Abstract:

Empirical research has demonstrated the positive relationship between collaborative learning and student achievement, persistence, and motivation. Collaborative learning is a strategy that can promote deep learning, in which students engage in social interaction, such as discussing contradictory information and problem solving. The acquisition and sharing of knowledge, by students in collaborative activities, results from a process in which social participation enables interaction, collaboration, development and evaluation of activities, as occurs in task-solving activities.

The participants in this study were postgraduate students of a master's programme for Health Psychology and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation from a public Higher Education.

This study aims to assess the students' opinions regarding collaborative work and understand how they worked through a problem based learning approach throughout the first semester of the academic year 2010/2021. These students work in small-groups activities in which they share their knowledge and expertise of psychology to solve their theme/problem. In these student-driven activities, the teacher usually acts as a facilitator. The data were analyzed from a quantitative and qualitative perspective from two surveys about students' perceptions of collaborative work. Quantitative data findings have suggested that students have contradictory feelings about collaborative work, such as negative to very positive experiences.

Keywords:

Collaborative work, Learning, Active Learning, Problem Based Learning.