Creative collaboration and flow: Validating the use of trace data to measure dynamics of creative flow in collaborative design teams

We use sociometric trace data to create an index of dynamic group flow in collaborative design teams. Sixteen students in four teams worked on a collaborative engineering design task, while wearing sociometric devices to collect real-time data on team interaction. Results indicate that group flow as measured by dynamic trace data is partially correlated with self-reported flow. This finding implies the potential to use trace data to provide reliable and dynamic measures of task engagement during collaborative learning.