It Group Work: Undergraduate Student Perceptions

Abstract: This article describes a quantitative study of university students’ perceptions of collaborative learning opportunities. Two cohorts of university students were surveyed: students enrolled at a US institution, and students enrolled at a German university. Results indicate that German students value collaborative learning experiences more than their US counterparts. INTRODUCTION Preparing today’s graduates for the global job market requires teaching technical skills, but also collaborative work values, the “soft skills” workplaces require. Students need to develop critical thinking and communication skills, and they need to be able to work independently as well as in teams. Over the last generation, collaborative learning has been an important pedagogical strategy in higher education classrooms [2]. More recently, computersupported learning has expanded opportunities for students to participate in collaborative experiences [10]. A great deal of research has looked at the affects of collaborative learning opportunities, both for traditional classroom-based projects and computer-based (asynchronous) work (3, 4, 5, 15]. Few studies, however, have focused on student perceptions of group work. This study is aimed at understanding how students understand and perceive the benefits of collaborative learning opportunities. In this paper, we present the findings from a quantitative study of two student populations: students enrolled at a U.S. university, and a cohort of German university students. While the study is not intended as comparative research, we are interested in the differences between the groups of students. Ultimately, results from the cohort of German students helps us understand the data gathered from U.S. students in different ways. In the next sections, we provide a brief literature related to collaborative learning. We then discuss the survey and methodology, and we conclude with implications and discussion. Collaborative Learning While collaborative learning has been researched extensively in elementary and secondary classrooms, it has only recently been the focus of higher education research [3, 11]. Gokhale [5] provides a basic definition: “the grouping and pairing of students for the purpose of achieving an academic goal” (p. 22). However, the process of collaborative learning is much more complex. Collaborative learning has its foundations in developmental psychology. The work of Vygotsky [13, 14], for example, has been instrumental in conceptualizing learning as connected to interaction and activity. According to Vygotsky, students perform at higher levels when they work in diverse groups, as opposed to working individually. Bruffee [2] notes: “knowing is not an unmediated, direct relationship between the subject and object. It is a disjunctive, mediated process involving the agency of other people...there is always another person—or several other people— directly or indirectly involved” (p. 137). In the case of the college classroom, “others” in the learning process include both faculty and peers. Faculty, however, serve primarily as facilitators rather than as “authorities” [2, 4, 8]. Students in these contexts are empowered to problem solve, think critically, and develop interpersonal skills [3]. The small group provides a kind of safe space in which students can develop these skills with the support of their peers. Collaborative learning also requires a restructuring of classroom time and space [3, 4]. Rather than relying on lectures, university faculty redesign classroom time for project-based or problem-based learning; students sit in groups rather than in rows facing an instructor. In this restructured classroom space, students can literally “see” the distribution of classroom leadership. Such classroom changes not only help develop small-group communities, but also help develop an institutional learning community [1]. Faculty, however, have an important role in the collaborative process. Faculty provide structure to the learning activity, intervene when students encounter problems, and provide important evaluative feedback