Abstract:

Collaborative assignments are known as a useful method to support the development of social and communication skills among students while allowing them to engage with relevant content in the field. For teachers, it is also an efficient way to manage large student groups. While many students cope well with group assignments, there is a noticeable number of students who fail courses – not because they lack relevant knowledge or skills but due to issues with team members which cause them to fail the group assignment. Reasons are plentiful on the students' side, including cultural differences, language barriers, expectations towards oneself and team members, skill diversity, neurodiversity, clashes of personal agendas, and use of support tools. On the teachers’ side, an important factor is the lack of prepping students towards successful collaboration. Few teachers spend time and effort discussing with students how fair and efficient group settings can be established.

In this case study, settled in the context of an international Computer Science master's programme, we explore whether an intervention in the format of a 90-minute workshop directed at first year master students, shows beneficial effects on their overall performance in group assignments. The workshop was developed by a study coach in collaboration with senior master students (i.e. mentors). It covered an array of topics. The topics included: self-reflective elements (e.g. cultural background, expectations towards personal academic achievements), theory of collaborative success factors, pitfalls and best practices from the mentors’ experience, tips how to handle potential issues that can arise during collaboration, and finally tools (i.e. software) to manage group communication, and to monitor individuals’ progress.

In total, 30 students participated in the workshop, 13 of whom gave consent to participate in a series of three surveys to track the workshop's effectiveness. The first survey was completed at the end of the workshop and covered both individual factors (e.g. overall cooperativeness, prior experience with group assignments) as well as task factors (e.g. problem-solving strategies, use of support tools). The second survey was completed 5 weeks after students had submitted their first group assignment. This survey measured various factors such as team cohesiveness and task factors, as well as satisfaction with the output. The final survey is yet to be distributed and will ask students to reflect on their use of knowledge and skills handling group assignments which were taught through the workshop.

Preliminary results show that the workshop may have contributed to higher group stability, increased use of communication tools to handle group tasks, conscious and active group building processes and timely completion of group assignments (due with deadlines). This suggests the potential value of explicitly teaching collaboration related skills to enhance students’ success in groupwork.

Keywords:

Collaborative learning, Mentoring, 21st Century Skills, Research, Computer Science.