• Educational Technology International
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.311-339
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• 2021

This study examined the effects of scaffolding types (Toulmin's Argument Pattern: TAP or Argumentation Vee Diagram: AVD) and individual metacognition levels (low or high) on students' learning achievement in online collaborative argumentation. A total of 191 Chinese undergraduates took part in this study. They were randomly assigned to either the TAP scaffolding, AVD scaffolding, or no scaffolding condition. They were teamed up in small groups of two or three students to argue with their peers using SNS as the online collaborative argumentation environment. The results revealed that students in the TAP and AVD scaffolding conditions did not gain significantly higher retention or transfer scores than students without scaffolding. However, students in the TAP scaffolding condition significantly outperformed those in the AVD scaffolding condition on transfer scores. Individual metacognition did not significantly affect learning achievement in online collaborative argumentation. Additionally, there was no significant interaction effect between scaffolding types and individual metacognition levels on retention or on transfer. The findings have implications for scaffolding design for online collaborative argumentation and also suggest that more attention should be paid to social metacognition rather than to individual metacognition when students work collaboratively.