Agent-based dynamic support for learning from collaborative brainstorming in scientific inquiry Hao-Chuan Wang & Carolyn P. Rosé & Chun-Yen Chang Received: 27 August 2010 /Accepted: 7 June 2011 / Published online: 30 June 2011 Abstract This paper seeks to contribute new insight to the process of learning during idea generation (i.e., brainstorming) by proposing and evaluating two alternative operationalizations for learning, which we refer to as connection-based learning and multi-perspective learning, during a carefully designed idea-generation task in the earth- sciences domain. Specifically, this paper presents two controlled experiments. In the first study we manipulate two independent factors, first whether students work individually or in pairs, and second whether students work with the VIBRANT agent or not. The second study includes one additional hybrid agent condition motivated by results from the first study as well as other enhancements to the VIBRANT agent’ s discussion-analysis technology. Our finding is that while brainstorming in pairs leads to short-term process losses in terms of idea-generation productivity, with a corresponding reduction in connection-based learning, it produces a gain in multi-perspective learning. Furthermore, automatically generated feedback from VIBRANT improves connection- based learning. In the second study, support from an enhanced version of VIBRANT showed evidence of mitigating the process losses that were associated with reduced learning in the pairs condition of the first study. Keywords Collaborative idea generation . Collaborative process analysis . Dynamic collaboration support Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (2011) 6:371–395 DOI 10.1007/s11412-011-9124-x H.-C. Wang Cornell University, 301 College Ave., Ithica, NY 14850, USA e-mail: haochuan@cs.cornell.edu C. P. Rosé(*) Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA e-mail: cprose@cs.cmu.edu C.-Y . Chang National Taiwan Normal University, 88, Sec. 4, Ting-Chou Rd., Taipei, Taiwan 116 e-mail: changcy@ntnu.edu.tw # International Society of the Learning Sciences, Inc.; Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2011