Collaborative Learning Groups Research Articles

EFL Teachers’ Views about The Application of Collaborative Learning at Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, Ethiopia

This study aims to investigate teachers’ views about the implementation of collaborative learning in English classes. Collaborative learning helps students to improve their English language performance. The data was collected through observation, questionnaires, and interview. The quantitative data were analyzed using percentage and frequency. Theme analysis technique was used to analyze the qualitative data. The result of the study indicated that most EFL teachers widely implement students’ collaborative learning, but the type of collaborative learning they are implementing is not collaborative group learning. Most of the teachers simply make their students to sit side by side to talk with each other as they do their individual assignments, and some teachers assign a task to groups.  Then, one or two of the group members do the work and the other group members get equal credit. Although each of these is important in collaborative learning, they do not qualify collaborative learning rather traditional group learning. The data obtained from teachers’ interview revealed that teachers widely implement both informal and base group collaborative learning since most of the teachers allow their students to work collaborative from few minutes to a class period and most of the groups (‘Net works’) formed are with stable membership for the semester. In addition to this, some teachers were not playing their roles as they are expected. Teachers and other concerned bodies ought to deliver sorts of orientations to the students about the importance of collaborative learning to maximize their views before implementing collaborative learning.

Learning Gap Assessment in Integrated Mathematics 9

The pandemic has profoundly impacted education, posing unprecedented challenges that demand immediate attention. Thus, this study was conducted to identify intervention activities that may be introduced on the learning gaps in Integrated Mathematics 9 for the First Quarter of the School Year 2022-2023. A quantitative quasi-experimental research using a pretest-posttest design was employed in this study and conducted on the 31 Grade 9 students of St. Paul University Surigao during the First Quarter of the School Year 2022-2023. A validated test was used to conduct the pretest and posttest to assess the learning gaps in Mathematics 9. Frequency, percentage distribution, and paired t-test were used in analyzing the data gathered. This study found that there are least-mastered competencies in the First Quarter of Mathematics 9. In addition, there is a significant difference in the pre-and posttest performance of the learners, especially after giving intervention activities such as drill, practice exercises, tutoring sessions, or small group instruction, peer tutoring and collaborative learning, expanded opportunity, explicit and technology-assisted instruction. Thus, the intervention improved learner performance and addressed least-mastered competencies. It is recommended for mathematics teachers to design further intervention materials targeting other least-learned competencies.

A proposal for blended language learning project focuses on ESL learners

The evolving societal landscape and technological advancements have redefined educational demands, leading to notable improvements in teaching methodologies driven by continuous technological evolution. Blended learning, a widely embraced approach, transcends traditional educational boundaries, emphasizing the paramount role of student communication and interaction in an era of extended education beyond physical classrooms. Collaborative learning groups are increasingly integrated into blended teaching, with group formation as a pivotal element. This study draws upon cognitivism, collaborative learning, and social interdependence principles to address issues within group cooperative activities in blended teaching. It leverages the strengths of blended teaching and collaborative learning, designing instructional activities and conducting action research in practical teaching settings. The research methodology unfolds in phases: a literature review explores the current landscape of blended collaborative learning, providing insights into challenges; a theoretical exploration, grounded in educational theory, delves into the design of teaching activities within blended environments; the technical investigation combines collaborative grouping with machine learning to propose innovative grouping strategies; and the action research phase validates findings through specific instructional courses and research subjects.

The role of first-language heterogeneity in the acquisition of online interaction self-efficacy in CSCL

The acquisition of online interaction competencies is an important learning objective. The present study explored the relationships between the first-language heterogeneity of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) groups and the development of students’ online interaction self-efficacy via a pretest–posttest design in the context of a nine-week CSCL course. The research participants were 1525 freshmen receiving distance education who were randomly assigned to 343 CSCL groups. Independent of their own language status, students in CSCL groups featuring first-language heterogeneity exhibited lower precourse–postcourse gains in online interaction self-efficacy than students in groups without heterogeneity. Consistent with a theoretically derived moderation model, the relationships between first-language heterogeneity and self-efficacy gains were moderated by the amount of time that the groups spent on task-related communication during the initial collaboration phase (i.e., the relationships were significant when little time was spent on it but not when a great deal of time was spent on it). In contrast, the amount of time that groups spent on communication related to getting to know each other was ineffective as a significant moderator. Follow-up analyses indicated that time spent getting to know each other in first-language heterogeneous CSCL groups seems to have had the paradoxical effect of increasing rather than decreasing perceptions of heterogeneity among group members. Apparently, this effect impaired online interaction self-efficacy gains.

