Student Feedback

The post-study questionnaire was analysed to gather some background information about the participants and their feedback about participating in the group tasks.

Student Views on the Factors That Might Affect the Group Work

Among the 20 respondents, seven students did not think there were factors other than learning styles that would affect the group work, but the remaining 13 students provided their comments to this question. Units of meaning were generated from the student original remarks and further grouped into several themes. The number of respondents (the left column), the themes of related factors (the middle column) and the factors under each theme (the right column) are presented in Table 4.6.

Table 4.6 A summary of the factors that might affect the group work

Number of Respondents

Themes Factors

8: Student-related factors  Familiarity with group members.

 The subjects that the students were studying.

 Student inspiration for the given topics.

 Whether the participants were home or international students.

 The suggestions that the first speaker proposed. 5: Environment-related

factors

 The location where the tasks were completed.

 The group members had equal chance to give opinions.

 The communication between group members before the starting of a task.

 The atmosphere of conducting the task. 2: Task-related factors  The types of the group tasks.

 The difficulty of the group tasks. 2: Group-related factors The size of the learning groups. 1: Tutor-related factors Whether the tutor was friendly.

In terms of the student-related factors, the ‗familiarity with group members‘ was mentioned by multiple students. Two of them believed that group members would collaborate better if they were strangers, since they could try to elaborate as much as possible to bring the points across. However, another student thought that

88 it would be harder to communicate with group members if they were strangers. Further analysis of the multiple-choice questions on the student relationships revealed that the composition of groups were similar in terms of the student familiarity with group members (SLS groups include four ‗stranger‘ and two ‗mixed‘ groups while DLS groups contain three ‗stranger‘ and three ‗mixed‘ groups).

Two students remarked on the factor ‗the subjects that the students were studying‘. One of the students believed that students who did different subjects would show different viewpoints and approaches, which was fruitful for the group work. However, the other student thought that students doing the same subject could make discussions livelier since they had the same line of thought. There was no obvious difference between the group compositions in terms of the subjects of the students in the similar and the diverse groups.

It was mentioned by one student that more inspiration on the task topic would make it easier for students to put points forward. One student stated that ‗whether the participants were home or international students‘ might affect the group work, but failed to give further explanation on how it might affect. Another viewpoint is that group members tended to stick to what the first speaker proposed and were often biased towards the first speaker‘s proposal. These viewpoints were only proposed by individual respondents, suggesting that they were not major factors that the student perceived would affect the group work.

In terms of the environment-related factors, two students commented that more productivity can be achieved if the places where the group work takes place are clean and separate. Note that an independent comfortable lecture or office room

89 was provided for each group, and there were no obvious differences between the locations where the groups performed the group tasks. Other environment-related factors represent student concerns of the non-physical environmental elements that would affect the group work such as the communication between group members before starting the task and the atmosphere of conducting a task.

The respondents also mentioned task-related factors that would affect the group work, namely the types and difficulty of the group tasks. It was mentioned that the discussion tasks were good and interactive, and that the students were satisfied with the types of the group work. Moreover, the two discussion tasks were on similar topics and designed to have the same level of difficulty. Thus, there seems no apparent difference between the types and difficulty of the group tasks for the SLS and the DLS groups.

Group size was viewed as a factor, and one student remarked that breaking down into groups of three was an ideal way to enable each member to express their own ideas. Another student commented that breaking down in groups of three made the members feel at ease. From this perspective, the students believed there were several benefits to having a small size for the collaborative groups.

It was also pointed out that the perceived friendliness of the tutors might affect the group work. In the experiment, this factor was minimized by instructing the tutors to treat all the students politely and equally, and not to provide any personal suggestions on the given topics.

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Student Preferences Regarding the Types of Groups

The results of the voting by the students for their preferences regarding their participations are displayed in Figure 4.4. Nearly half of the students (43.75%, N = 16) preferred the DLS groups that they participated in compared to 25% of the students who preferred the SLS groups. 18.75% had equal preferences to the two types of groups and 12.5% of the students expressed no preferences.

Figure 4.4. Student preferences for the collaborative groups (a. preferred the SLS group; b. preferred the DLS group; c. preferred equally for the SLS and DLS groups; d. expressed no preferences)

Further analysis on the student remarks revealed several reasons why the students preferred the diverse groups. First, the group members‘ ideas were widespread and diverse. One student remarked, ―We had totally different ideas and opinions. It was very interesting to hear the pros and cons of one‘s ideas. The ideas were very widespread and diverse.‖ Another student emphasized, ―It was a more open discussion where it could stimulate more ideas and bring out the best of me.‖ Second, there was friendlier atmosphere such as one student explained, ―Friendly interactions between the group members. We were still talking even after the exercise was over ... We proposed our ideas in a constructive, fluent and smooth

a b c d 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 N umb er of St ud en t Votes

Student Preferences for the Collaborative Groups Female Students Male Students

91 manner.‖ Another student also claimed that it was a calm, friendly atmosphere and everyone listened to each other. A third student agreed that the atmosphere was friendlier. Thirdly, the group members were very active and enthusiastic. Finally, the group members had an equal chance to share their ideas. One student remarked ―Everyone got to participate and express their opinions.‖

Difficulties with the Collaborative Groups

All the respondents stated that they had no difficulties with the groups they participated in, suggesting that this is not an issue which contributes to differences between the SLS and the DLS groups.