OPTIMISING COLLABORATIVE LEARNING AND GROUP WORK AMONGST TERTIARY STUDENTS

Abstract

Team work and group assessments have become very common in the higher education context with the aim of enhancing communication skills and student engagement. However, group member accountability introduces a new challenge and constraint to groups in achieving their best performance. To investigate this issue, the current research analyzes the relationship between performance of individual members and group composure to test their relationship and dependency. Towards this research aim, individual and group marks in several units in were analyzed statistically. Empirical results show that there is tendency amongst same-gender students to team up together and this has a significant impact on group results. The current research contributes to improvement of theory and practice in higher education and identifies opportunities to enhance effectiveness of group work.