Affective States in CSCL Environments: A Systematic Mapping of the Literature

Affective states such as personality trait, emotion and mood are critical elements that affect group learning. Nevertheless, few studies classify and analyze the research findings of the community to explicitly show the real impact and use of affective states in CSCL environments. Thus, this paper presents the development of a systematic mapping of the literature to answer three questions: (i) What are the affective states frequently used in CSCL environments? (ii) Were affective states in CSCL environment empirically evaluated? (iii) What are the types of environments that use affective states to support group learning? To answer these questions, seven digital libraries were queried and 31 studies were deeply analyzed. As main results, we verified that: (i) 54,84% of the studies deal with 'emotions' in CSCL environments, (ii) 51,61% of the studies were empirically evaluated, and (iii) LMS (38,71%) and E-Learning systems (22,58%) are the most common types of environments that use affective states to support collaborative learning. Finally, we also identified gaps and opportunities to conduct research on adaptive/intelligent CSCL systems to support better group formation and customization of group activities using affective states.