Abstract
This chapter explores how participants responded to the CL that experienced during the teaching intervention. The quantitative findings concerning students’ perceptions of the learning approaches used are reported first. Attention then turns to the effect of CL on participants’ learning preferences, using Cantwell and Andrews’s (2002) instrument for investigation. Finally, the reported positive attainments are further presented. All of these results are derived from the CL questionnaire, and the qualitative findings were gleaned from students’ learning journals and open-ended questions of the CL questionnaire.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Seven items were included in this scale (see Sect. 5.1.2.2). These items were labeled as CQ1T1, CQ7T1, CQ9T1, CQ20T1, CQ23T1, CQ25T1, and CQ29T1 in the pre-test (Time 1), and were named CQ1T2, CQ7T2, CQ9T2, CQ20T2, CQ23T2, CQ25T2, and CQ29T2 in the post-test (Time 2). CQ1T1, CQ1T2, CQ9T1, and CQ9T2 were reverse-scored for the consistency of all variables, where “1” became “5”, “2” became “4”, “3” remained unchanged, “4” became “2”, and “5” became “1”. Based on this procedure, CQ1T1, CQ1T2, CQ9T1, CQ9T2 were recoded and therefore new variables were obtained: CQ1T1 → CQ1_T1, CQ1T2 → CQ1_T2, CQ9T1 → CQ9_T1, and CQ9T2 → CQ9_T2. In order to compare students’ preferences for individual learning between Time 1 and Time 2, two new variables Individual_T1 and Individual_T2 were computed. This was done by adding the respective scores of the seven items at Time 1 and Time 2. Thus, the target variables: Individual_T1 = Sum (CQ1_T1 + CQ7T1 + CQ9_T1 + CQ20T1 + CQ23T1 + CQ25T1 + CQ29T1) and Individual_T2 = Sum (CQ1_T2 + CQ7T2 + CQ9_T2 + CQ20T2 + CQ23T2 + CQ25T2 + CQ29T2).
- 2.
There were seven items in this scale: Items 4, 12, 13, 16, 19, 22, and 24. Same approaches and procedures were used to compute the following variables.
Collaborative_T1 = Sum (CQ4T1 + CQ12T1 + CQ13T1 + CQ16T1 + CQ19T1 + CQ22T1 + CQ24T1), and Collaborative_T2 = Sum (CQ4T2 + CQ12T2 + CQ13T2 + CQ16T2 + CQ19T2 + CQ22T2 + CQ24T2). No items were reverse-scored.
- 3.
Four items were included: Items 3, 6, 17 and 27. New variables were computed for analysis. Discomfort_T1 = Sum (CQ3T1 + CQ6T1 + CQ17T1 + CQ27T1) and Discomfort_T2 = Sum (CQ3T2 + CQ6T2 + CQ17T2 + CQ27T2). No items were reverse-scored.
References
Alexander R, Rose J, Woodhead C (1992) Curriculum organization and classroom practice in primary schools: a discussion paper. DES, London
Atkinson D (1997) A critical approach to critical thinking in TESOL. TESOL Q 31(1):71–94
Barfield RL (2003) Students’ perceptions of and satisfaction with group grades and the group experience in the college classroom. Assess Eval High Educ 28(4):355–369
Benesch S (1999) Thinking critically. Thinking Dialogically. TESOL Q 33(3):573–580
Bennett N, Blundell D (1983) Quantity and quality of work in rows and classroom groups. Educ Psychol 3:93–105
Bruner J (1985) Vygotsky: an historical and conceptual perspective. In: Wertsch J (ed) Culture, communication, and cognition: Vygotskian perspective. Cambridge University Press, London, pp 21–34
Cantwell RH, Andrews B (2002) Cognitive and psychological factors underlying secondary students’ feelings towards group work. Educ Psychol Int J Exp Educ Psychol 22(1):75–91
Clément R, Dörnyei Z, Noels KA (1994) Motivation, self-confidence and group cohesion in the foreign language classroom. Lang Learn 44(3):417–448
Cohen EG (1994) Designing group work: strategies for the heterogeneous classroom, 2nd edn. Teachers College Press, New York
Cox D, Berger C (1985) The Importance of group size in the use of problem-solving skills on a microcomputer. J Educ Comput Res 1(4):459–468
Day R (2002) Critical thinking in the EFL classroom. In: From the 11th international symposium on English teaching/4th pan Asian conference. Taipei, 8–10th November 2002. Crane, Taipei, pp 72–78
Dean JY (1992) Organizing learning in the primary school classroom. Routledge, London
Dörnyei Z (1997) Psychological processes in cooperative language Learning: group dynamics and motivation. Mod Lang J 81(4):482–493
Dörnyei Z (2001) Teaching and researching motivation. In: Christopher N, David R (eds) Applied linguistics in action series. Pearson Education Limited, Harlow
Fisher R (1998) Teaching thinking: philosophical enquiry in the classroom. Cassel, London
Fox H (1994) Listening to the world: cultural issues in academic writing. National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana
Gatfield T (1999) Examining student satisfaction with group projects and peer assessment. Assess Eval High Educ 24(4):365–377
Gokhale AA (1995) Collaborative learning enhances critical thinking. J Technol Educ 7(1):22–30
Gupta ML (2004) Enhancing student performance through cooperative learning in physical sciences. Assess Eval High Educ 29(1):63–73
Hussain RMR (2004) A collaborative learning experience of evaluating a web-based learning tool. Malays Online J Instr Technol (MOJIT) 1(2):67–72
Johnson DW, Johnson RT (1989) Cooperation and completion: theory and research. Interaction Book Company, Edina
Johnson DW, Johnson RT (1998) Cooperative learning and social interdependence theory. In: Tindale RS et al (eds) Theory and research on small groups. Plenum Press, New York, pp 9–35
Johnson DW, Johnson RT (1999) Learning together and alone: cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning, 5th edn. Allyn and Bacon, Boston
Johnston CG, James RH, Lye JN, McDonald IM (2000) An evaluation of collaborative problem solving for learning economics. J Econ Educ 31(1):13–29
Jones A, Issroff K (2005) Learning technologies: affective and social issues in computer-supported collaborative learning. Comput Educ 44(4):395–408
Kagan S (1994) Cooperative learning. Resources for Teachers Inc, San Clemente
Kutnick P (1994) Use and effectiveness of groups in classrooms: towards pedagogy. In Kutnick P, Rogers C (eds) Groups in schools. Cassel, London
Littlewood W (2000) Do Asian students really want to listen and obey? ELT J 54(1):31–36
Long MH, Porter PA (1985) Group work, interlanguage talk, and second language acquisition. TESOL Q 19(2):207–228
Maesin A, Mansor M, Shafie LA, Nayan S (2009) A study of collaborative learning among Malaysian undergraduates. Asian Soc Sci 5(7):70–76
Sharan S (1980) Cooperative learning in small groups: recent methods and effects on achievement, attitudes and ethnic relations. Rev Educ Res 50(2):241–271
Slavin RE (1995) Cooperative learning: theory, research and practice, 2nd edn. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Sutherland J (2006) Promoting group talk and higher-order thinking in pupils by “coaching” secondary English trainee teachers. Literacy 40(2):106–114
Totten S, Sills T, Digby A, Russ P (1991) Cooperative learning: a guide to research. Garland, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lin, L. (2015). Collaboration as Conducive to Learning: Students’ Preferences for Learning and Attainments. In: Investigating Chinese HE EFL Classrooms. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44503-7_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44503-7_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-44502-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-44503-7
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)