In addition, in line with small group cognition theory, when small groups engage in cooperative problem solving or collaborative knowledge building, there are distinctive processes of interest at the individual, small-group and community levels of analysis, which interact strongly with each other.

Furthermore, collaborative and cooperative learning promote positive relationships and social support in agreement with social judgment theory, which states that social judgments individuals make about each other result in either a process of acceptance, resulting in mutual liking and respect, or a process of rejection, resulting in mutual dislike and lack of respect. Cooperative experiences promoted greater task-oriented and personal social support than learning alone.

Thirdly, collaboration can also increase memory and problem-solving resources through each individual’s contribution to the recall of the relevant problem features and possible strategies. This is in line with both the cognitive load model and the ZPF model. Consequently, the group has more cognitive resources to spend thinking through possible solutions and correcting errors.

Also, collaborative learning can increase individual motivation and engagement. For example, students in cooperative groups help each other, encouraging engagement in the learning activity. The act of establishing what information is shared by all collaborators contributes to the construction of common ground, while the exchange of multiple perspectives of shared information provides for the opportunity to reexamine and reevaluate stored perceptions and acquire points of view that they might not have considered if working alone.

Secondly, collective knowledge occurs when students learn together or work together in a group; they complement one another’s knowledge, so that different members of the group may contribute different components of the solution. For example, one individual in the group with unique knowledge could explain to the others a strategy or solution, and this explanation could benefit both those who receive it as well as the one who generates it. And since explaining or demonstrating a task or skill is in a different cognitive domain within Bloom’s Taxonomy than information recall there are benefits to all members of the group – including the original knowledge provider.

Although CSCL is fundamentally different from other domains of study in the learning sciences, it takes collaborative and cooperative learning, that is, learning and interactions that take place among students when they work together in a small group that promote social learning. Therefore, we are of the position that learning in collaboration is better than learning alone and that it broadly involves active engagement and interaction among group members to achieve a common goal. Our arguments are supported by the following points.

First, group members can use their collective knowledge about a problem-solving task or domain to cue each other’s prior knowledge when trying to think of ideas, strategies, and solutions. Although, this depends on collaborators having some shared (i.e., common) knowledge to increase the likelihood of retrieving the most relevant knowledge for the problem or task.

Our last argument supports the points presented in argument two. When an instructor develops a course with the thought of implementing CSCL and does not fully understood the requirement need for success, learners will not incidental or magically collaborate an assignment. Collaboration will not take place and the take-away of knowledge by the learner will not happen. Learning and collaboration in this type of atmosphere will be taken for granted. A study regarding learning systems conducted by Marsick and Volpe (1999) concluded that informal incidental learner through computer supported activities is haphazard and influenced by chance.

Our fourth argument is based on collaboration not being a given of CSCL but instead a hoped-for byproduct. Collaboration is an incidental byproduct at best in building new knowledge, not a substantial asset. Learning is perceived as an active, not passive process where knowledge is constructed not merely acquired. Each learner has a different interpretation of the learning and knowledge gaining process based on past experience and cultural differences. CSCL is not merely the belief that a course can be offered through eLearning and presented to learners without a great deal of continuous instructor involvement. It is quite often a false mindset to develop an eLearning course without the 3 C’s; consideration, constant and consistent involvement from both learners and instructors. Without the 3 C’s, continued involvement and collaboration among learners towards gaining knowledge is not going to happen.

Thirdly, students in collaborative learning activities can feel a high level of frustration which causes negative effects. It can be frustrating if the student is not engaged in the activity. Frustration can also occur when collaborating with people they do not know well. This introduces negative emotions and that results in a bigger challenge when trying to motivate the student affecting the students’ learning experience. This may cause the student to abandon their studies and give up on the class.

Secondly, lack of training to instructors and students. Even with the best CSCL resource available, if the instructor/ student are not trained their lessons/ performance will suffer. Another technological issue is selecting the right resources. With all the CSCL resources out there how does one simply pick out the correct tools for their assignment? Some learning topics will require more resources than others; some learning topics will require different resources than others. If the instructor/ student are not comfortable with the resources their outcome will lack understanding and comfort.

While CSCL may lead you to believe it is right for everyone, it should not be an approach for every learning situation. CSCL has a number of limitations for both the instructor and student.

Our first argument will be directed at the students. Students find it hard to engage in spur-of-the-moment written communication, which makes social collaboration more challenging. Social loafing, free-riding, and the sucker-effect are other social factors that impact the collaboration performance. Such negative behaviors happen easily with technology. Technology adds a pressure to students participate in group discussion within a time frame. This makes the students without much technology experiences feel behind, and also may create a since of competition among students. This creates nervousness and tension which negatively impacts the students’ experience.