An Exploratory Study on the Validation of THUNDERS: A Process to Achieve Shared Understanding in Problem-Solving Activities

Abstract

The complexity in collaborative work is mainly related to the difficulty in social interaction, which generates low levels of understanding among participants about what they should do and about the problem to be solved, resulting in problems in the motivation to generate true collaboration. Therefore, in the search to improve collaborative work and encourage this collaboration, it is necessary to implement strategies that promote the construction of shared understanding and obtain better group results. However, building it becomes a challenge due to the factors that influence it and how little is known about its construction. In this sense, to improve collaborative work, as a result of a research process, the THUNDERS process is proposed, which provides a set of elements to build shared understanding in problem-solving activities and with heterogeneous group formation. Specifically, this paper presents the results of the statistical validation of THUNDERS through the Student’s t-test, which was used in an exploratory study in the educational field in two Colombian universities, where learning styles were considered for the formation of groups; having groups that used the process and other control groups that did not use it, the collaborative activity consisted of determining the scope of a process line simulating a software development company. According to the results obtained in the context of this study, it can be considered that THUNDERS encourages and improves shared understanding when people in a group work collaboratively to solve a problem. In addition, elements for improvement were identified that should be incorporated in further stages of this research so that the process allows for an easy and guided construction of shared understanding in any application context.

Keywords

• shared understanding
• collaborative work
• problem-solving activities
• heterogeneous groups
• process to improve collaborative work