In addition to content and interaction and task analysis, the context of the
collaboration should also be taken into consideration in order to understand how
different aspects of a situation mediate participants' learning. Guided by the
discourse analysis work of Gee and Green (1998) and the interaction analysis
work by Mercer et al (2009) this approach involves identifying objects and
artifacts that are used during interaction such as referring to course materials or
other resources and participants' cultural, personal and social experiences, prior
knowledge and assumptions. Further analyses of these contextual aspects of the
collaboration could be interesting but these are beyond the scope of this paper
and we will pursue them in future work. We are interested in combining different
aspects of collaborative learning research in a project that aims to explore
variables that effect collaborative learning in an experimental study and explore
innovative design possibilities at the same time. This may help to refine
methodologies and approaches to analyzing interaction and collaborative
learning in a group rather than focusing on individual learning.