How multiple levels of metacognitive awareness operate in collaborative problem solving

Metacognitive awareness is knowing about learners’ own thinking and learning, facilitated by introspection and self-evaluation. Although metacognitive functions are personal, they cannot be explained simply by individual conceptions, especially in a collaborative group learning context. This study considers metacognitive awareness on multiple levels. It investigates how metacognitive awareness at the individual, social, and environmental levels are associated with collaborative problem solving (CPS). Seventy-seven higher education students collaborated in triads on a computer-based simulation about running a fictional company for 12 simulated months. The individual level of metacognitive awareness was measured using the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory. The social level of metacognitive awareness was measured multiple times during CPS through situated self-reports, that is, metacognitive judgements and task difficulty. The environmental level of metacognitive awareness was measured via a complex CPS process so that group members’ interactions were video recorded and facial expression data were created by post-processing video-recorded data. Perceived individual and group performance were measured with self-reports at the end of the CPS task. In the analysis, structural equation modelling was conducted to observe the relationships between multiple levels of metacognitive awareness and CPS task performance. Three-level multilevel modelling was also used to understand the effect of environmental-level metacognitive awareness. The results reveal that facial expression recognition makes metacognitive awareness visible in a collaborative context. This study contributes to research on metacognition by displaying both the relatively static and dynamic aspects of metacognitive awareness in CPS.

Investigation and Research on Group Cooperative Learning in Junior High School Mathematics Teaching

Mathematics classroom under the concept of Curriculum Standard is one of the effective ways to cultivate students' autonomy, cooperation and inquiry. Cooperative learning is used to improve the efficiency of mathematics classroom. However, there are still some problems in the process of using it. One of the manifestations of some students in many schools is that they don't actively participate in group discussions in class, and the learning effect is obviously not high. Therefore, students in the mathematics classroom are analyzing the learning problems involved in the junior high school mathematics classroom at this stage, aiming at the existing effective methods and strategies, combining the characteristics of junior high school mathematics, and can use them to improve the efficiency of practical classroom teaching practice, so that group collaborative learning and junior high school mathematics classroom can be effectively integrated.

GCoNet+: A Stronger Group Collaborative Co-Salient Object Detector.

In this paper, we present a novel end-to-end group collaborative learning network, termed GCoNet+, which can effectively and efficiently (250 fps) identify co-salient objects in natural scenes. The proposed GCoNet+ achieves the new state-of-the-art performance for co-salient object detection (CoSOD) through mining consensus representations based on the following two essential criteria: 1) intra-group compactness to better formulate the consistency among co-salient objects by capturing their inherent shared attributes using our novel group affinity module (GAM); 2) inter-group separability to effectively suppress the influence of noisy objects on the output by introducing our new group collaborating module (GCM) conditioning on the inconsistent consensus. To further improve the accuracy, we design a series of simple yet effective components as follows: i) a recurrent auxiliary classification module (RACM) promoting model learning at the semantic level; ii) a confidence enhancement module (CEM) assisting the model in improving the quality of the final predictions; and iii) a group-based symmetric triplet (GST) loss guiding the model to learn more discriminative features. Extensive experiments on three challenging benchmarks, i.e., CoCA, CoSOD3k, and CoSal2015, demonstrate that our GCoNet+ outperforms the existing 12 cutting-edge models. Code has been released at https://github.com/ZhengPeng7/GCoNet_plus.

