This study investigated the utility of using the constructs of transactive memory system and heedful interrelating to explain the causal mechanisms of resulting learning and attitudinal outcomes emerging from the promotive interaction which occurs under conditions of positive social interdependence. An experimental study with clarifying qualitative analyses was conducted with college students as participants. Two aspects were addressed: (a) to define the promotive interaction in quantitative and qualitative terms using heedful interrelating and transactive memory system and (b) to assess the role of the promotive interaction, defined by heedful interrelating and transactive memory system, in the relationship between social interdependence and both proximal learning-related attitudinal outcomes including task value and situational interest, as well as more distal behavioral learning-related outcomes including group and individual task performance and individual perceptions of group performance. There was no direct effect of social interdependence on any outcome of interest nor were the mediational roles of heedful interrelating and transactive memory system in the relationship between positive social interdependence and outcomes of interest (individual and group performance, situational interest, task value, and perceptions of performance) supported, further exploratory analyses revealed these constructs did have significant direct effects on various outcomes of interest. Heedful interrelating was positively predictive of participants' situational interest, task value, individual perceptions of group performance, and individual and group performance. Transactive memory system was also positively predictive of individual situational interest and task value and group performance while an unexpected negative direct effect was found for individual performance. Qualitative analyses focusing on selected groups were used to explore this unexpected impact of transactive memory system on individual learning. Ways in which future studies may build on quantitative and qualitative findings are discussed.

Magister Educationis - MEd / Euclidean geometry was recently re-introduced as a compulsory topic in the Mathematics Curriculum for learners in the Further Education and Training (FET) band in 2012. The diagnostic analysis reports on the National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics Paper 2 examinations since 2014 has repeatedly expressed concern of the poor performance of leaners in proof and reasoning items linked to circle geometry. Various efforts have been made to examine the composition of the curriculum to find ways of motivating learners in the study of circle geometry and enhancing their performance but not much has been realized. The use of technology or cooperative learning approaches for the teaching of geometry is beneficial for pedagogical purposes, particularly for improving learners’ performance in geometry. Hence, this study investigated the impact of using technology through cooperative learning on learners’ performance on grade circle 11 geometry. It was thus an attempt to focus on blending these two teaching methods with an emphasis on the use of technology. The research took place at a Khayelitsha school and the scope of technology was limited to using a mathematical computer programme called Heymath. This research was grounded on the cognitive level framework that is used by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in the setting of National Senior examination mathematics papers, as well as the set of social constructivist views of mathematics teaching and learning. In the case of the latter, both social constructivism and cognitive constructivism views were considered and applied for the purposes of this study. Using a positivist paradigm, this convergent parallel mixed methods study employed a quasi-empirical design, where the control group consisted of a group 26 grade 11 learners who were comparable to the group of 27 grade learners that made up the experimental group.

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This study of cooperative learning in post-secondary engineering education investigated achievement of engineering students enrolled in two intact sections of a computer-aided drafting (CAD) course. Quasi-experimental and qualitative methods were employed in comparing student achievement resulting from out-of-class cooperative and individualistic learning structures. The research design was a counterbalanced, repeated measures, nonequivalent control group design. During the first half of the semester, one course section served as the experimental group (cooperative learning) and the other section served as the control group (individualistic learning). During the second half of the semester, the treatment and control conditions were switched to the other section. Data collection involved a pretest, a mid-term exam, a final exam, weekly homework drawing grades, an introductory demographic survey, weekly peer reviews, and interviews. The data analyses showed that the differences between the treatment and control group means on the mid-term and final exams were not significant. However, the treatment group means on the weekly homework drawings were significantly higher than those for the control group in each half of the semester. The data revealed main effects of race, prior experience, time of achievement test administration, and prerequisite grade. A post-hoc analysis did not show significant differences among the various levels of prerequisite grade. Also, there were first-order interactions for gender-by-time, experience-by-time, method-by-time for the year as engineering major demographic variable, and method-by-academic year. Qualitative data revealed that most participants had positive group experiences, more participants preferred working in cooperative groups during more difficult activities than introductory material, academically stronger participants might have "carried" weaker participants in the cooperative groups, and there were times identified for cooperative group work during which groups did not work cooperatively. Based upon the findings in this study, one might reasonably conclude that cooperative and individualistic learning structures result in approximately equal student achievement. Thus, when deciding on the use of one learning structure over the other, instructors might focus on which approach seems more appropriate/practical for a particular instructional activity. / Ph. D.

