Collaborate / Mark / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Via ProfHacker, an interesting study titled Sharing and Collaborating With Google Docs: Influence of Psychological Ownership, Responsibility, and Student’s Attitudes on Outcome Quality (PDF).

Their summary states:

“Participants in all groups believed that collaboration improved the document quality. However, evaluation of the real contribution of collaboration was asymmetrical – students felt that while they did not exacerbate the document they read or edited, others worsened their own document by reading, suggesting or editing it. We therefore suggest that collaborative learning may be improved by encouraging collaboration mainly through suggesting and receiving improvements and less by editing each others’ writing.”

61% of Emerson students report having used Google Docs in the classroom, and 20% report using wikis. Does this finding change your view of how they should be used? Take our new poll and tell us how you feel your best writing happens!