Learning Culture of CHC Students: Its Support and Challenge to Cooperative Learning

Abstract

Literature on educational change has warned that students play an important role in determining the success of educational reforms. Whatever reform is planned, reformers have to remember that the reform should not be in serious conflict with students’ learning culture. Therefore, to ensure the possibility of highly successful cooperative learning reforms in CHC classrooms, this chapter aims to investigate disjunctions between cooperative learning principles and CHC students’ learning culture. Based on perspectives about cultural change and findings of relevant empirical studies, the chapter argues that to keep CHC students interested in adopting cooperative learning, some cooperative learning principles should be modified to match unchangeable/hard-to-change cultural values of CHC students. The chapter points out three potential disjunctions between cooperative learning principles and CHC students’ learning culture including mixed-ability grouping versus friendship grouping, role-rotating grouping vs. leader-led grouping and intra-peer assessment versus inter-peer assessment. The chapter finally reports an empirical study that examined Vietnamese students’ responses to these mismatches and suggested that in the CHC context the principle of forming mixed-ability groups recommended by cooperative learning researchers should be replaced by friendship groups, the role-rotating grouping concept should change to leader-led grouping, and intergroup peer assessment should be given priority over intragroup peer assessment.