Desde o início da década de setenta, a discussão a respeito das formas de organização e da efetividade das atividades didáticas pautadas nos princípios da aprendizagem cooperativa vem se destacando em vários países europeus e na América do Norte, entretanto no Brasil são ainda escassas as pesquisas dedicadas à temática, especialmente no ensino de Química.<br /> A aprendizagem cooperativa apresenta como característica chave a sua natureza social, pois os estudantes interagem e compartilham suas ideias melhorando sua compreensão individual e mútua. Nesse contexto, aplicamos uma atividade didática de caráter cooperativo (formato jigsaw), em disciplina de comunicação científica oferecida a graduandos em Química, na qual investigamos a dinâmica das interações estabelecidas entre os alunos, dentro dos seus respectivos grupos, a partir da análise das seguintes dimensões: funções da fala, processamento cognitivo e processamento social. Para tanto, nos baseamos no Modelo Analítico proposto por Kumpulainen e Mutanen. De forma complementar, analisamos as percepções dos alunos com relação à atividade.<br /> As interações foram realizadas apresentando como predominante o processamento social do tipo colaborativo e os alunos fizeram uso das funções de fala de forma igualitária. Estas foram também marcadas pela presença do processamento cognitivo exploratório, que somado ao uso de funções de fala do tipo críticas, indicam que a atividade foi rica em possibilidades cognitivas.<br /> Desta forma, as três dimensões analisadas sugerem que a atividade se mostrou efetiva, no que diz respeito ao desenvolvimento de condições para aprendizagem cooperativa com foco no desenvolvimento de habilidades sociais, sem, no entanto, comprometer o aprendizado de conteúdos da disciplina. As percepções dos alunos com relação à atividade indicaram a sua boa receptividade. Ademais, os alunos destacaram a importância da sua realização para uma melhor resolução dos problemas propostos. Assim, acreditamos que atividades cooperativas, especialmente aquelas no formato jigsaw, podem ser realizadas com sucesso no ensino superior de Química, sendo relevantes para a formação dos graduandos. / Since the beginning of the 70s, the discussion about ways of organization and effectiveness of learning activities based on cooperative learning has been growing in many European countries and in North America; however in Brazil, there is a dearth of studies on this topic, especially in chemistry teaching.<br /> One of the key characteristics of cooperative learning is social nature since students interact and share their ideas increasing their individual and mutual comprehension. In this context, we applied a didactic activity based on cooperative learning principles (jigsaw format) in a scientific communication course offered to undergraduate chemistry students. Based on the analytic framework proposed by Kumpulainen and Mutanen, we investigated the dynamic of interactions among the students within the groups focusing on the following dimensions: cognitive processing, social processing, and verbal interactions. We also analyzed the students\' perceptions related to this activity.<br /> The major cognitive processing observed was interpretative, whereas the social processing was collaborative, which indicate that the activity was rich of cognitive possibilities. Therefore, the dimensions analyzed suggest that the activity was effective in cooperative learning perspective without compromising the learning of the course contents.<br /> The students\' perceptions indicated the success of the activity. Moreover, the students highlighted its importance to solve the problems proposed. In sum, we believe that cooperative activities, especially in the jigsaw format, can be effectively used in undergraduate chemistry teaching.

