Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Research in CSCL

(Quasi-)experimental designs play an important role in CSCL research. By actively manipulating one or several independent variables while keeping other influencing factors constant and through the use of randomization, they allow to determine the causal effects of such independent variables on one or more dependent variable(s) that may be of interest to CSCL researchers. So far, (quasi-)experimental CSCL studies have mainly looked at the effects of certain tools and scaffolds on the occurrence of hoped-for learning process and outcomes variables. While earlier CSCL research mainly ignored the interdependence of data from learners who learned in the same group, more recent research uses more advanced statistical methods to analyze the effects of different CSCL settings on learning processes and outcomes (such as multilevel modeling). Because of the replication crisis in psychology, preregistration and the open science movement are becoming increasingly important also for CSCL research that uses (quasi-)experimental designs.