This study investigated (the extent to which levels of certainty impacted the argumentative knowledge construction in individual work and group work. Argumentative knowledge construction has been characterized into simple claims, grounds, qualifiers, counterarguments, and integrated replies to illustrate the components of argumentation and nature of resolving conflicts in argumentation where certainty levels have been divided into uncertain, neutral, and certain. Findings showed that individual and group work differed significantly in terms of levels of certainty for simple arguments and counterarguments. Study implications were discussed.

Through collaborative argumentation, students gain in-depth understanding of learning content when they build on one another’s knowledge. Although individual preparation (IP) is found to be effective to foster collaborative learning, the mechanism of how IP influence the knowledge construction behavior is underexplored. This study investigated how IP influenced secondary school students in relation to knowledge construction behavioral patterns when participating in online collaborative argumentation activities. 20 students participated in two computer-supported collaborative argumentation lessons with one group with IP, and the other group without. Screen video recordings of students constructing arguments in groups during two lessons were collected and analyzed. Epistemic Network Analysis was conducted to examine students’ knowledge construction behaviors in the two lessons with and without IP. The results show that there were significant impact on students’ knowledge construction characteristics between the two lessons. Students who did not go through the IP phase tended to exhibit behaviors related to ideas refinement more than the students who went through the IP phase. The implications of how to design and implement effective knowledge construction are discussed.

This study compares the high- and low-performing groups’ knowledge co- construction process in the context of computer-supported collaborative argumentation from epistemic, argument, and social perspectives. Product analysis, lag sequential analysis, Sankey diagram visualization, and social network analysis were used to analyze groups’ written argumentation artefacts, on-screen behaviors, and online interactions. Results show that the high-performing group students demonstrated a higher level of engagement and cognitive elaboration than the low-performing group. The high-performing group was more competent in integrating various argumentation elements than the low-performing group. And the students in the high-performing group tended to contribute equally to their group work. The implications of the findings in designing and implementing knowledge co-construction activities are discussed.