Students’ beliefs and attitudes towards cooperative learning, and their relationship to motivation and approach to learning

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the beliefs and attitudes about group work of students entering their first year of university and beginning a training program based on cooperative learning activities. Its objective is to determine the extent to which these beliefs and attitudes depend on students’ prior experience with group work, their motivation for studying, and their approach to learning. The study is based on the responses of 172 first-year university students to a questionnaire combining closed- and open-ended questions. The study shows that most students had a positive perception of group work, but did not spontaneously mention as benefits knowledge learning or the development of some crosscutting skills put forward by research on cooperative learning. It was found that the degree of reluctance towards group work is related to a low perception of its learning gains and the idea that it faces organizational constraints. The results also offer new insights into the origins of these beliefs and attitudes. The frequency of prior experience of group works is positively correlated with the perceived learning gains and negatively correlated with reluctance to work in groups. When considering motivation and deep approach to learning and their sub-dimensions, reflective approach to learning was found to be the main factor determining the perceived learning gains. These results suggest two avenues for teaching based on cooperative learning: discuss and clarify with students the mechanisms of cooperative learning, and structure the teaching to engage them in discussions to collectively self-regulate their activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Cooperative learning
• motivation
• approach to learning
• group work
• students' belief

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dominique Barbe Asensio, Jacqueline Papet and Sandra Borne for their help in carrying out the study and constructive feedback. We thank also Robert Vallerand and his colleagues for permission to use their motivation questionnaire (Vallerand et al. 1989), as well as John Biggs, Noel Entwistle and their colleagues for permission to use some items of their approach to learning questionnaires (Biggs, Kember, and Leung 2001; Entwistle, McCune, and Tait 2013). This project was funded by the Observatoire de la Transformation Pédagogique of University of Montpellier.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Compliance with ethical rules

Prior to completing the questionnaire administered in the study, all participants provided informed consent in compliance with the RGPD (EU) 2016/679 under the supervision of the DPO of the University of Montpellier.