Unlocking the gender diversity–group performance link: the moderating role of relative cultural distance

PurposeThis study aims to shed light on the relationship between gender diversity and group performance by considering the moderating role of relative cultural distance. Drawing from the categorization–elaboration model (CEM), the authors hypothesize that gender-diverse collaborative learning groups perform better when a low level of relative cultural distance in country-level individualism–collectivism or power distance exists among group members.Design/methodology/approachTo test this hypothesis, the authors conducted a study on 539 undergraduate students organized into 94 groups. The assessment of group performance was based on scores given by external raters.FindingsThe authors found that relative cultural distance significantly moderated the gender diversity–group performance relationship such that gender diversity was positively related to group performance when the collaborative learning group included members who similarly valued individualism–collectivism or power distance (i.e. relative cultural distance was low) and was negatively related to group performance when the collaborative learning group comprised members who differently valued individualism–collectivism or power distance (i.e. relative cultural distance was high).Originality/valueThis study contributes to understanding when gender diversity is positively associated with group performance by expanding the range of previously examined diversity dimensions to include relative cultural distance in country-level individualism–collectivism and power distance.

Transition From Observational to Collaborative Learning to Augment Practical Skill Training in First-Year Medical Students.

Introduction Students exhibit less interest in hematology demonstration experiments as they are not expected to do it during their examination. Adopting a different strategy, like collaborative learning, might spark interest, motivate them to work together towards a shared objective, and help further learning and understanding. The current study aimed to assess the effectiveness of collaborative learning in comparison with traditional practical demonstration. Methodology First MBBS students were divided into two groups of 50 each (1 - collaborative learning, 2 - traditional demonstration). In the traditional demonstration, the experiment was demonstrated by faculty using the required materials. In the collaborative learning method, 50 students were divided into groups (seven of seven each) and each group was provided with procedural details of the experiment and requisite materials. At the end of the experiment, assessment was done. In collaborative learning groups, the team cohesion scale (TCS) was employed to analyze group dynamics.Students' perceptions, and feedback regarding collaborative learning as a tool in practical experiments were collected using a five-point Likert scale. Results Post-experiment assessment scores in collaborative learning (8.65±1.54) were significantly higher than the traditional demonstration group (7.06±1.46). High scorers in TCS consistently belonged to groups that completed the experiment on time (positive outcome), whereas students with low scores often belonged to groups that did not complete the experiment (negative outcome). Conclusion Collaborative learning may be used for practical teaching in medical education as it fosters good communication, enables problem-solving, aiding the Indian medical graduate in fulfilling the role of a team member.

Mathematics teachers’ perceptions and challenges in using blended learning for optimum mathematics delivery in the post COVID - 19 classrooms

The study examined mathematics teachers’ perceptions and challenges in using blended learning for optimum mathematics delivery in the post Covid-19 classrooms in Anambra State, Nigeria. Descriptive survey design was adopted. Two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The population for the study was 89 mathematics teachers in Awka Education zone of Anambra State. The population was made up of 54 mathematics teachers in urban areas and 35 mathematics teachers in rural areas. A 20-item “Questionnaire for Mathematics Teachers’ Perceptions and Challenges in using Blended Learning for Optimum Mathematics Delivery (QMTPCBLOMD)” was validated by three experts and rated on four Likert scales. Cronbach Alpha was used to establish the reliability co-efficient of the instrument. The Cronbach Alpha reliability co-efficient was estimated at 0.84. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation, while the hypothesis was tested using z-test at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study showed that both urban and rural mathematics teachers perceived blended learning as the learning process that provides forum for interactive learning, promotes e-learning, fosters collaborative learning experience, incorporates both personalized and group learning, helps to share mathematics information and ideas globally and promotes student-centred learning. Challenges in using blended learning include lack of ICT compliance, low level of interest in mathematics, time factor, low speed connectivity and poor funding of secondary education. There was no significant difference between the mean response of perceptions of urban and rural mathematics teachers in using blended learning for optimum mathematics delivery in the post COVID-19 classrooms. It was recommended among others that both mathematics teachers and students should be ICT compliant and adequate time should be given for teaching of mathematics. Then capacity building workshop on blended learning should be organized for both mathematics teachers and students and government should fund secondary education adequately.

