The literature suggested many interpretations of the term “learning culture”. In Chapter 2, it was reported that it is used predominantly in the organisational learning context. In this study, the idea of learning cultures has been approached as a holistic collection of practices emerging out of the attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and approaches to learning of the members of a PBL team, which influenced their learning in that PBL team.
Through cross-case analysis it was found that the PBL teams fell into three groups and therefore three different learning cultures that were adopted by students in their PBL teams were identified. These learning cultures are:
• Finishing culture
• Performing culture
• Collaborative learning culture
From the analysis of the data, it was evident that these different learning cultures in PBL teams were consciously or unconsciously shaped by students through their participation in the activity.
In this section the different learning cultures that emerged in eight PBL teams will be defined and described. The members of these eight teams are presented in Table 6.1 below. It can be noticed that the twelve students who were described in Chapter 5: Edward, Ali, Jacob, Khadir, Theo, Lucas, Phillip, Timothy, Claire, Matt, Jeff and Bruce are members of these eight PBL teams.
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Table 6.1 Team members of eight PBL teams
Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 Team 5 Team 6 Team 7 Team 8
Semester 1 Ali Khadir Abraham Raja Michael Edward Matt Theo Alex James Lucas Mark Murat Jay Muttaiah Timothy Murali Rajesh Mike Arjuna Claire Rod Damien Cathy Sasha Jacob Abdul Duong Haan Dean Fitrio Bruce Phillip Lachlan Gregory Nathan Jeff Suleiman Yassar Henry Jarrod Semester 2 Ali Khadir Abraham Raja Kumar Khan Edward Matt Luke Taylor Brett Leigh Timothy Murali Mike Theo Lucas Claire Rod Damien David Andrew Michael Bruce Phillip Lachlan Alex Jacob Sanjay Leon Jeff Cathy Murat Henry Jarrod Yassar
The students in the first year electrical engineering degree exhibited considerable diversity in educational background, age, country of origin, ethnic background, language background and work experience. Each team was categorised as homogeneous or heterogeneous based on the ethnicity, school experience, previous work experience, and age of its members.
Gender diversity was not extensively considered initially as there were only four female students out of the 79 students enrolled in the course. Three of the female students were in Team 5 in Semester 1. The other female student was in a team that is not mentioned in this dissertation. However, the issue of gender was considered when later analysis revealed that gender had a strong influence on the behaviour of some team members.
Fifty students consented to participate in this study and this included all members of nine of the 14 teams in Semester 1. Eight teams are discussed in this chapter to provide a general insight into the overall PBL setting in first year undergraduate electrical engineering degree programme. In Semester 2, due to attrition and some students repeating the PBL Subject 1, some teams were dissolved and the remaining
138 members in those teams were asked by PBL supervisors to self-select other teams. Supervisors also allocated students to teams if they were unable to find a team.
As described in Chapter 4, students in this PBL setting solved three problems in Semester 1 and a project in Semester 2. The first problem that students solved in Semester 1 was an individual problem as well as a team building exercise. Students were asked to self-select their team members for the rest of the semester while they solved Problem 1 in the laboratory. By the end of Week 2 most students managed to select their team. Other students were allocated into teams by PBL supervisors.
A summary of the characteristics of three teams are presented in Table 6.2 below to illustrate the method of analysis. A summary of the characteristics of all the eight teams are presented in Appendix 11.
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Table 6.2 Summary table of PBL team characteristics
Membership Group processes Team
leadership
Learning approaches Approaches to PBL Learning
culture T ea m 1 5 Students – Sem 1. 5 Students (including 2 new students) – Sem 2 Mixed ethnicity Local & International students
Diverse school experience Same age group
Students formed groups within the team, lack of respect for other students, team work was constantly interrupted and students contributed to self-selected individual tasks. No co-ordination. No effective group processes
Leadership was seen a powerful role and students competed for authority. There was more than 1 student leading the team at a given time.
All students had surface motive and aimed at completing individual tasks. Used surface learning strategies and focussed towards passing the subject. Students rarely engaged in subject related conversations during team meetings.
Students solved individual tasks. Sometimes solutions of other teams were copied. Information was not shared, group discussion was not observed and tasks were completed on a superficial level. Students advised PBL was about improving writing skills. At times the teacher helped the team to problem solve.
Finishing culture T ea m 4 5 Students(1 dropped out) – Sem 1 5 Students (2 new) – Sem 2. Mixed ethnicity Local students Diverse school and work experience Different age groups (1 mature a student)
Students rarely socialised. Dominant member of the team organised the team work and delegated tasks to other students. He influenced the passive behaviour of most students as he did not trust them to complete the tasks.
Leadership was not effective. Mature age student dominated the team functioning and automatically assumed leadership.
1 student was career motivated and took an achieving approach. 3 students had a surface motive. They did not seek to perceive the new knowledge that they were exposed to by the leader. Group discussion or team work was not evident. These students used a surface approach.
