Conceptualization and Measurement of Peer Collaboration in Higher Education: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Collaboration is a construct comprising diverse definitions and frameworks. Additionally, being a latent variable and because of its complexity and interactive nature, collaboration is difficult to measure. Therefore, this systematic literature review was guided by two fundamental questions: what to measure and how to measure. Through the review and synthesis of 28 carefully selected studies we derived an integrative framework displaying indicators for peer collaboration in higher education and beyond. Moreover, the results give insights into measurement approaches of collaboration comprising information on data collection and analysis as well as contextual factors (e.g., task type, time).