A comparative study on digital versus traditional flashcards of an individual vs group study in learning spellings as well as word production in context

This research aimed to compare the effectiveness of digital versus traditional flashcards as both an individual and group study tool for improving spelling and contextual word production skills. The study involved participants who were divided into four distinct groups: traditional flashcard group study, digital flashcard group study, individual traditional flashcard study, and individual digital flashcard study. The orthographic production test and word production test were administered to assess participants' performance. The results indicated that both individual study approaches, using either traditional or digital flashcards, led to high performance in the orthographic production test. Surprisingly, the traditional flashcard group study also exhibited comparable results. In contrast, the digital flashcard group study had the lowest performance. In the word production test, the traditional flashcard group study demonstrated exceptional performance, while the individual digital flashcard study group did not fall significantly behind. The other two groups showed average performance. Further analysis revealed that the traditional flashcard group study excelled in word production, suggesting that group dynamics and collaborative learning positively influenced the ability to produce words accurately. Similarly, the digital flashcard group study showed some improvement in word production, albeit to a lesser extent. Regarding orthographic test results, individual training using either traditional or digital flashcards yielded better outcomes compared to group study in both settings. The survey responses indicated a preference for self-study in learning spelling, emphasizing the importance of individualized approaches. These findings highlight the varying impacts of digital and traditional flashcards as well as individual versus group study on spelling and contextual word production skills. The tactile nature and engaging interactions of traditional flashcards appeared to enhance performance, while the digital flashcard approach was perceived more as an individual task. The study emphasizes the importance of considering diverse learning strategies to optimize language learning outcomes. Future research should delve deeper into the underlying factors that contribute to the differential effectiveness of group and individual flashcard study in various linguistic tasks. Additionally, exploring different variables such as learner preferences, motivation, and attention during flashcard use could provide valuable insights for instructional practices.

The Influence of Internet-Specific Epistemic Beliefs on Academic Achievement in an Online Collaborative Learning Context for College Students

Online collaborative learning has become a new norm for online teaching at colleges, and improving the quality of online collaborative learning is an inevitable requirement for deepening the information age of education. This paper establishes a multiple mediating effect model based on a self-regulated learning integration model to explore the influence of college students’ Internet-specific epistemic beliefs on academic achievement in online collaborative learning contexts. The results of a survey of 503 college students participating in online group collaborative learning showed that college students’ Internet-specific epistemic beliefs in online collaborative learning contexts significantly and positively predicted academic achievement. Moreover, college students’ metacognitive strategies partially mediated the relationship between Internet-specific epistemic justification and academic achievement. In addition, college students’ mastery goal orientation and achievement approach goal orientation had significant partial mediating effects between Internet-specific epistemic beliefs and academic achievement. College students’ mastery goal orientation and metacognitive strategies had significant chain mediating effects between Internet-specific epistemic beliefs and academic achievement. Finally, suggestions, significance, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

How to promote and sustain active-learning pedagogical reforms in University Physics through instructor apprenticeship

We describe a pedagogical reform at George Washington University and the means by which this innovation has been sustained over 14 years. We present the SCALE-UP collaborative group-learning approach and show data on student learning gains that confirm the effectiveness of this pedagogical methodology. By pairing experienced instructors with new instructors unfamiliar with the pedagogical approach, the new instructors can see the pedagogy in action and learn the techniques so they can conduct their own classes in later semesters. Over this period, we have involved 24 separate physics instructors (and also 8 astronomy instructors) who have taught class sections in this collaborative group-learning mode.

Individualistic Versus Collaborative Learning in an eHealth Literacy Intervention for Older Adults: Quasi-Experimental Study.

