ORIGINAL ARTICLE Social Interaction During Computer-based Activities: Comparisons by Number of Sessions, Gender, School-level, Gender Composition of the Group, and Computer-child Ratio Teena Willoughby & Eileen Wood & Malinda Desjarlais & Lindsay Williams & Kim Leacy & Lisa Sedore Published online: 19 August 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract This study assessed the quality of social inter- actions that occur in group-based computer learning con- texts. Gender comparisons of interactions were examined across 3 sessions with 116 preschoolers (M age=4.9 years) and 108 fifth and sixth-grade (M age=11.7 years) Canadian children from southwestern Ontario, when children had access to one computer per child (parallel computer) or one computer per group (integrated computer), and when they worked with same-gender or mixed-gender peers. Pre- schoolers engaged in more collaborative behaviors in mixed-gender than same-gender groups, while elementary children engaged in collaborative behaviors more often in integrated than parallel computer conditions. In mixed- gender groups, boys were more likely than girls to dominate the computer in elementary school while girls were more likely than boys to dominate the computer in preschool. Keywords Gender comparisons . Social interaction . Computer-based activities . Preschoolers . Elementary school children Introduction The increasing availability of computers and Internet access has made computer technology a fixture in elementary and secondary schools, as well as in early childhood education environments (US Census Bureau 2005). Advances in multimedia and hypertext capabilities make the computer an attractive cognitive tool for education (Mayer 2005; Willoughby and Wood 2008). In the last 20 years an abundance of observational studies in countries such as the US, New Zealand, and the UK have led researchers to suggest that computer-based learning environments facilitate social interactions among young learners (e.g., Bergin et al. 1993; Fitzpatrick and Hardman 2000b; Podmore 1991). In general, these social interac- tions are positive; for example, promoting active sharing and turn-taking behaviors (Muller and Perlmutter 1985). In addition, preschoolers and elementary school children working on computers tend to be less distracted, more collaborative and more persistent than when working on non-computer-based tasks (e.g., Hawkins et al. 1982; Podmore 1991). Encouraging children to work together on computer tasks, however, may not necessarily result in positive and academically relevant social interactions. For example, not all children working together may participate to the same extent, and the quality of the social interaction may vary for boys and girls depending on factors such as: (a) gender composition of the group, (b) school level, (c) computer-to-child ratio within the group, and (d) changes over time. In the present study we examined these factors to determine when and for whom small-group computer activities are most likely to foster positive social interactions. T. Willoughby (*) : M. Desjarlais : L. Williams Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada L2S 3A1 e-mail: twilloug@brocku.ca E. Wood : K. Leacy Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada L. Sedore University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada Sex Roles (2009) 61:864–878 DOI 10.1007/s11199-009-9687-4