It’s better to talk with honey than vinegar: Insights into collaborative learning within mobile AR games Denise M. Bressler Greater New York City area Email: dmbressler at gmail dot com Abstract: According to the National Research Council, the ability to collaboratively solve problems is of the utmost importance in scientific careers, yet students are not exposed to learning experiences that promote such expertise. Researchers have found that interdependent roles used within mobile AR games are an effective way to scaffold collaborative problem solving. Using a multiple case study approach, this study assessed communication responses, scientific practices, and language style used both by student teams playing a mobile AR science game and teams participating in a control activity. Conversations amongst game teams revealed not only higher levels of scientific practices but also higher levels of engaged responses and communal language. Conversations amongst control teams revealed lower levels of scientific practice but also higher levels of rejecting responses and commands. Implications for this finding are discussed. Introduction According to the National Research Council [(NRC), 2012a], the ability to collaboratively solve problems is of the utmost importance in scientific careers. According to K-12 science framework authored by the NRC (2012a), ―science is fundamentally a social enterprise, and scientific knowledge advances through collaboration and in the context of a social system with well-developed norms‖ (p. 27). The job prospects in science and technology are growing (Lockard & Wolf, 2012). However, our students are underprepared for the job requirements because these collaborative scientific practices are not cultivated in the majority of U.S. schools; when we do not prepare our students adequately for the workplace, then our national prosperity suffers (NRC, 2012b). To make the US globally competitive in science and technology, students need to be engaged with science education, build a suite of scientific practices, and learn to collaborate successfully. Research on collaborative educational games has shown that gameplay positively impacts the development of collaboration skills (Sánchez & Olivares, 2011) and player‘s perceptions of their social interactions (Mansour & El-Said, 2009). Specifically, students enjoy playing collaboratively because it encourages discussion amongst players (Sharritt, 2008). The sociocultural learning that takes place within the game works best when there is shared power and authority through scripted collaboration (Demetriadis, Tsiatsos, & Karakostas, 2012). Within mobile learning science games, researchers have found that interdependent roles are an effective way to scaffold collaborative problem solving (Dunleavy, Dede, & Mitchell, 2009; Squire & Jan, 2007). By incorporating such interdependency, collaborative mobile augmented reality (AR) games rely on the social interactions amongst players as a key to the overall success of the games. As summarized by Klopfer (2008), students playing collaborative mobile learning games ―help each other, observe each other, and act together to create communities as they learn to solve problems‖ (p. 223). Overall, research indicates that collaborative mobile games hold promise for promoting effective collaborative scientific practice by scaffolding and supporting discourse during gameplay. This study investigated not only the scientific practices and collaborative responses of those playing a mobile AR game but also of those participating in a similar non-game-based activity. Specifically, this study assessed the collaborative practice and discourse of student teams during both the experimental game activity and the control lab activity. These questions guided the investigation: 1. How do communication responses within game teams compare to those within control teams? 2. How do scientific practices of game teams compare to those of control teams? 3. How else are treatment groups different when conversations are analyzed at the team level? Methodology Since the research questions stem from understanding the differences in the social process of learning within teams from different treatment groups, case study research was chosen as the analysis method (Yin, 2014). Specifically, a descriptive multiple case study approach was chosen with