It is assumed that multiple perspectives and different skills within a group may increase both quantity and quality of shared knowledge (Barron, 2003). Shared knowledge can be regarded as concepts or ideas that are held by different learners and it can be seen as a result of collaboration. Weinberger, Stegmann, and Fischer (2007) differentiated therefore, prior knowledge equivalence (prior to collaboration), knowledge sharing (during collaboration) and shared knowledge (subsequent to collaboration). However, the earlier research on collaborative learning shows that the participants often do not share their prior knowledge with their fellow learners and, therefore, the jointly built knowledge remains at a rather superficial level. Instead of sharing knowledge and resolving resulting socio-cognitive conflict learners often tend to reach consensus as soon as possible (e.g., Mäkitalo-Siegl, 2008; Wiley & Bailey, 2006). While empirical findings show that individuals are more productive with respect to some tasks than groups (e.g., idea generation; Ziegler, Diehl, & Zijlstra, 2000), the quality and quantity of knowledge sharing could be improved by orchestrating individual and collaborative phases (Dillenbourg & Fischer, 2007). For example, an individual preparation phase may increase the quantity and quality of individual knowledge and thereafter may also increase the quantity and quality of knowledge sharing during the group process. Finally, an enhanced group process may increase the shared knowledge. Another way to support learners’ knowledge sharing is to use interactive tables (tabletop displays) that are designed to mediate co-present interaction. Interactive surfaces that visualise the participant’s contribution and allow the participants actively manipulate these contributions could be regarded as beneficial environment for knowledge sharing tasks (e.g., Baraldi, in press). Against this background, our research question is, to what extend the orchestration of an individual preparation phase and a collaborative learning phase (without vs. with individual preparation phase) affect knowledge sharing and shared knowledge with in small groups using an interactive table.

In our study, we compared learners without vs. with an individual preparation phase prior to a collaborative learning phase. 26 participants (22 university students and 4 employees outside of the university) were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (7 dyads with and 6 dyads without individual preparation phase). The task dealt with environmental issues (e.g., “Create your own Eco-Town”). In all conditions both learners read different texts on the hints on how to protect the environment and on the use of alternative energy (5 min.). Subsequently, only in the condition with individual preparation phase the participants started to solve the task individually (10 min.). In both conditions, a 20-minute collaborative phase at the interactive table followed. A post-test assessed shared prior knowledge, knowledge sharing and shared knowledge. The pre- and post-tests as well as the group products were coded with respect of the occurring ideas and concepts.

The results of the study show that the additional preparation phase had no effects on knowledge sharing and shared knowledge. Furthermore, the amount of ideas contributed to discussion as well as the amount of ideas stated in the individual post-test was similar in both groups. Additional analysis showed that only 7.5% (SD = 8.1) of the concepts stated in the post-test were taken over from the learning partner. A regression analysis showed that the pre-test score explains 36% of the variance of the post-test score. The ideas discussed in dyads only explain additional 4% of the variance. Our findings show that knowledge sharing is suboptimal in small group collaboration and that additional individual preparation phase was not improving knowledge sharing. To conclude, it seems that the process of knowledge sharing should be supported more directly, e.g., by so-called collaboration scripts (see Weinberger, Stegmann, Fischer, & Mandl, 2007).