The mature age student influenced the passive behaviour of other students. He thoroughly but individually solved problems and exceeded the expectation of the teacher.
1 student assisted this student in laboratory work; another assisted in testing circuits that were already tested by him. Performing Culture T ea m 8 5 students in Sem 1 6 students in Sem 2 Multicultural Local & International students
Diverse school and work experience Different age groups (1 mature age student)
Students socialised, were inclusive of each member. They took responsible roles and displayed positive team working behaviour. Students collaborated with each other and shared every task. They often met unsupervised and face-to- face to problem solve as a group. Students criticised, provided feedback and supported each other.
1 leader throughout the year. Outstanding leadership, team building, management and supportive qualities observed.
1 student was deeply motivated. Others were motivated to achieve high grades. The deeply motivated student became the leader of the group and influenced other team members to approach deep learning.
Students demonstrated outstanding communication, interpersonal, problem solving and time management skills. They consistently worked hard and produced more than one solution to each problem.
Collaborative learning culture
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6.2.1 Teams that adopted a finishing culture
6.2.1.1 Team 1
In Semester 1 Ali, Khadir, Abraham, Raja, and Michael were members of Team 1. Ali and Khadir were two of the twelve students described in Chapter 5. Ali, Khadir and Abraham were local students of African origin. Raja was an international student from India and Michael had travelled interstate to Victoria to pursue his educational goals. In Week 2, during the team selection exercise, Michael made some strong racial comments and expressed his beliefs about people of different ethnic background in a laboratory classroom filled with multicultural students. He tagged, labelled and generalised about persons of different ethnicity and earned the dislike of most of the students who were in the laboratory. Because of his racial prejudices, Michael was rejected by many teams. When his supervisor allocated him to this team, he was not willing to join them but was left with no other choice.
Ali and Khadir went to secondary school in Africa and in Australia. They were friends before joining this course. Abraham had recently migrated to Australia with his family. Because of his innocence of the “way of life” in Australia and its geography, he soon became the clown of the class. He often did not remember the names of roads and pronounced the names of suburbs differently to the local pronunciation. Abraham was made fun of by Ali and Khadir on many occasions but, they also remained very supportive to Abraham, socialised with him and informed him about things that he needed to know for his day-to-day life. Ali and Khadir lent Abraham a helping hand and let him do things at his own pace. They showed him around the campus, helped him access the library and also took him on a tour of the health and recreation centre. In the process, they started to build a small group within the team. Michael and Raja did not seem to understand why Abraham needed more time.
Michael was unsympathetic about Abraham’s situation and demanded that he complete the tasks assigned to him quickly so that the team could submit their work on time. Raja pushed Abraham and tried to direct and regulate him and set deadlines every time when Abraham was given a responsibility. Abraham responded with a racial comment and asked for him to be more compassionate. The following is an
141 excerpt from the field note taken as the team members finished up a supervised team meeting in Week 5.
Ali: So are you going to come to the uni to do the testing?
Abraham: Yeah man. I will. But [I] can’t say what time I will be in. [I] will call you when I reach here.
Raja: Great. Will you give us a result before Christmas?
Abraham: Why do you go whack whack (also shows a hand gesture to represent opening and closing of mouth) all the time. You Indian boys always panic. (Team members laugh) Just take it easy man.
In the first semester Ali and Michael often engaged in verbal clashes about team leader. During unsupervised team meetings, such arguments sometimes developed into physical fights5 between Ali, Michael and Raja. Ali nominated himself as the team leader and demanded that members listen to his commands. Michael on the other hand, always competed with Ali and fought for authority. It was apparent that the social behaviour of the team complicated their group processes. Clearly the members were struggling to identify their roles, responsibilities and learning needs. They worked individually and did not discuss or exchange any information related to their individual tasks.
Occasionally during supervised team meetings, Raja and Michael engaged in subject- related conversations with their supervisor. However, the other team members remained silent. Ali sometimes raised questions about the group processes which were misunderstood by the supervisor as questions about the portfolio. Khadir and Abraham remained passive and only answered questions that were directed to them. In Week 5, the supervisor noticed that the team had not completed the circuit design for Problem 2 and reminded them about the deadline. Michael decided to take charge and constructed the circuit by himself. He refused to share the workload with Raja and Ali who were both present with him in the laboratory. This incident intensified the clash between and Ali and Michael and they both argued in the laboratory for more than half an hour about who would conduct the experiment. Later Ali left the scene
5 Michael normally initiated the physical clash. As an example, Michael slapped on Ali’s head with his palm during a verbal argument. This action soon became a chain and Ali, Michael and Raja exchanged slaps on each other’s head.
142 having failed to convince Michael to share the learning resulting from the work done in the laboratory.
