The Study

A class of 24 students took part in the study, 21 boys and 3 girls, aged 16–17 years old, with the exception of 3 boys who were 18 years old. These three students were older because they had been obliged to repeat the previ- ous school year, having failed its end-of-year exams. In some cases (described below), the class was divided into two half-classes of 12 students. Students worked in ‘friendship’ groups of two, three, or four (decided by themselves), depending on the task, using adjacent computers and tables, organized in an ‘L’ so that they could see and talk with each other while communicating and working across the partitioned local network. Written permission was obtained from the parents of all students to participate in the study, and for the data to be collected and used exclusively for research purposes.