<p>Traditional education system on campus has been using as a legacy over decades to support educational learning. The major change over time has been made by the use of technology supporting students in the academic community. As the majority of students in higher education today belong to the digital-age-student generation, they frequently use online technology to interact with instructors, other learners, and to access online materials. In this study, the result is primarily presented from campus students’ perceptions, to gain a deeper understanding of how social media is being used to support educational and collaborative/cooperative learning. Although, almost all the respondents are frequent social media users, only a quarter of them use such media regularly for academic purposes. Through use of social media in academia, students have encountered with benefits─ as convenience, possibility of interaction anywhere/anytime, time-saving, low price and many others─ in addition to facing to limitations─ such as less effective or spontaneous contact, connection problems, lack of platform compatibility, less creative and innovative thinking, and other issues─ which have been discussed in this study.</p><p>This thesis adopted a qualitative research and the characterization of knowledge that is used is exploratory research method with the use of interview as a tool for empirical data collection. Twenty interviews have been conducted with Uppsala University higher education students within random subject disciplines. Among many different social media, the most frequent ones used by majority of students are e-mail, a common asynchronous media to interact with instructors and other learners; and Instant Messaging (IM), a synchronous communication way to interact with co-workers, classmates, or group-mates. Furthermore, learners use social media to coordinate their collaborative/cooperative work, share documents and ask questions. Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and other popular social media are also sometimes used for educational purposes.</p><p>The findings indicate that social media seems particularly beneficial for supporting educational learning; though there are some negative aspect and limitations. Learners look at using the technology and social media as a complement to support their studies and collaboration/cooperation. However, not many of them consider using such media as a substitute for face-to-face interactions and the traditional campus education. By drawing on this thesis and the previous studies, proposition on how use of social media supports educational learning in the future has been emerged.</p>

Traditional education system on campus has been using as a legacy over decades to support educational learning. The major change over time has been made by the use of technology supporting students in the academic community. As the majority of students in higher education today belong to the digital-age-student generation, they frequently use online technology to interact with instructors, other learners, and to access online materials. In this study, the result is primarily presented from campus students’ perceptions, to gain a deeper understanding of how social media is being used to support educational and collaborative/cooperative learning. Although, almost all the respondents are frequent social media users, only a quarter of them use such media regularly for academic purposes. Through use of social media in academia, students have encountered with benefits─ as convenience, possibility of interaction anywhere/anytime, time-saving, low price and many others─ in addition to facing to limitations─ such as less effective or spontaneous contact, connection problems, lack of platform compatibility, less creative and innovative thinking, and other issues─ which have been discussed in this study. This thesis adopted a qualitative research and the characterization of knowledge that is used is exploratory research method with the use of interview as a tool for empirical data collection. Twenty interviews have been conducted with Uppsala University higher education students within random subject disciplines. Among many different social media, the most frequent ones used by majority of students are e-mail, a common asynchronous media to interact with instructors and other learners; and Instant Messaging (IM), a synchronous communication way to interact with co-workers, classmates, or group-mates. Furthermore, learners use social media to coordinate their collaborative/cooperative work, share documents and ask questions. Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and other popular social media are also sometimes used for educational purposes. The findings indicate that social media seems particularly beneficial for supporting educational learning; though there are some negative aspect and limitations. Learners look at using the technology and social media as a complement to support their studies and collaboration/cooperation. However, not many of them consider using such media as a substitute for face-to-face interactions and the traditional campus education. By drawing on this thesis and the previous studies, proposition on how use of social media supports educational learning in the future has been emerged.

Cooperative learning is a major teaching method which is used by many instructors as their teaching framework. It has been proven better than individual and competitive teaching methods by raising higher group achievements and individual achievements with more diverse reasoning and logic thinking, and more creative ideas. Many researchers make their efforts in promoting the outcomes of cooperative learning from different viewpoints. One of them is Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which emphasizes that teachers and learners with higher capability can support other learners to develop their ZPD through proper scaffolding. Prior Knowledge plays an important role in scaffolding. In order to maximize the effect of scaffolding, learners supported by scaffolding must possess enough prior knowledge. At the same time, teachers must consider the whole teaching progress and it is difficult to be aware of every individual learner¡¦s learning progress and offer adaptive assistance to each of them. Thus, we propose two mechanisms: knowledge diagnostic and learning material developed by using IT techniques to promote learners¡¦ prior knowledge in a specific domain. Students were given different mechanisms and divided into twenty groups to resolve their cooperative tasks. Their cooperative learning outcomes were measured by tasks achievement and perceived of cooperation process that is composed of perceived of cooperation extent, perceived of task conflict and perceived of emotional conflict. The result shows that the combination of knowledge diagnostic and learning material can promote students¡¦ prior knowledge in the domain we selected. The result of cooperative learning outcomes shows that there is a positive relationship between prior knowledge and task achievement, and a positive relationship between prior knowledge and perceived of task conflict, but there is no significant relationship between prior knowledge and perceived of cooperation extent and nor between prior knowledge and perceived of emotional conflict.

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