Relationships between Learning Styles, Perceived Advantages of Online Collaborative Learning and Practical Knowledge in Teaching among Taiwanese Student Teachers

Shih-Hsiung Liu

doi:10.5539/ass.v13n11p34

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the three learning styles (collaborative, competitive, and individualistic) on the perceived advantage of collaborative learning (PAoCL) and practical knowledge in teaching (PKiT) among Taiwanese student teachers in an online collaborative environment. This study built a Facebook Group and developed the tasks of collaborative learning based on field-experience courses. The participants were required to share various practical experiences as the collaborative learning tasks. A total of 100 student teachers who enrolled in field-based courses between August 2016 and January 2017 participated in this study and were required to complete a validated survey in January 2017. This study determined the relationships between the three learning styles and PAoCL and PKiT and further identified predictors of online collaborative learning. The collaborative learning style of student teachers was positively associated with their PAoCL, while competitive learning style was correlated with their PKiT. Accordingly, teacher educators can encourage student teachers to share experiences about teaching practices during participating in field-experience courses through online collaboration. However, teacher educators should remind the student teachers to transfer the online information into PKiT.

Highlights

In Taiwan, student teachers have to enroll in field-experience courses for six months
Analytical result shows that all learning styles were positively associated with perceived advantage of collaborative learning (PAoCL) as well as practical knowledge in teaching (PKiT) (p=0.000
When the tolerance value (TOL) exceeds 0.10, the variance inflation factor (VIF) is less than 10, the condition index (CI) is less than 30 and the eigenvalue is more than 0.01, the multi-collinearity problem does not exist for independent variables

Summary

Introduction

In Taiwan, student teachers have to enroll in field-experience courses for six months. A cooperating teacher with teaching experiences supports a student teacher. The teacher education system of Taiwan did not train experienced teachers to be cooperating teachers with mentoring competences, resulting in that student teachers did not necessarily have enough opportunities to obtain sufficient training as a teacher. The field-experience is a platform to bridge the theory and practice gap in initial teacher education (Coffey, 2010; Darling-Hammond, 2006). Student teachers are expected to obtain practical knowledge during practicum. When student teachers cannot experience sufficient teaching practices, they would encounter unanticipated obstacles in understanding teaching works

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Conclusion