THE EFFECT OF GROUPWORK TRAINING ON THE STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS COOPERATIVE WORK

Porf. Dr. Eda ÜSTÜNEL, Şeyma KAYA

(Muğla, Turkey)

1. Introduction

Today’s ever-changing society requires that students work together more than ever as we have come to realize that learning is not a one-way street in which students passively learn things directly from the teacher. Instead, communication and collaboration are two buzzwords that have been mentioned quite a lot. Cohen, Manion and Morrison (1996) summarize that the role of the teachers has changed as the society they are in close contact with has been changing. Teachers used to be seen as the main source of knowledge in the past but as Cárdenas and Garza-Loudermilk (2007) conclude, they are now seen as facilitators who help children reach information instead of simply serving it to them. This new perception can be traced back to many different movements in the field of pedagogy and one of them is Constructivism.

How do we internalize knowledge? This is the question that has been asked for many years by both educators and students. One approach focuses on knowledge being constructed in various ways as human beings absorb what they are confronted with on a daily basis. According to Merriam and Caffarella (1999) Constructivism maintains that when a student is in the process of learning, they construct the knowledge in order to make sense of it; and Constructivism itself refers to this process of forming the knowledge by constructing meaning (p.260). Constructivism as a theory is linked to two major names in the field of psychology and they are Piaget and Vygotsky. They look at learning from different perspectives and Vygotsky is actually critical of Paget’s theory of learning. According to Piaget (1977) learning is all about balancing as the balance is disturbed by new knowledge that conflicts with what a learner knows. Then, learner makes sense of that new knowledge by associating it what they already know which leads to the balance being restored again. He also focuses on cognitive development and how and what a learner can learn at a certain age. Vygotsky, on the other hand, looks at learning from a different perspective. According to Vygotsky (1978) learning is mediated by society, therefore; it occurs between learners first in a social context and then learners internalize knowledge which was mediated by social interaction before. Learning cannot be realized without people being in a social environment as our minds are essentially social.

It is not very surprising that the idea that learning is intrinsically social leads to new concepts related to the importance of inter mental activity. One such concept is Cooperative learning which can be defined as groups of students working together to reach a common goal, where they are responsible for others’ learning besides their own (Slavin, 1991). In Cooperative learning students may work as a team to achieve a goal and their success depends on the individual contributions of each member of a team. Seigel (2005) states that in cooperative learning students learn in pairs or groups by working towards a common learning goal. There are many strategies that were developed to be utilized in cooperative learning situations and according to Siegel (2005) some of them are; jigsaw method, group investigation method, and learning together method, individual accountability and social skills. Hendrix (1999) emphasizes that social skills is a must to achieve common goals as learners must know and trust their peers, forge meaningful connections, show support where it is needed and provide encouragement for their teammates.

1.1. Cooperative Learning in Foreign Language Classrooms

Cooperative learning and EFL classrooms are a combination that can be benefited from by the teachers and the learners alike. Crandall (1999) states that cooperative learning has benefits such as helping students get more motivated and confident, lowering anxiety in the classroom, and provide various options for students with different learning styles. As learning a language may be very stressful and overwhelming for some students, the benefits mentioned above become invaluable to any classroom, while they are especially crucial for an EFL classroom.

Another benefit of integrating cooperative learning in EFL classrooms is that it can easily create an environment where students can experience language learning by interacting with each other. Borich (2007) emphasizes that students help each other communicate, mediating each other in a cooperative learning situation. Cooperative learning also gives students a chance to practice language for its intended purpose which would be to communicate with each other. A Cooperative Learning environment resembles a society where individuals learn from each other, and it provides a very realistic experience for learners as language learning is seen today as mediated in a cultural context, inevitably social and an inter-mental activity (Erickson, 1996). As mentioned above, Vygotsky (1977) also supports this idea of a person learning with or from others first before internalizing what has been learnt themselves.

1.2. Learner Attitude and Cooperative Learning

Students come to the classroom not only with their minds but with their feelings, perceptions, ideas and beliefs about the world around them. These personal differences may also lead to different beliefs and it may affect how a student responds to a certain activity or a type of instruction. In their theory of reasoned action Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) summarize that attitude is a result of a belief. Therefore, if students believe in a certain activity and in their success, this will affect their attitude in a positive way. The opposite may occur and their attitude may turn negative if they do not believe in their success or the importance of an activity in the classroom. It cannot be denied that achievement and affective factors are closely related which makes it important to consider these factors while teaching. Students with negative feelings towards cooperative learning and working collaboratively may experience issues that will inevitably affect the learning of the whole group. Balami (1992) states that motivation is the drive that pushes us to learn more or quit, so it has the capacity to facilitate learning or cease the process.

