Your Teammate Just Sent You a New Message! The Effects of Using Telegram on Individual Acquisition of Teamwork Competence

Students’ acquisition of teamwork competence has become a priority for educational institutions. The development of teamwork competence in education generally relies in project-based learning methodologies and challenges. The assessment of teamwork in project-based learning involves, among others, assessing students’ participation and the interactions between team members. Project-based learning can easily be handled in small-size courses, but course management and teamwork assessment become a burdensome task for instructors as the size of the class increases. Additionally, when project-based learning happens in a virtual space, such as online learning, interactions occur in a less natural way. This study explores the use of instant messaging apps (more precisely, the use of Telegram) as team communication space in project-based learning, using a learning analytics tool to extract and analyze student interactions. Further, the study compares student interactions (e.g., number of messages exchanged) and individual teamwork competence acquisition between traditional asynchronous (e.g., LMS message boards) and synchronous instant messaging communication environments. The results show a preference of students for IM tools and increased participation in the course. However, the analysis does not find significant improvement in the acquisition of individual teamwork competence.