Collaboration is a vital skill in today’s knowledge economy. Regrettably, many learners lack the regulatory skills required for complex collaborative tasks. In particular, groups struggle to construct shared task perceptions of collaborative tasks on which to launch engagement. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to examine how computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) tools can be leveraged to support shared task perceptions for regulating collaboration. Because investigating this process brings forth a wide array of methodological challenges, a second purpose of this dissertation was to explore how CSCL tools can be used as a methodological solution for capturing this process. Towards this end, research unfolded across one conceptual paper and two empirical studies: (a) Miller & Hadwin (2015a) extended work conceptualizing self-, co-, and shared-regulation in successful collaboration and drew on this theoretical framework to propose ways in which CSCL tools can be designed to support and research regulation of collaboration; (b) Miller, Malmberg, Hadwin, & Järvelä (2015) investigated the processes that contributed to and constrained groups’ construction of shared task perceptions in a CSCL environment in order to inform further refinement of supports; (c) Miller & Hadwin (2015b) examined the effects of tools providing different levels of individual and group support on construction of shared task perceptions and task performance. Together, findings revealed the potential of blending pedagogical tools to support shared task perceptions with research tools for examining and understanding regulation. In particular, findings evidenced shared task perceptions to be a complex and challenging social phenomenon and shed light on ways in which CSCL tools may prompt and promote this process. In addition, data generated by learners as they interacted with CSCL supports created valuable opportunities to capture shared task perceptions as they unfolded in the context of meaningful collaborative tasks across the individual and group level. / Graduate / 0525 / fgage@uvic.ca

Multiple-choice (MCQs) and short-answer questions (SAQs) are the most common test formats for assessing English reading proficiency. While the former provides test-takers with prescribed options, the latter requires short written responses. Test developers favor MCQs over SAQs for the following reasons: less time required for rating, high rater agreement, and wide content coverage. This mixed methods dissertation investigated the impacts of test format on reading performance, metacognitive awareness, test-completion processes, and task perceptions. Participants were eighty English as a second language (ESL) learners from a Midwestern community college. They were first divided into two groups of approximately equivalent reading proficiencies and then completed MCQ and SAQ English reading tests in different orders. After completing each format, participants filled out a survey about demographic information, strategy use, and perceptions of test formats. They also completed a 5-point Likert-scale survey to assess their degree of metacognitive awareness. At the end, sixteen participants were randomly chosen to engage in retrospective interviews focusing on their strategy use and task perceptions. This study employed a mixed methods approach in which quantitative and qualitative strands converged to draw an overall meta-inference. For the quantitative strand, descriptive statistics, paired sample t-tests, item analyses, two-way ANOVAs, and correlation analyses were conducted to investigate 1) the differences between MCQ and SAQ test performance and 2) the relationship between test performance and metacognitive awareness. For the qualitative strand, test-takers’ MCQ and SAQ test completion processes and task perceptions were explored using coded interview and survey responses related to strategy use and perceptions of test formats. Results showed that participants performed differently on MCQ and SAQ reading tests, even though both tests were highly correlated. The paired sample t-tests revealed that participants’ English reading and writing proficiencies might account for the MCQ and SAQ performance disparity. Moreover, there was no positive relationship between reading test performance and the degree of metacognitive awareness generated by the frequency of strategy use. Correlation analyses suggested whether a higher or lower English reading proficiency of the participants was more important than strategy use. Although the frequency of strategy use did not benefit test performance, strategies implemented for MCQ and SAQ tests were found to generate interactive processes allowing participants to gain deeper understanding of the source texts. Furthermore, participants’ perceptions toward MCQs, SAQs, and a combination of both revealed positive and negative influences among test format, reading comprehension, and language learning. Therefore, participants’ preferences of test format should be considered when measuring their English reading proficiency. This study has pedagogical implications on the use of various test formats in L2 reading classrooms.

While there is a consensus among researchers that assessment should and can serve learning, there is less understanding of how it supports learning at a fine-grained level. This thesis uses design-based research to investigate the role of comment-only, holistic peer assessment in writing development. The theory of action synthesises Sadler's accounts of learning through assessment (1989, 2010) with Winne and Hadwin's (1998, 2008) model of self-regulated learning. It is theorised that participating in peer assessment helps students to develop evaluative expertise, which in turn enriches task perceptions, metacognitive standards and ultimately large-scale adaptation: the changes students employ in subsequent essays. Drawing on the theory of action, I designed a series of workshops for first-year English Literature students learning to write examination essays. The thesis reports on the first of two iterations. 21 participants assessed and discussed example essays; criteria were not pre-determined but emerged from discussion of four examples. Students then wrote a timed essay, assessed three peer pieces and received three reviews. A range of data was generated during the workshops, including written comments, reflections and questionnaires. Ten case study writers also took part in pre- and post-workshops writing tasks, think-aloud protocols and interviews. To trace the development of students' evaluative expertise, I coded inductively students' talk and comment about writing. Visualising the connections between emergent codes reveals writing quality as a complex web of criteria, with the essay question at the centre. There was a strong overlap between the official Faculty assessment criteria and the codes emerging from student data. However, students also frequently commented on procedural aspects of writing such as introductions and conclusions, which are left tacit or latent in Faculty criteria. Post-workshops, students' own metacognitive standards became increasingly reader-oriented and question-focussed, and these procedural aspects of writing drove the adaptations they made to their approach. I use rich, in-depth case study data to trace how, why, and when students made such adaptations. I also examine the role of peer feedback, which rather than offering new information, often verified or complemented the judgements students formed of their own writing during the workshops. The thesis thus illuminates processes involved in learning through assessment. It also shows that peer assessment is a practicable way of developing within the discipline both evaluative expertise and writing, which are key to lifelong learning.