King’s (1999) script is a prominent approach to facilitate specific interactions between the students through collaborative learning. In this approach, King used guided peer questioning to prompt the students to engage in specific activities by using prompt cards.
King developed guided peer questioning (King, 1992) to increase the students’ ability to ask task-related, thought-provoking questions spontaneously. She suggests that the
students have to engage in high level interactions to be able to reach high levels of collaborative learning (King, 1989). From her perspective, engaging the students in task- related questions activities can be an indicator of the level of interaction between the students. Therefore, King conducted several studies (see King, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994; King & Rosenshine, 1993) to teach students different strategies to ask task-related questions and developed the guided peer questioning approach (King, 1999).
Three different discourse approaches with specific prompts to support students in classrooms are provided by King: (a) complex knowledge construction, (b) problem solving, and (c) peer-tutoring. The prompts are incomplete sentences (question stems), the students are supposed to respond to and complete. Regarding the first approach (complex knowledge construction), the students are initially trained to give elaborated answers. Next, the students select few prompts from the whole prompt-list and generate several content-related questions by filling in the blanks in the prompts’ sentences (e.g., “What does … mean?”, “Explain why ...”, and “What would happen if ...?”). After that, the students conduct their discussions by asking the questions and giving elaborated answers. With respect to the problem-solving approach, King uses prompts cards to support the students to structure their discourse. The prompts card involves question starters (e.g., “What is the problem?”, “What do we know about the problem so far?”, “What is our goal now?”). Small groups of students are supposed to use these prompts to discuss specific problems by reciprocally generating and asking questions as well as giving answers. Through a peer-tutoring approach, the students play reciprocal tutoring roles (questioner vs. explainer). Only the student who plays a questioner role use prompts of specific question types (e.g., review questions, thinking questions, and probing questions). The student who plays explainer role is supposed to give elaborative explanations as a reaction for the students (King, 1999).
Results of empirical research indicate that guided peer questioning has positive effects on individual knowledge acquisition when compared to discourse without instructional support (e.g., King, 1990). Furthermore, guided peer questioning enables students to engage in high-level interactions (e.g., asking thought-provoking questions and integrating new knowledge with prior knowledge).
The guided peer questioning approach is a script that can be employed as a trigger peer interaction between students, since the students are supposed to engaged in high level interaction. Using the guided peer questioning script as computer-supported collaboration script is supposed to enable the students to play specific roles according to specific sequence. In addition, that script can provide the students with text or guidance to specify the roles during the collaboration processes of web design in the form of starters or prompts, which are considered as a way to represent scripts. In this way, the students can not find script or description of roles that enable them to use these prompts (Weinberger, 2003).
Prompt-based collaboration scripts provide students with the opportunity to perform web design activities without splitting their attention between what they discuss and what
they have to think about the specific roles they are supposed to play, because each role of the scripted collaboration is supported by specific prompts as in guided peer questioning. In this way, the students are supposed to respond to these prompts and thus, engage in the intended activities (King, 1999; O’Donnell & Dansereau, 1992). Therefore, computer-supported collaboration scripts are typically implemented as prompts or hints (e.g., Weinberger et al., 2005), buttons (e.g., Hron et al., 1997), or input text fields (e.g., Kollar et al., 2007).
A number of recent studies investigated the effects of prompt-based collaboration scripts on both processes and outcomes (e.g., Weinberger et al., 2005). The results of these studies induced prompt-based collaboration. For example, Ge and Land (2002) investigated the effects of question prompts on individual and collaborative learning. The results show that question prompts are especially effective in peer collaboration. In addition, question prompts can also support the individual students regarding specific learning processing (e.g., problem representation, solutions, justifications, and monitoring and evaluation). Furthermore, a study by Weinberger (2003) investigated the effects of epistemic and a social prompt-based collaboration script into a CSCL environment on processes and outcomes of collaborative knowledge construction. The results show that prompt-based collaboration scripts appeared feasible and effective instructional approach for CSCL. In addition, they can facilitate specific discourse activities and learning outcomes. Overall, Weinberger suggested that using prompt-based cooperation scripts in CSCL may warrant the quality of collaborative knowledge construction independent of the competencies of learners and teachers.
Therefore, the suggested prompt-based collaboration script, which aims to support online DBL, involves both script and prompts. The students in that script are not supposed to remember the different roles and related web design activities. Thus, prompts should indicate them automatically. Furthermore, the suggested script has to enable the students to engage in higher level inquiry processes on web design during their discussions in small groups. Therefore, through small groups’ discussions the students are supposed to play different roles (e.g., asking a question, giving elaborative answer, and giving reactions to answers) in a specified sequence with the help of specific prompts. Such prompts are assumed to change automatically according to the student's role, which should be taken reciprocally. In this case, prompts may facilitate the students’ discussions and enable them to perform the specific roles and activities easily.