Group Reports in the Online Platform: A Puzzle, a Ride in the Park or a Steep Slope: A Case Study of Multicultural Undergraduate Students in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Completion of group reports in multicultural classes in remote learning can be daunting for students and instructors. Although the needs and responsibilities of both parties differ, they effectively meet in the designing of appropriate assessment tasks and in the successful completion of the same. The process of group work in the online platform, as well as the challenges and possibilities presented to students and instructors differ from those of the face-to-face platform. The goal of the instructors and students is the completion of group tasks to achieve the intended learning outcomes and the successful academic satisfaction of undergraduate students. This paper addresses the efficacy of conducting research and completing group reports in academic study skills classes in the online platform, and it aims to explore the perception of undergraduate students towards the experience conducting research and completing questionnaires with the help of online tools. A sample size of fifty-eight undergraduate students were surveyed using a Likert-scale survey and the same students participated in completing reflective tasks, explaining their experience of conducting research and completing group reports using online tools. The findings revealed a set of positive and negative aspects of online collaboration; however, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. The study findings can be useful for practitioners and curriculum designers of a variety of subjects and especially those of academic writing classes as it sheds light on the benefits and challenges of collaborative learning for completion of group reports in the online platform.