Cooperative learning (CL) research has gone through a series of phases representing different orientations of research. This inquiry uses action-research as a way of implementing cooperative learning in a pre-service science course. Cooperative learning was regarded as an innovation in the context of this inquiry. The evidence of the inquiry was in the form of texts from sources including classroom observation, student reflective notes, the research diary and interviews, among others. The qualitative analysis involved the writing of descriptive-interpretive reports which were used in a process of data reduction to formulate analytic theme reports. Propositions were developed from these reports. Some recommendations emanated from these propositions. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Durban-Westville, 1997.

In this thesis I explore the effect of introducing group work as one of the methods of teaching and learning in Business Administration I at the Durban University of Technology. Introducing group work was also an attempt to satisfy the needs of the workplace and at the same time incorporate the critical cross-field outcomes in the teaching of this particular subject. I explore the benefits and problems of using group work in higher education. The study was conducted at the Durban University of Technology Riverside Campus with a sample of Business Administration I students, Business Administration III students as well as three lecturers in the Department of Office Management and Technology who lecture at the Durban Campus. The research involved the implementation and the reflections of exposing students to group work over the two cycles. The study was developed with the aim of using more innovative teaching methods than just lecturing. Learners were engaged in the group work project which involved searching for information as a group, doing group presentations, evaluating the presentations and reflecting on the whole process. After analysis of data collected, the process was revised and implemented again with another group of students in the second cycle followed by analysis of long term implications of group work. An exploration of the lecturers' perceptions of using group work as a teaching method was also done. Data was gathered from observations, questionnaires, focus group interviews and analysis of students' test results. Results indicated that despite some problems associated with this method, there is scope for considering a variety of approaches to teaching of the subject Business Administration I, and group work can be one of the methods used. The findings showed that staff and students held positive perceptions on group work, and there were similarities in the benefits of using group work in education as identified by students, lecturers and the literature. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

This research report encompasses the development and implementation of a cooperative learning project over four cycles of action research. The context for this research is eleven business communication classes, primarily comprised of Black South African adult learners using English as an additional language. The project was developed in response to national recurriculation for Outcomes Based Education and Curriculum 2005, integrating aspects of the old English syllabus in a meaningful series of business communication activities that gave learners opportunities to interact with and visit local companies. Learners engaged in the project in groups and compiled various written responses, correspondence and reports in group portfolios. The project culminated in a group business presentation where the whole class learned about the company visited and peer groups joined the lecturer in the summative assessment process. The project aimed to empower students in a number of ways, using techniques such as peer-mediation, code-switching, genre-teaching and textual scaffolding. A study guide was produced in the second cycle of action research. The study guide was revised for the third and fourth cycles in response to reflections on student feedback and using Technikon Natal and the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) criteria. Data was collected using student reports and assignments, questionnaires and journals. Analysis of the data and the study guides was reflexive and guided further implementations. A fifth cycle is anticipated where the multiliteracies pedagogy will be applied to the activities of the project and the study guide will be transformed into an interactive learner workbook accordingly. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

This research programme employed a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to address the question of the effects of cooperative learning on kindergarten children's perspective-taking ability and prosocial behaviour. / In an observational study, the kindergarten classes of two teachers who had the reputation for using small-group cooperative activities with their students were observed for one month at the beginning of the school year. Very few cooperative activities were employed during the observation period, making it impossible to determine the effects of engaging in such activities. An analysis of the qualitative observations elucidated techniques that these teachers used to create a smoothly functioning class. / A quasi-experimental study was conducted involving kindergarten students working for six weeks in either an individualistic or cooperative programme. Both qualitative and quantitative observations indicate that students who engaged in cooperative learning activities displayed a higher number of instances of prosocial behaviour than those in the individualistic programme. The results revealed that participation in the cooperative programme positively correlated with increases in affective perspective taking.

