# Collaborative Facilitation and Collaborative Inhibition in Virtual Environments
## 4 Discussion
With regard to the subjects’ performance, the studied words and non-studied words mean the total performance of the group, whilst the average values of the studied words and non-studied words represent the total performance divided by the group size. social processes able to improve the subjects' performance [37]. Instead, for the same mechanism, when nominal condition starts after collaborative condition, it is possible that the motivation decreases. Again, it appears that the VE may play a role in mediating such dynamics, and future studies should focus on this perspective. By contrast, the group size had no effect on the group performance, which appears not to confirm specific literature about the DRM paradigm [17]. However, our study involved groups with only two, three or four members each, and future studies could investigate if a higher number of members in the group may produce some effect in the performance. With regard to the personality and anxiety effect on the group performance, anxiety did not reveal any relation, while literature affirmed that lower levels of anxiety may increase learning processes in online settings [21; 25; 26]. Perhaps, specific features of the tasks we applied may not be affected by individual state anxiety. On the contrary, lower scores of closeness and conscientiousness appear to increase the number of answers and studied words, and to decrease the number of non-studied words in the collaborative condition. Since a previous study showed that people with a lower score of conscientiousness appeared to prefer online training than FtF teaching [24], our results seem to partially confirm the literature, as less conscientious people show a better and more satisfying performance. Also, this study investigated possible gender differences in the relation between personality and performance. It was revealed that less conscientious females provided a higher number of answers, studied words and a lower number of false negatives in the collaborative condition. Hence, it appears that such personality feature may have a role in the group performance when females are in interactive circumstances, as in the collaborative condition. On the other hand, lower closeness, higher agreeableness, and lower surgency appear to enhance the males' performances in the collaborative, nominal and individual condition, respectively. Then, personality features affect the males' performance in all the experimental conditions, maybe revealing a wider role than in females' performance. Concerning gender effect, females perform better than males, both in the total sample and, particularly, in the nominal condition, by achieving a higher number of studied words. Also, female groups show a lower number of non-studied words in the collaborative condition, and a higher number of studied words in the total sample, individual condition, and nominal condition. Moreover, predominant female groups show a better performance than predominant male groups, since they display a higher number of studied words in the total sample, individual condition, and nominal condition. These results confirm literature that female groups [32] and predominant female groups [31] are suitable grouping for CSCL. Interestingly, a difference was found in the collaborative condition, highlighting the positive effect of collaboration in leveling best and worst performances, improving the latter [61]. Regarding the mixed-gender groups, they obtain a lower number of studied words in the collaborative condition. These results confirm literature about a better performance of the same-gender groups, perhaps because of a higher focus on the task [28]. Nevertheless, mixed-gender groups exhibit a lower number of non-studied words in the nominal condition. Perhaps the females' performance enhances the males' performance in this condition, thanks to females' individual performances that improve the results of the mixed-group [62]. Hence, a gender effect is also observed in VEs, and it is comparable to the effect in real environments.