1.3. Previous Research

In recent years, cooperative learning has been researched in and out of the EFL classroom and there is now growing evidence in favor of it. This is due to the fact that group work or cooperative work is not peculiar to language classrooms and can be actually used in a variety of contexts.

In 2003, Arbab investigated the effect of cooperative learning on general science achievement. Her subjects were 9th grade students and her implementation lasted two weeks. By using pre-test and post-test results, she concluded that students who did cooperative work had more success compared to the group who worked traditionally. In another study, Kosar (2003) examined 7th grade students and what effect cooperative learning had in their success. The subject was Social Studies this time and the sample consisted of 40 students in total. She had a control group and an experimental group which were formed based on students’ scores in their annual Social Studies examination. The study took 2 weeks to complete and the findings indicated that the experimental group was more successful compared to the control group who were taught in the usual way this subject had been taught before.

In EFL/ELT context, Bibi investigated the effect of group work in teaching grammar in 2002 by comparing two groups. He found that it had positive impact on the academic achievement and the development of four skills. This research showed that group work had positive effect on elementary and secondary levels both compared to the control group who were taught in the traditional way. Moreover, he observed that cooperative learning were very effective in big classes, too. Suwantaratbip and Wichadee looked into the effects of group work in lowering language learning anxiety in 2010. They investigated 40 university students and also looked into students’ proficiency levels. They used a pre-test and post-test to measure students’ proficiency and found that their results increased after integrating cooperative work into the curriculum. Students’ attitude toward cooperative work was also more positive after the implementation. Ning (2011) researched cooperative work in ELT in the Chinese context by providing students with more ways to produce language and express themselves. She measured students’ communicative efficiency and language skills. The results of the study showed that students made significant progress in speaking, listening and reading compared to the control group. Wichadee and Orawiwatnakul conducted a research in 2002 and investigated the effect of introducing new ideas in the EFL classroom. One of those ideas involved using cooperative learning strategies in the classroom. They formed groups during the study and ask each member to complete their goals which would also support the common goal of the group. Their results indicated that cooperative learning helped improve language skills and furthermore, it also had the effect of creating a more supportive and positive learning environment.

As mentioned above, despite the positive results of many studies conducted in cooperative work, in Turkey, group work or working cooperatively is not very common in most schools. Sometimes, students are seated in groups but still work in a competitive manner. Groups are not usually flexible and when they are, it is mostly to create groups for a game. Through a game or any activity students hurry to finish first and be the first group to complete the given task. They do not try to work together to get to the finish line thus leaving weaker students out of the discussion and the activity. Some students intentionally leave the work to stronger students believing they do not have much to contribute to the finished product. This product and competition-based approach affect collaborative work negatively. In this study, students were given a group work strategy training and their attitude to group work was measured. The research question of the study is stated below.

RQ: What is the effect of group work strategy training on students’ attitude to cooperative work?

2. Methodology

2.1 Research Design and Aim

This study is an action research based on a problem the researcher has had in her classrooms for two years. It employs mixed-method design as surveys and teacher observation were both used to obtain and analyze the data. The main objective of this study was to explore the relationship between students’ attitude to group work and group work strategy training.

2.2. Setting and Participants of the Study

The study was conducted at a language school in İzmir, in the Spring Term of 2017-2018 academic year. 15 students aged from 9 to 10 participated in the study. They consisted of 8 females and 7 males. By the time of the study, the subjects had 2-3 years of English learning experience at different primary schools. All the students who participants in this study are from state schools and follow the book designed by the Ministry of Education in Turkey. The implementation lasted for 4 weeks and each week the teacher had 4 back-to-back lessons with these students. While some of them, exactly 9, had experience with group work before, the others did not have any experience with it in their classroom before the implementation. In this particular classroom, I experienced the most issues when I tried to use group work and asked students to work cooperatively. Crying students, students who insisted on working alone, students who got angry because they thought others in their groups held them back are some incidents that occurred during the school year. I also observed that they had very negative reactions when I told them that they would need to work in groups for a certain activity.

2.3. Instruments and Data Collection Procedure

In this study, the researcher used the Got It: Starter course book as the main course book. The group tasks were either used when the book instructed students to do so, or when the teacher brought a different activity that required cooperative work. However, the teacher did not change the lesson plan or the flow to accommodate more group work activities. In order for students to act as they usually do, the teacher did not implement said changes. What was different for students was the strategy training part as they had the chance to learn, discuss and comment on these strategies before the implementation started. Prior to this strategy instruction, students completed a survey which measured their attitude to group work and working collaboratively. The instruction itself took a lesson which was 45 minutes long and involved the use of a PPT to activate interest in students. The teacher detailed the correct behavior in a group by going through main points from the board and asking students to comment or give examples about the points. After the instruction, as far as students were concerned everything followed as usual in the lessons. However, the teacher observed students during the group activities and made notes on significant things she caught while they were working. After the four-week implementation period, the students took the survey again and were asked to change their answers if they changed their minds about certain points.