Since Bergevin and McKinley (1966) first wrote about Participation Training as a way to create collaboration among learners, more than 40 years of research has explored, separated, and defined various types of group work and group learning. Themes that emerged in the study were: Participation Training as something missing, Participation Training as resistance, Participation Training as "self' concepts, Participation Training as theater, Participation Training as negotiation, and Participation Training as shared experience. Data collected through interviews with individuals who experienced a 2007 Participation Training Institute reveal the complex, eductive nature of the phenomenon. That is, although the structures employed throughout the training were articulated before the participants actually experienced them, the constructed process, including content, was entirely authored by the particular group of people involved. The structural tools that define the procedure were prescribed; learners came to Participation Training having read about the structure of the training, the roles, and yet every one of the contributors believed there was no structure present at the beginning of the training. The experience of Participation Training did not depend on discussion content; it depended on rehearsal and reflection. In this study, contributors perceived the absence of content as the absence of structure. When none was supplied, they gradually created structure by determining content together, so they were able to take "ownership" of the process as they generated it. This absence of prescribed content was, for these contributors, the essence of Participation Training.Using a variety of theoretical lenses, Participation Training should be explored for its potential towards helping learners – teachers and students – work together through the development of individual skills that support interdependence. Since Participation Training is based on dialogue, discourse analysis might provide a particularly rich window onto the development of various forms of interaction among learners; semiotics could examine the meaning of Participation Training as a face-to-face, rather than technologically mediated, experience. Comparative case studies might reveal productive similarities and differences between Participation Training and other forms of group learning. / Department of Educational Studies

The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine how participation in learning communities in colleges and universities affected the behaviors of faculty and residence life staff regarding student learning. Learning communities have been identified as instruments of curricular reform in higher education that focus institutional energies toward student learning. Several studies have documented the benefits that learning communities provide to students, and to a more limited extent, faculty members. However, information was lacking in the literature regarding how partcipation in learning communities affected the interaction between residence life staff members and faculty members.Purposive sampling was used to identify respondents in this study. Faculty and residence life staff members from five public, Midwestern universities with residentially-based learning communities were identified by the researcher. A semi-structured format was used to interview all respondents in their respective offices at their respective universities.The findings suggest that faculty and residence life staff who participate in learning communities have greater understanding and appreciation of one another's roles, are more likely to communicate with one another about specific student concerns, and coordinate in-class and out-of-class activities. Learning community models that are structured in such a manner that residence hall directors and faculty members regularly meet and are working with the same group of students appeared to foster the greatest degree of collaboration, cooperation, and communication between faculty and residence life staff. Additionally, the findings of this study support previous studies (Astin, 1996; Clark, 1987; Kirp, 1997) which indicated that the research orientation of a university can have negative effects upon teaching. / Department of Educational Leadership

Two overlapping situations in the American educational environment have given fuel for this study: the NAEP reported that 34% of fourth grade students read below grade level and NCLB mandated that all children read on grade level by 2014. First grade students from a Midwestern elementary school participated in an after school reading club that met daily. This reading experience was different from others because these first grade students were grouped by learning style preferences. Meanwhile, many classroom teachers respond to the challenge of differentiating reading instruction based solely on students’ reading ability levels creating a forever “reading below grade level” for struggling readers placed in low reading groups. The primary purpose of this study was to explore reading instruction utilizing learning style preferences of first grade students. An overarching question for this study, “How might reading instruction (nurture) aligned with the child’s learning style preference (nature) impact the child’s reading achievement?” To investigate this question the researcher created a supplemental reading experience after school by grouping children by their learning style preference to differentiate instruction. Utilizing the right kind of quality instruction with the right level of intensity and duration with the right children at the right time created an effective preventive program (Torgesen, 1998). That is differentiated instruction! A pretest and posttest assessment was conducted using running record reading assessments focusing on the total number of errors recorded. This quantitative research design, randomized pretest-posttest control group analyzed the collected data using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results of the one-way ANOVA analysis showed there was no significant difference in the posttests of the learning style treatment and the leveled reading control groups. Further analysis of the data revealed there was a significance comparing the pretest to the posttest within the treatment group and within the control group. This was important and implied grouping children by learning style preference for reading instruction may be an effective form of differentiation for small group reading instruction. / Department of Elementary Education

