IS IT BETTER TO BE ALONE OR IN COMPANY? The impact of the Structural Profile of Interpersonal Skills on Computer-Supported Group-Based Learning

This chapter presents an empirical study involving first-year students enrolled in the Faculty of Psychology (University of Bologna), who are following a practical formative activity based on Computer-Supported Group-Based Learning. The learning activity is conducted in a blended-learning format - three face-to-face lessons and three online activities; students were randomly associated to two different experimental conditions of participation: Individual Learning (IL) and Group-Based Learning (GBL). Focusing on GBL students, this paper intends to verify whether different structural profiles of interpersonal skills (SPIS) might improve the students' comprehension of a scientific text. By analyzing the results of test and re-test, the students with a High Actor-SPIS make a significant improvement, and the groups with a High Density and Low Centralization make significant progress at the ReTest.