Older adults tend to have insufficient health literacy, which includes eHealth literacy-the ability to access, assess, and use digital health information. Interventions using methods such as collaborative learning (CL) and individualistic learning (IL) may be effective in addressing older adults' low eHealth literacy, but little is known about the short- and long-term effects of CL versus IL on older adults' eHealth literacy. The objective of this study was to use a 3 × 2 × 3 mixed factorial design to examine older adults' learning with CL versus IL for eHealth literacy. Older adults (N=466; mean age 70.5, SD 7.2; range 60-96 years) from diverse racial and ethnic groups were randomly assigned to either the CL or IL group (233/466, 50% in each). The intervention consisted of 4 weeks of training in 2-hour sessions held twice a week. Using ANOVA and multiple regression, we focused on the main effects of learning condition and interaction between learning condition and previous computer experience. Learning method (CL or IL) and previous computer experience (experienced, new, or mixed) were between-subject variables, and time of measurement (pretest measurement, posttest measurement, and 6-month follow-up) was the within-subject variable. Primary outcome variables were eHealth literacy efficacy, computer and web knowledge, basic computer and web operation skills, information-seeking skills, and website evaluation skills. Control variables were age, sex, education, health status, race and ethnicity, income, primary language, and previous health literacy. eHealth literacy efficacy, computer and web knowledge, basic computer and web operation skills, information-seeking skills, and website evaluation skills improved significantly (P<.001 in all cases) from before to after the intervention. From postintervention measurement to 6-month follow-up, there was a significant interaction between learning condition and previous computer experience based on 1 outcome measure, computer and web operation skills (F2,55=3.69; P=.03). To maintain computer and web operation skills 6 months after the intervention, it was more effective for people with little to no previous computer experience to learn individually, whereas for people with more previous computer experience, it was more effective to learn collaboratively. From postintervention measurement to 6-month follow-up, statistically significant decreases were found in 3 of the 5 outcome measures: eHealth literacy efficacy, computer and web knowledge, and basic computer and web operation skills (P<.001 for all 3 cases). Older adults' eHealth literacy can be improved through effective intervention, and the IL or CL condition may have little effect on short-term outcomes. However, to maintain long-term benefits, it may be best to learn collaboratively with others who have similar previous computer experience. eHealth literacy is multidimensional, with some components retained better over time. Findings suggest a need for resources to provide continuous training or periodic boosting to maintain intervention gains.

Applying Scrum in an Online Physics II Undergraduate Course: Effect on Student Progression and Soft Skills Development

The everchanging higher education landscape dictates the need for innovative, engaging, and efficient teaching methods along with promoting soft skills among the students. Scrum’s framework for effective group work and its methodology tools is a perfect fit to this end since it has been previously applied in higher education for enhancing collaborative learning and developing skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem solving. This paper describes how Scrum was used remotely for a small portion of the students enrolled in an online Physics II undergraduate course during the pandemic lockdown period of an Electronic Engineering School. The primary goal was to investigate the feasibility of Scrum under remote teaching conditions as a facilitator of collaborative group learning. A secondary objective was to observe the students’ interactive engagement in distance learning, along with the possible advancement of soft skills. The paper concludes with the result analysis of the feedback collected from the teachers and the students involved in this study.

Exploration of a group assessment model to foster student teachers’ critical thinking

Though peer assessment has been widely recognized as an effective teaching approach to develop learners’ critical thinking, pedagogical strategies and analysis of students’ peer assessment at the group level but not individual level are underexplored. Group assessment is emphasized in this study by focusing on assessing peer-group work. In the context of 40 student teachers participating in online group assessment activities, this study revealed critical thinking patterns and their correlation with group performances by content analysis and epistemic network analysis (ENA). The results showed that participants’ critical thinking in group assessment activities mainly stayed at the level of understand. The high-score groups’ critical thinking had more connections between understand and evaluate, while the low-score groups’ critical thinking had more connections between recognize and understand, and understand and analyse. In addition, the high- and low-score groups showed different characteristics of critical thinking at different stages and different tasks of group assessment activity. Diversified and developmental critical thinking patterns could be found in the high-score groups, while the low-score groups tended to maintain single and fixed critical thinking patterns. Finally, the discussion and suggestions of intervention for critical thinking development of high- and low-score groups are provided to help design and implement online collaborative learning activities and group assessment activities in the future.

