Exploring supports or incentives to promote undergraduate students’ use of cooperative study groups

Abstract

Collaborative study groups provide crucial learning opportunities for undergraduate students in STEM learning contexts. In this paper, we use a concurrent, nested mixed method design toward two primary aims: (a) to examine whether an instructional module about study groups could increase undergraduate students’ use of study groups and (b) to identify supports or incentives that could be used in future research to better encourage students’ use of study groups. Participating undergraduate students (n = 220), who were enrolled in an introductory anatomy and physiology course, were randomly assigned to an instructional module, either about the use of collaborative study groups (i.e., treatment condition) or about how to study effectively on their own (i.e., independent studying comparison condition). All students reported the extent to which they studied collaboratively before and after completing the randomly assigned module (i.e., at pretest and posttest). At the end of the study, students responded to an open-ended prompt asking what could encourage them to use study groups. Quantitative analysis of pretest to posttest changes on the extent to which students reported using study groups revealed no statistically significant condition differences between the two instructional modules. Qualitative thematic analysis of students’ open-ended prompt responses revealed a set of seven themes that emerged from the data about the supports or incentives students wanted that could be leveraged to design future innovations to promote students’ use of collaborative study groups. Follow-up analyses were also conducted to delineate patterns across the supports or incentives requested and further guide recommendations for future research.

Keywords

• Peer learning
• Small-group learning
• Collaborative learning
• Biology students
• University students
• Academic achievement