Student attitudes towards socially acceptable and unacceptable group working practices

Abstract

While there is much support for co-operative learning among learning theorists, not all learners exhibit the same enthusiasm for groupwork. A number of factors such as sex, group size and ability mix, subject domain, task type and organization have been shown to influence the effectiveness of co-operative and collaborative learning. This study established learners' attitudes to various shared working scenarios. In this mixed design, 140 post-graduate teacher trainees were asked to imagine their responses to seven groupwork scenarios presented as a series of short vignettes. The vignettes varied on the degree of co-operation required; the sex of the prospective co-worker(s) including single and mixed-sex groups; type of assessment, including no assessment at all; and on academically acceptable and unacceptable 'shared' working practices. Anticipated attitudinal and behavioural responses of the students were assessed by questionnaire. On the whole, students were cautiously willing to be involved in groupwork. There were caveats, however. Factors such as the characteristics of the group members, the level and type of assessment procedures in operation, and individual differences, including sex and self-reported social deviance, also governed their responses. There was very limited agreement to be involved in socially undesirable collaborative group activities at a personal level or to condone such activities by others. Those students who showed a tendency towards mild anti-social behaviour were more willing to take direct punitive action against non-contributors than their peers. Female students were more willing to invoke the help of the tutor than their male counterparts, but only if the anti-social behaviour impacted on them personally.

Teachers’ leadership and students’ experience of group work

“…Even if group work in education has been examined in numerous studies, there is still much to be discovered concerning students' experiences of group work in schools. There are few reports from a student perspective (Cantwell & Andrews, 2002;Hansen, 2006;Peterson & Miller, 2004;Underwood, 2003). To sum up the results, positive experiences resulted from the necessity of all group members participating and showing respect for each other.…”

“…In addition, the students emphasise the importance of understandable goals, tasks, and organisation (Hansen, 2006). According to Underwood (2003) and Peterson and Miller (2004), there is also a problem with students who do not contribute to the group work, so-called free-riders.…”

“…Previous studies in this research area have shown that feedback and rewards are highly relevant factors when organising group work (Hammar Chiriac, 2010a;Steiner, 1972Steiner, , 1976Underwood, 2003). Webb (1997) suggests that there are different and identifiable reasons for assessing students' group work.…”

Using a shared workspace and wireless laptops to improve collaborative project learning in an engineering design class

“…Strategies being considered for future implementations of this project class include better guidance about the use of the management group folders, making more explicit the benefits of group sharing and modifications to the assessment requirements so as to reward the transfer of resources from project folders to the management group folder. Research indicates that these factors might exert a positive influence over students' attitudes to group working and resource sharing (Walker, 2001;Underwood, 2003).…”

“…This requires that members of the group plan, negotiate and co-ordinate their activities and share information and resources. Research has shown that such collaborative activities can be beneficial to individual learning (Cohen, 1994, Slavin, 1994Quin, Johnson & Johnson, 1995;Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 1998;deCorte, 1998) although it has also been shown that these benefits are dependent on both the quality of the learner interaction and on the attitudes of students to group collaboration (Walker, 2001, Underwood, 2003.…”