GrCol-PPFL: User-Based Group Collaborative Federated Learning Privacy Protection Framework

With the increasing number of smart devices and the development of machine learning technology, the value of users’ personal data is becoming more and more important. Based on the premise of protecting users’ personal privacy data, federated learning (FL) uses data stored on edge devices to realize training tasks by contributing training model parameters without revealing the original data. However, since FL can still leak the user's original data by exchanging gradient information. The existing privacy protection strategy will increase the uplink time due to encryption measures. It is a huge challenge in terms of communication. When there are a large number of devices, the privacy protection cost of the system is higher. Based on these issues, we propose a privacy-preserving scheme of user-based group collaborative federated learning (GrCol-PPFL). Our scheme primarily divides participants into several groups and each group communicates in a chained transmission mechanism. All groups work in parallel at the same time. The server distributes a random parameter with the same dimension as the model parameter for each participant as a mask for the model parameter. We use the public datasets of modified national institute of standards and technology database (MNIST) to test the model accuracy. The experimental results show that GrCol-PPFL not only ensures the accuracy of the model, but also ensures the security of the user’s original data when users collude with each other. Finally, through numerical experiments, we show that by changing the number of groups, we can find the optimal number of groups that reduces the uplink consumption time.

A review of collaborative assessment strategies in online learning

Online collaborative learning is increasingly used in online courses in higher education, but assessing student online collaborative learning presents unique challenges as well as interesting opportunities. Thus, it is critical to gain a clear picture of online group collaboration assessment strategies, including group learning assessment methods and examining the effectiveness, challenges, and opportunities in online education. The present study systematically reviewed 12 empirical studies on online collaborative learning assessment in higher education published in journals from 2011 to 2021. The results show that diverse strategies were used to facilitate group collaboration, including group agreements, project planning, role assignments, problem-based projects, and instructor feedback. The reviewed studies primarily evaluated learners through instructor evaluation, peer evaluation, and self-evaluation methods. The most common strategy was instructor assessment, while self-evaluations were used the least. The findings of this mapping review provide practical examples for future online group collaborative learning assessment research and practice.

The impact of working memory capacity on collaborative learning in elementary school students.

Working memory capacity may be a critical factor that influences the effectiveness of collaborative learning; however, no studies have directly explored this effect. Using worked examples as learning tasks, Experiment 1 used a 2 (working memory capacity) × 2 (learning format) factorial design to examine the effects of collaborative learning versus individual learning of 4th-grade Chinese elementary school students with different working memory capacities. High-capacity learners displayed less working memory resource depletion and better transfer performance during collaborative learning than individual learning. In contrast, no differences were found among the low-capacity learners. Collaborative learning benefited high-capacity learners but not low-capacity learners, per our observations. To further optimize collaborative learning for low-capacity learners and expand the findings to heterogeneous collaborative learning, Experiment 2 adopted a 2 (member capacity) × 2 (group capacity) factorial design to explore the effects of member and group working memory capacity on collaborative learning in heterogeneous groups. High-capacity members displayed less working memory resource depletion and better far transfer performance in high-capacity groups compared to low-capacity groups. Simultaneously, all members had better near transfer performance in high-capacity groups compared to low-capacity groups. Both member and group working memory capacities influenced the effect of heterogeneous collaborative learning. However, low-capacity members only partially benefited from collaborative learning in high-capacity heterogeneous groups.

EVALUATION PROCESS OF COLLABORATIVE GROUP LEARNING AND THE FEELINGS IT ENGENDERS WITH REFERENCE TO MATHEMATICAL SUBJECTS TAUGHT WITH THE HELP OF ELECTRICAL RESISTORS: APPLICATION IN THE TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY

This work refers to a teaching evaluation of a collaborative group learning lesson by a second group of teachers who were present in the classroom during the lesson. This collaborative teaching was to do with the learning of simple concepts of fractional numbers by Technical School students who, despite their school class level and their age, had not managed to grasp these concepts earlier and could not understand them. The teaching was carried out with the help of measurements of variable resistors. After the end of the teaching, success of the programme was evaluated positively by other teachers who had been present in the classroom during the actual lesson, basing their findings on a series of criteria. At the same time there appeared a differentiation of the opinions and emotions generated in the students after this approach which correlated with the way the teacher taught the lesson and the form of peer evaluated teaching. Positive results showed the success of the teaching as did the repetition of the process with a test after one month using similar fractional concepts (done in the students’ notebooks).