The role of identities in the process of knowledge construction in CSCL settings

The learning scientists have argued that knowledge construction is a process of collective thinking within a learning community. Thus, knowledge construction is simultaneously an individual and social process that requires group cognition and situated meanings. However, while the CSCL researchers have investigated the situated knowledge in the process of collective thinking, little work has been done to fully understand how different identity categories play a role in sense-making and knowledge construction. This research, therefore, explored in detail how individuals utilize their different identity categories to make situated meanings when they collaborate with each other in the process of knowledge construction in online learning environments. Results demonstrated that individuals do not experience online learning through only one aspect of their identity but rather that learning experiences evoke different elements of their identities that are used continuously and simultaneously when they collaborate with each other at the every phase of knowledge construction.