Research Papers - Dept of Software Engineering

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://rda.sliit.lk/handle/123456789/1022

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Author: search.filters.author.Manathunga, KSubject: search.filters.subject.Mechanisms

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    PublicationOpen Access
    Say No to Free Riding: Student Perspective on Mechanisms to Reduce Social Loafing in Group Projects.
    (Science and Technology Publications, 2021) Samarakoon, U; Imbulpitiya, A; Manathunga, K
    Project based learning is a popular teaching method in Information Technology undergraduate programs where students gain necessary skills and knowledge via a hands-on capstone project. Key learning gains from such projects are problem-solving skills by applying theoretical knowledge while improving soft skills like collaboration and communication. Students can improve critical thinking, learn to face challenging situations, and build creative solutions for a desired problem as a group. Irrespective of all these benefits, social loafing or simply free riding can be recognized as the key challenge in these group-based projects. Some students in group projects put less effort on group work than when they work alone while surviving in the group and taking credits for someone else’s work. This scenario leads to demotivation of hard-working members and lot of group conflicts. Ultimately, social loafing affects the group performance while resulting with unsuccessful projects and dissatisfied students. Seeking mechanisms for reducing social loafing in group projects is becoming a vital and this research proposes set of mechanisms to reduce social loafing in IT group projects and presents the students’ perspective on usefulness of each mechanism.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Flexible CSCL orchestration technology: mechanisms for elasticity and dynamism in pyramid script flows
    (International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS), 2019) Manathunga, K; Hernández-Leo, D
    Flow patterns (e.g., Pyramid or Snowball) formulate good practices to script collaborative learning scenarios, which have been experimented in small-scale settings widely. Applying flow patterns on large-scale contexts present challenges to educators in terms of orchestration load. Orchestration technology can support educators to manage collaborative activities; yet existing technology do not address flexibility challenges like accommodating growing numbers of students or tolerating dynamic conditions in learning settings. We define elasticity and dynamism as two key elements in the flexibility of a script. Elasticity is related to the capacity of an orchestration technology to incorporate varying participant counts. Dynamism is the capacity to maintain a pedagogically meaningful script progression in presence of different individual behaviors. In this paper we propose flow creation and flow control mechanisms to address elasticity and dynamism in orchestration technology for Pyramid flows. These mechanisms, implemented in the PyramidApp tool, have been evaluated across four scenarios varying from small to large settings. The results show that rules enabling pyramid creation on-demand and the use of timers are useful to achieve elasticity and dynamism in the pyramid formation and progression in an automatic manner.