Collaborative groups in a medical learning environment

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Boff, Elisa^a | Flores, Cecília^b | Respício, Ana^{c; *} | Vicari, Rosa^d | Coelho, Helder^e

Affiliations: [a] Centro de Ciências Exatas e Tecnologia/Universidade de Caxias do Sul, Brasil | [b] Departamento de Educação e Informação em Saúde/Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Brasil | [c] Departamento de Informática & Centro de Investigação Operacional/Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal | [d] Instituto de Informática/Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil | [e] Departamento de Informática & LabMag/Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author. E-mail: respicio@di.fc.ul.pt

Abstract: This paper addresses collaborative learning in the medical domain, focusing on the evaluation of a component specially devised to promote collaborative learning using the AMPLIA system. AMPLIA is an intelligent multi-agent environment that supports diagnostic reasoning and the modeling of diagnostic hypotheses in the medical domain. Recently it has been extended with a new component providing aid on workgroup formation. Workgroups are built considering the individual aspects of students as the learning style, performance, affective state, personality traits, and also group aspects such as acceptance and social skills. This paper presents and discusses the results of an experiment evaluating the quality of workgroups that was composed according to suggestions provided by the system.

Keywords: Collaborative learning systems, group processes, medical education, problem-based learning

DOI: 10.3233/IDT-2010-0075

Journal: Intelligent Decision Technologies, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 149-158, 2010