Conversation Characteristics during Pair Work in Computer Literacy Education

We have proposed pair work in university-level computer literacy education as opposed to traditional, standalone teaching. In this paper, in order to extract the factors affecting the number of utterances, known to be important to improve the pair work effect, we conducted two experimental pair work classes. The participants were approximately 280 students who participated in computer literacy exercise courses. The results indicated that performing several utterances during pair work improved assignment achievement and pair work effect, thus also enhancing the satisfaction level of the pair work. In addition, there was little difference between the individuals within a pair in terms of the number of utterances, but the difference was significant between pairs. Participants in a pair with high basic academic ability and high differences in computer experiences before university-level education tended to have a smaller number of utterances, which is a characteristic of pair work conversation.