Taking into account that current technology is transforming our world and reconfiguring our ways of living in physical and virtual spaces cannot but also affect knowledge-building processes (García del Dujo et al., in press) a study on how knowledge is constructed in virtual environments by undergraduate students in the University of Salamanca (Spain) is presented. The research question aims to explore and understand how the use of technology and its connectivity is influencing learning processes.

The theoretical framework that belongs to the proposal is based on the psycho-pedagogical theories of sociocultural stream, from Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and its branching till today (Ali, Joyes, & Ellison, 2015; Clarck & Chalmers, 1998; Engeström & Glăveanu, 2012; Hutchins, 1996; Lave & Wegner, 1991; Vygotsky, 1979), although in the following years other proposals that belong to the sociocultural branch were presented, such as Conectivism (Siemens, 2005), it has been greatly criticised for not being considered rigorously a theory but rather a pedagogical approach, that is why we consider on focusing on the theory of situated and extended cognition as the worthy heirs of the Vygotskyan approach. In summary, these theories state that problem solving depends on the context in which we find ourselves because people interpret and structure the problems and solutions through the artefacts available in the context (Heersmink, 2015), and precisely the current context, has been invaded and situationally and territorially transformed by technological artifacts. In this line the contributions of Luciano Floridi (2010; 2014) and his Philosophy of Information shows that currently knowledge construction depends not only on having information, but its properties, interactions, processes and mutual relations. These processes are definitely easier to converge in virtual environments given their ubiquity. In line with the above and aiming to provide a theory on how people synthesize information through web environments, Michael DeSchryver (2014, 2017) unveiled his Theory of Generative Synthesis of Web-mediated Knowledge Synthesis. The aforementioned author proposed a theoretical and analytical framework in which he tried to demonstrate that the use of the web as a primary source of information encourages and allows us to develop higher order thinking skills. This theory understands learning as a synthesis activity and identifies synthesis skills as responsible for building knowledge in virtual environments. The results of their analysis resulted in the identification of seven synthesis skills (divergent keyword search phrases, synthesis for meaning, reinforcement, repurposing, note-taking, in the moment insights and creative synthesis) which act simultaneously allowing subjects to generate web-mediated knowledge. However, DeSchryver identified that these skills belonged to two different levels of synthesis: at the most basic or superficial level, synthesis of meaning, and at the deepest level, generative synthesis. After studying the concepts and skills described by Michael DeSchryver, we identify a close relationship with the categories recognized in Bloom's Digital Taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) and also in the three systems of thinking, specifically the Knowledge Utilization level in The New Taxonomy (Marzano y Kendall, 2007).

In this respect, and taking into account the categorization extracted from the theoretical framework we try to explore and observe if there are differences when it comes to construct knowledge with and without the support of digital technology and virtual environments and if the use of this technology is related to the use of higher order thinking skills.

These results allowed us to observe how these sample of undergraduate students perform in a different way an ill-structured task depending on the availability of digital technologies and how they experience these differences that, in turn, are context dependent.

The study was carried out through a qualitative study (Mittenfelner & Ravich, 2016; Trigueros, Rivera & Rivera, 2018) during the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 academic courses, based on the following research questions: Are there differences in the use of strategies and procedures to construct knowledge with and without the support of digital technology? How do the skills involved in the construction of knowledge online interact? We use a stratified probabilistic sampling (regarding of branch of knowledge, degree and course) formed by thirteen third course undergraduate students belonging to different degree studies from the following five branches of knowledge; Humanities: English language studies; Social sciences: Pedagogy studies; Health Sciences: Medicine studies; Engineering: Computation Engineering studies and Sciences: Biology studies. In order to answer the research questions two instruments designed specifically for this study were implemented. The first one, an ill-structured task taking the assumptions from the theories of the socioconstructivist branch (Collins, Sibthorp & Gookin, 2016). This task was divided in two parts and following the agreed criteria of designing and application (Collins et al,2016; Jonassen,2000; Laxman, 2010), three different ill-structured activity proposal were designed and finally one of them was assessed and chosen by expert judgement. The second instrument was a semi-structured interview designed also specifically for this experiment and based on seven dimensions: Task development, technology use, synthesis of meaning, decision making, creative synthesis and feelings. The same subject had to perform the two parts of the ill-structured activity, the first one with digital technology (laptop, smartphone, internet…) support and the second one without digital technology support (books and printed documents from the library). Then taking into account the researcher observations and the fourth interview dimensions, the semi-structured interview was performed. The ethical and data protection criteria relevant to this type of research have been followed at all times (BERA, 2018; European Commission, 2018). The data was obtained by recording the subject’s thoughts out loud, note-taking during the task performance, and the collection and storage of browser history in the case of the use of digital technology and the collection of text and books documents used in the case of not using digital artefacts. All data was recorded in audio and video format and transcribed to analyze the information through the NVIVO 12 software, under a system of categories. The pre-coding stage was designed taking into account the theoretical framework and validated also by expert judgement.

Our findings of the implementation of the ill-structured activity largely match those obtained by DeSchryver (2017), specifically they showed that the subject’s abilities used while they are preforming an ill-structured activity depends on the use of digital technologies. We found a greater probability of the appearance of in-the-moment-insights and repurposing if the subject were performing the activity with the support of digital technology than if not, leading to greater use of creative synthesis skills. The use of reinforcement is more related with the use non-digital technology environments. Also the use of note-taking was done writing by hand no matter if they were performing the activity with or without digital artifacts. We have also identified activity patterns not indicated in the pre-coding stage which will allow us to synthesise some nodes and subnodes from the categories system. Regarding semi-structured interviews we found that most of the participants stated that the use of digital technology offers many advantages over not using it, such as speed while seeking for information, access to more information, but at the same it generates risks, such as not knowing how to differentiate relevant from irrelevant information and distractions. Also they reported that the way of thinking and experience is different in the online versus offline context study, some subjects were overwhelmed by the use of books and text documents because they could not find the information they wanted to look for in a short period of time. In the end, these findings help to corroborate the idea that technologies are transforming the ways we construct knowledge, and therefore, they support that this new way of building knowledge requires different ways of theorising new phenomena.

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