Collaboration Skills of 8th Grade Secondary Students in Science Learning With Engineering Design Activity

Abstract

Collaboration is now identified as an essential 21st century skills that make it become an important learning outcome. On the other hand, there is a growing demand to infuse engineering practices into science learning as it relies more on social involvement, such as collaboration, to solve problems. Thus research examining students' collaboration skills which emerge during activities involving engineering design is needed. Through observation method with rubric adapted from social skills of collaborative problem solving, emerging collaboration skills during collaborative engineering design processes are identified. The subject were 18 secondary students in 8th grade who were engaged in science lesson involving designing, constructing and testing analogical model of blocked artery and medical device to treat it. Varied level of participation, perspective taking and social regulation skills are evident throughout the lesson. Finding suggests that individual collaboration skills are dependent upon skills of collaborating partner