A survey was used to measure students’ attitude before and after the implementation. This survey was originally created by the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance, Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The researcher translated the survey into Turkish in order for students to be able to complete it, and during this process an expert was consulted to supervise the translation.

3.Findings

3.1. Survey

The results of the first survey that was conducted before the strategy instruction indicated that %57 of the students were not sure if they were the one who did most of the work while working collaboratively while %35 did not agree with this statement. The results of the same survey when it was conducted after the strategy instruction showed that %64 disagreed with the statement about doing most of the work in a group. In the first survey, %42 said that they could not work in their own pace in a group and %20 was not sure if they could. The second survey showed no change in the percent of students who agreed with this statement. When asked if they understood the material better when they worked in a group, %50 was not sure of the answer. There was an increase in the number who agreed with this statement as the second survey indicated that %84 agreed with it. On the statement about feeling like a part of the group, %70 said they were not sure, while %35 agreed with this statement. When they were asked again, %61 said they felt like a part of the process. Only %7 of the students said that they did not feel that way. In the first survey, %28 of the students said that they thought group work was a waste of time and %14 was not sure whether it was a waste of time or not. The second survey results indicated that %7 said they thought group work was a waste of time. The percent of the ones who were not sure whether working in groups was a waste of time or not dropped to %7 in the second survey. Lastly, the statement about whether group members competed with each other or not %42 was not sure while %57 did not agree with this statement. When the survey was conducted again, %69 did not agree with it indicating that the group members did not compete with each other.

3.2 Teacher Observations

In the first week of the study implementation, students insisted on working with their friends when I asked them to work in groups. However, when I reminded them the discussion we had about working with people different from us and learning from them, they were more agreeable. I saw a noticeable difference in the way stronger students helped weaker students catch up during the cooperative work.

In the second week, I observed an incident where students asked me to sit together to be able to work better as a group. This happened after we formed four-people groups and one of the students were apparently sitting a little farther from the other two. Most of the students looked like they were enjoying working together and there was an increase in positive behavior towards each other.

In the third week, I realized there was only a single student who did not contribute to the finished project of a certain groups. However, the other students told me that they repeatedly asked them to join and help them or work with them during the activity. There was also another stronger student who tried to do the whole work by herself to finish quicker, but her friends called me to their desk and explained that they wanted to join and help. Once I told her that they were supposed to work in groups and not alone, she was agreeable with it as she began to talk to the other members of the group and even physically turned herself towards them instead of turning away from them.

In the last week, I observed students sitting closer, getting better at sharing tasks and communicating with each other more effectively. The improvement was more noticeable in stronger students while some of the weaker ones still seemed like they were not sure whether they could contribute or not. Nevertheless, the majority of the students waited for others to finish, shared their work with their group members and stayed positive during the activities.

4. Discussion and Conclusion

The results of the study indicated that students were more positive and enthusiastic about working collaboratively after the strategy instruction. As the teacher in the classroom from the beginning of the school year up to now, I saw change in the class dynamics as students got more comfortable with each other in these four weeks compared to the 7 months they had before. The training itself opened up some interesting discussions about winning versus working together as students seemed to realize that group work was not only meant for competition and could actually be a part of the whole lesson and learning experience. Based on the findings of the study, one could say that while students were not completely negative about group work, they had some questions about it as many students answered “I am not sure.” To some of the statements. I think that was because they had some conceptions before and even if they were not completely negative, they did not have the chance to think about them in detail before. As mentioned above, the majority of the indecisive students chose the positive answer in the second study. To conclude, the strategy training these students had on group work had positive impact in their actions and thoughts about cooperative work.

5. Limitations of The Study

Some of the limitations of this study include number of subjects, type of training (time and duration), and other time limitations. Because of the relatively small sample size (14) these findings cannot be generalized to a broader context based on this investigation. Another limitation was the time we had for the strategy training which lasted for a 45-minute lesson period. This was due to the language school administrator who did not permit for a longer training session. Therefore, the training and the discussion was completed in this single period. The last limitation that will be discussed here is the time limitations of the study itself. Originally planned for 6 weeks, the study had to be ended after 4 weeks because of external reasons. If it could go on for a longer time, students’ attitude could have improved even more.

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