Educational Researcher, a major AERA research journal, had a recent article summarizing use of wikis in K-12 settings. The authors have already posted a summary so you do not have to be an AERA member to take a look. The one characteristic of the newer report I found to be unique was the attempt to different two categories of student wikis. The general results seem very similar to previous research. The new research suggests that student use of wikis is limited and that most student projects involve single student reports. The sources I have been citing suggest that about 9% of students author a blog or wiki and this new study reports a 20% level of student activity with the more highly valued long term, collaborative, multimedia projects involving only 1% of all wikis. The new study promotes the use of data from large scale data warehouses. The authors had access to data from PBWorks.
Access to large data sources can be great, but I wonder if results would vary as a function of the wiki tool. For example, if my school had access to Google docs for education, I think that I would approach shared “copy editing” and embedding multimedia (two of the activities pointing to the more desired use of wikis) quite differently than if I was using PBWorks. A Google docs document is essentially a wiki and assigning pairs or small teams to multiple wiki documents is relatively easy. PBWorks might make more sense if the goal was a public document created over an extended period of time by a larger team from different schools. My point is that while a large dataset offers some advantages, a dataset focused on one tool also has significant interpretative limitations.
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