The Impact of Cross-Age Peer Tutors on Knowledge Elaboration, Knowledge Convergence, and Group Performance in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

In this study, the impact of cross-age peer tutors on knowledge elaboration, knowledge convergence, and learning performance in CSCL are investigated. 128 college students who were randomly divided into 32 groups participated in this study. The postgraduate students were selected as the cross-age peer tutors and randomly assigned to each group. The innovative analysis method based on the knowledge map was adopted to analyze and calculate the level of knowledge elaboration and knowledge convergence. The results indicated that there were significant differences in terms of knowledge elaboration and knowledge convergence between the groups with peer tutors and the groups without peer tutors. However, there was no significant difference in group performance between the groups with peer tutors and the groups without peer tutors. The implications for educators and future directions are discussed in detail.