In an informal interview, Ali raised concerns about the behaviour of Michael towards him and suspected that his young age may have contributed to the immaturity he displayed. He also indicated his dislike for Michael’s “bossy” attitude in the team and declared that he would not study with him in future semesters. Abraham mentioned that he did not care whether he passed or failed in the subject and that he was disappointed with the ongoing arguments between team members. He asked them to respect each other. However, his request was ignored by Ali and Michael, who dominated the team.
In the following week, Michael reported to his supervisor that he had completed all of the circuit design and construction by himself without any help from other members in the team. Ali reported to the supervisor that his offer of help was turned down and that Michael did not let him engage in any activity inside the laboratory. The supervisor demanded an explanation for their behaviour, warned that such behaviour is unacceptable and asked them to accommodate and share the tasks equally amongst themselves.
Soon after the progress presentation in Week 6, Michael and Raja left to meet with their families and returned to study only in Week 8. By then Problem 3 was delivered and Ali had taken control of the components that were provided to the team. However, Ali did not make any attempt to design a circuit or find out how to use those components appropriately. He searched the Internet along with Khadir and looked for shortcuts so that they do not have to engage in thinking about designing a circuit to solve Problem 3. They located some relevant information, but did not recognise its relevance or how to use it in problem-solving. They also did not discuss their findings with their supervisor and hence their supervisor assumed that the team was not working very well.
In Week 9, surprised by the fact that the team had made little or no progress in Problem 3, their supervisor decided to step in and offer help. Their supervisor spoon- fed the design to them and asked them to construct and test the circuit as per the instructions provided. They were also provided with reading material, which outlined
143 the definition of the terms relevant to Problem 3. This reading material, which contained sample designs, was not provided to other teams. Once again, there was disagreement between Michael and Ali about who would construct the circuit in the laboratory. The supervisor then offered to construct and test the circuit for the team and asked the students to observe.
Surprisingly, all of the team members passed the requirement of PBL Subject 1 and enrolled for the PBL Subject 2 in Semester 2. Michael approached the members of Team 5 and expressed an interest in joining them. The members of Team 5 decided to accommodate Michael in their team as they had lost team members to other teams. Ali was happy that Michael had left their team.
In Semester 2, this team had a different supervisor. The team was also allocated two new team members Kumar and Khan who were international students from East Asia. Raja was excited to take Kumar and Khan under his wing. Ali, Khadir and Abraham agreed and were happy to include the new team members. Raja negotiated with Ali and put forward the idea that the team would not have a leader. He persuaded Ali to agree by suggesting that each member could take the leadership role on rotation and hence, would also have a chance to assume other roles such as “the chair” and “the scribe” for every supervised meeting. Ali instantly agreed to this idea without realising that Raja was becoming an implicit leader of the team.
Ali chaired the first meeting where they delegated tasks to individual members. At the end of that meeting, Kumar, Khan and Raja started to converse in their own native language. Abraham asked them to speak in a language that everyone understood, but Kumar and Raja laughed his request off. This behaviour continued frequently in the following weeks. Ali sometimes interrupted their conversation and asked them to repeat what they had just said in English. At times, Raja volunteered to explain, but Kumar or Khan seemed to ignore the presence of others in the team and mostly conversed in their native language.
From the beginning, most of the members started to disengage and have fun. After Week 4, Abraham and Kumar were absent from team meetings. Abraham said that he would rather play basketball than attend PBL meetings. He added that he understood basketball better than PBL. Ali, Khadir, Raja and Khan approached the problem
144 individually at a surface level. They did not attempt to make sense of the concepts that they came across and used them without understanding its significance in their tasks. Khadir paired up with Ali at times and they both looked for shortcuts on the Internet. They searched for different traffic regulatory and control systems in Australia and around the world. Raja and Khan delegated themselves the tasks of surveying an intersection. They also volunteered to perform the programming for simulating the intersection.
Raja and Khan selected their tasks and left the rest of the team with little or no work. Other team members were left with choosing between the design and test of the control mechanism. When programming the simulation model, Raja and Khan made no attempts to include the rest of the team members. They did not discuss the program or share their learning with other team members. Other members appeared uninterested and made no attempts to learn. This contributed to the increasing passivity of most members of the team. Kumar offered to help Raja and Khan occasionally with some simple tasks. But he mostly joked and spent time socialising with them. He also invited his friend from another team and engaged in social conversations, often in his native language.
The team also struggled to meet the deadlines that were previously set. Raja possibly felt that the pressure and the workload were a little too much to manage and decided to play the PBL game by taking shortcuts. Raja persuaded Kumar to stand by his side and with Kumar’s help he borrowed ideas from other teams as they discussed their progress with their supervisors by often peeping into their studios and listening to their conversation.
Raja discussed the ideas that he overheard from other teams during supervised team meetings with his supervisor and presented them as if they were his own. In Week 5, when other teams had already presented their first progress presentation, the members of Team 1 were still struggling to make sense of the problem. Concerned about the