Share Paper: Developing social capital among learners in collaborative learning through introducing yet another exchange system based on the concept of “bi-directional debt”

  1. Hideyuki Suzuki, Ibaraki University, Japan
  2. Hideo Funaoi, Soka University, Japan
  3. Yoshihiko Kubota, Tmagawa University, Japan
  4. Hiroshi Kato, Open University of Japan, Japan
Friday, June 28 11:15-11:45 AM Oost

Abstract: The present study aims to develop social capital among learners engaged in collaborative problem solving. For this purpose, the authors propose a norm of “bi-directional debts”, and rules for mutual assistance based on this norm. These rules of mutual assistance place a person who has been helped under an “obligation to help someone,” while at the same time placing a person who has helped someone under an “obligation to be helped by someone else.” Credit is given only when these obligations are fulfilled. The authors introduced these rules into a project-based cooperative learning setting to verify their effectiveness. This preliminary ...