Are high achievers successful in collaborative learning? An explorative study of college students’ learning approaches in team project-based learning

Abstract

This study analyses how high-achieving students approach team project-based learning (TPBL) and aims to identify the implications and challenges of TPBL practice in higher education. After interviewing 32 high-achieving students and surveying 1022 additional students at a South Korean university, we found that four factors were particularly relevant to the challenges of high-achieving students’ TPBL: initiative, goal orientation, social relationships, and preference for TPBL. The results showed that high achievers believed that they worked with greater initiative than their teammates throughout the team project – although mostly alone – and were distressed by collaboration and prone to abandon collaborative work to ensure higher grades. These findings indicate that high-achieving students, despite their high grades, might not successfully learn the competency for the high level of teamwork and collaboration expected in TPBL, perhaps because they persist in approaching team learning as individual-oriented rather than collaborative.

Keywords:

• Team project-based learning
• high achiever
• collaborative learning
• academic success
• college learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. High achievers in this study are operationally defined as students with high GPAs.

2. We use the term college here to refer to a four-year post-secondary educational institution (university) at the undergraduate level.

3. In this study GPA scale, ‘A’ is 4.0, and ‘A+’ is 4.3.

4. The means and correlations with GPA appear to be low generally. But considering that East-Asians, especially Koreans, tend to rate themselves lower on a range of self-report items compared to Westerners (Chen, Lee, & Stevenson, 1995) and Asians show middle response styles while Westerners show extreme response styles (Harzing, Köster, & Zhao, 2012), the results are significant.

5. Spencer and Spencer (1993) suggested that teamwork and cooperation competency can be categorised into seven levels, from level 0 or 1 for passive participation (performing only one’s own roles) to level 6 or 7 for reinforcing the team and solving conflicts. Moreover, the highest level (6–7) of initiative competency includes encouraging others to participate in teamwork, whereas the lowest level (0–1) of initiative competency refers to performing work individually.