Five types of wayfinding behaviors exist in PSKNThis study identified five types of wayfinding behaviors in PSKN for learners: creating nodes, finding important nodes and forming cognitive maps, connecting important nodes, and finding and filtering information. Our findings verified the diversity of wayfinding in the PSKN. Previous studies have focused on wayfinding difficulties, such as information evaluation (Kammerer et al., 2013; Kiili et al., 2020), resource disorientation (Wang et al., 2022) and technical difficulties (Kop, 2011; Li et al., 2016). However, few studies have examined technological factors influence the ways learners access resources in connectivist learning, such as the PSKN. Four wayfinding behaviors were defined in this study based on a connection-forming model (AlDahdouh, 2018). We further defined a new wayfinding behavior, creating nodes, in the PSKN, with three types of creating behavior: learning communities, knowledge nodes, and course knowledge bases. Consistent with previous studies, the results demonstrated that generating knowledge nodes facilitated learners acting as teachers or content producers (Griesbaum, 2014), contributing to more connections (Duan et al., 2019; Yu et al., 2019).Furthermore, we revealed creation of behavior-supported indirect wayfinding for individuals, through which learners can navigate the network and identify diversity nodes effectively (Kizito, 2016). Our results indicated that all learners navigated the PSKN and oriented additional nodes. Compared with previous studies, this study found that creating nodes was an essential wayfinding feature in the PSKN. This may be because, with the increase in network connectivity, resource navigation moved from relying on pre-existing nodes to wayfinding by creating nodes to identify more important nodes and make connections. This reflects a change in the role of learners during the wayfinding process, that is, a gradual move from finding to creating nodes. This also means that indirect wayfinding was a crucial wayfinding feature, and creating nodes was a critical behavior in the PSKN. Moreover, as the connection proceeds, the learner becomes like a teacher, and creating nodes becomes a critical wayfinding behavior in connectivist learning.

The general trend is that students who report improved socioemotional outcomes also show suggestions of increased activity in collaborative tools relative to their peers.

In this sample, 1,868 students enrolled in at least one undergraduate class with, and at least one undergraduate class without, some form of collaborative activity (peer review, Piazza, CourseNetworking, etc.), not including discussions.