Unveiling Synchrony of Learners' Multimodal Data in Collaborative Maker Activities

Abstract

While current evaluation of maker activities has rarely explored students' learning processes, the multi-perspective and multi-level nature of collaboration adds complexity to learning processes of collaborative maker activities. In terms of group dynamics as an important indicator of collaboration quality, extant studies have shown the benefits of synchrony between learners' actions during collaborative learning processes. However, synchrony of learners' cognitive processes and visual attention in collaborative maker activities remains under-explored. Leveraging the multimodal learning analytics (MMLA) approach, this pilot study examines learners' synchrony patterns from multiple modalities of data in the collaborative maker activity of virtual reality (VR) content creation. We conducted a user experiment with five pairs of students, and collected and analyzed their electroencephalography (EEG) signals, eye movement and system log data. Results showed that the five pairs of collaborators demonstrated diverse synchrony patterns. We also discovered that, while some groups exhibited synchrony in one modality of data before becoming not synchronized in another modality, other groups started with a lack of synchrony followed by maintaining synchrony. This study is expected to make methodological and practical contributions to MMLA research and assessment of collaborative maker activities.