As 21st century skills have become increasingly important, Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) is now considered essential in almost all areas of life. Different theoretical frameworks and assessment instruments have emerged for measuring this skill. However, more applied studies on its implementation and evaluation in real-life educational settings are required. In this sense, pre-post experimental designs are essential for identifying new methods for developing collaborative problem-solving skills. To do so, equivalent tests are needed to facilitate consistent score interpretations and reduce the practice effect. In the present study, a Design-Based Research approach is used to design and validate an assessment tool with two equivalent forms based on a framework proposed by the OECD and applied to a collaborative activity. A total of 719 students aged between 10 and 13 years old participated in the different stages of the study. The results show that the proposed instrument effectively measures the problem-solving dimension of collaborative problem-solving skills among students of this age. Moreover, the results from the test were equivalent for both forms and across genders. Finally, there were no significant differences when assessing collaborative problem-solving in human-human groups versus human-agent groups using the proposed instrument. For future work, we recommend including other data sources than just text-based conversations. This would allow us to capture the rich social interactions present in this type of activity. Future work should also consider exploring the extent to which skills could be trained. This could be done in an experimental design assessed using the equivalent forms of the proposed instrument as a pre- and post-test. Doing so would provide a more accurate measure of students’ collaborative skills.

随着 21 世纪技能变得越来越重要，协作解决问题 (CPS) 现在被认为几乎在生活的所有领域都必不可少。已经出现了不同的理论框架和评估工具来衡量这项技能。然而，需要对其在现实教育环境中的实施和评估进行更多的应用研究。从这个意义上说，前后实验设计对于确定开发协作解决问题技能的新方法至关重要。为此，需要进行等效测试以促进一致的分数解释并减少练习效果。在本研究中，基于设计的研究方法用于设计和验证具有两种等效形式的评估工具，该工具基于经合组织提出的框架并应用于协作活动。共有 719 名 10 至 13 岁的学生参与了研究的不同阶段。结果表明，所提出的工具有效地衡量了这个年龄段学生协作解决问题技能的问题解决维度。此外，测试的结果对于两种形式和跨性别都是相同的。最后，在使用所提出的工具评估人与人组与人与代理组的协作解决问题时，没有显着差异。对于未来的工作，我们建议包括其他数据源，而不仅仅是基于文本的对话。这将使我们能够捕捉到此类活动中存在的丰富社交互动。未来的工作还应考虑探索可以培训技能的程度。这可以在实验设计中完成，使用拟议仪器的等效形式作为前测和后测进行评估。这样做可以更准确地衡量学生的协作技能。