The study was undertaken to analyse educator's views on their effectiveness in using group work as a co-operative learning strategy. Specifically the study aims to: To determine through literature the nature of group work as a co-operative learning strategy. To find out views of educators in their effectiveness of using group work as a teaching strategy. The investigation involved 208 educators from middle and secondary schools in Themba District. Close and open ended questionnaires were used for data collection. Results obtained showed that approximately 168 (80.76%) of the educators indicated their preparedness to use group work as a co-operative learning strategy. Results revealed that almost all the educators were willing to use group work as a co-operative learning strategy. However the study could not conclude that group work as a co-operative learning strategy has been applied effectively. The major problem faced by educators are skills requirements for using the strategy effectively. Other problem areas are:· it is time consuming, Jack of participation by learners, lack of learning resources. The following recommendations have been put forward: Pre-service training and in-service training should be made available to educators for the improvement of teaching and learning strategies in group work. Educators should be enlightened on how to use group work as an effective strategy. The educators should therefore be trained on the following: • Theory and philosophy of cooperative learning • Demonstration of co-operative methods • On-going coaching and collegial support at the classroom level • Training educators in maintaining product teaching approaches in order to curb useless time consuming activities. / (M.Ed.) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2004

A qualitative study was undertaken that explored the conditions for transformative learning (Mezirow, 2000) in a specific form of work-integrated education (WIE), co-operative education, towards the development of a theoretical model. The research question considered was ‘what pedagogical and workplace practices available during WIE contribute to transformative learning?’ WIE students, supervisors and their co-op coordinator were the participants in this study. Four case studies were developed based on evidence from interviewing these participants at the beginning and end of one work term. Aggregated data from the coordinator, student and supervisor interviews were analyzed. The Kelly repertory grid was used as a way to elucidate and rate participant constructs of transformative learning during WIE. Activity theory, which theorizes that expansive learning is a result of a dialectic, mediated process embedded in a socio-cultural context (Engeström, 1987), provided the theoretical framework to examine these constructs and their relationship to the conditions for transformative learning. The findings from the study revealed several results that add to our theoretical models for WIE. First, WIE, including co-operative education, relies heavily on the constructivist perspective of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (Kolb, 1984) yet the participants cited transformative learning from critical-cultural, psychoanalytical, situative and enactivist perspectives (Fenwick, 2000) with each perspective providing a different lens through which critical reflection, the antecedent to transformative learning, could be supported (Mezirow, 1998). Second, critical reflection, in addition to being supported from a variety of perspectives, was found to occur as a result of the resolution of contradictions found in the dialectic and mediated processes explicated by activity theory’s cycle of expansive transition (Engeström, 1987). Third, the enablers (mediators) most involved in contributing to this process were: opportunities for work and learning, a supportive environment, student capabilities, co-workers, supervisors, and assessment and reflection practices. Fourth, within the context of WIE, activity theory introduces the dimensions of time, context and transformative processes (Keengwe & Jung-Jin, 2013) to our understanding of how transformational learning occurs and results in the transformative outcomes of self-formation (Dirkx, 2012), and social transformation (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007). Fifth, the integration of these transformative outcomes into the WIE or workplace was dependent upon the time and value given to transformative processes, institutional requirements and a positive emotional environment that supported the resultant changes to the students’ world view and ability to act (Avis, 2009; Hanson, 2013; Holman, Pavlica, & Thorpe, 1997; Taylor, 2008). The implications of these findings are that WIE theoretical models include considerations of: perspective, socio-cultural context, dialectic and mediated processes and creating a positive emotional space to support the critical reflection necessary for transformative learning. Including these considerations shifts WIE theory from a constructivist perspective towards an enactivist perspective with the potential that programs intentionally support both students’ individual change and the social change of organizations where they work and study. Furthermore, adopting a view of WIE as an interaction between two systems, with the resultant “knotworking”, “boundary spanning” and “co-configuration” (Engeström, 2009), opens up possibilities for innovation and renewal in WIE programs and workplaces. / Graduate / 0515 / 0745 / nmcrae@uvic.ca

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of English