance and workload (Entin & Serfaty, 1999; Stout, Cannon-Bower, Salas & Milanovich, 1999). Similarly, we expect that for effective team learning in a collaborative environment, it is essential to be able to adequately assess one’s own and other team members’ learning progress and share workload. In recent years, the interest in cognitive strategies such as self-monitoring and self-regulation in cognitive and learning research has grown considerably (Koriat, 1998; Nelson & Narens, 1990). Adequate self-monitoring is important, especially in self-directed learning programs, because it determines the effort and time an individual spends on learning something or taking extra measures so as to prevent forgetting (Koriat, 1997). However, these cognitive strategies, such as Judgments of Learning, have mainly been studied in individual learning environments. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how adequate judgments of learning can be supported in a collaborative learning environment and whether these contribute to individual and team learning. The poster will outline the relevant theory on collaborative learning and Judgments of Learning, the hypotheses and the experimental approach that is foreseen.