Abstract:

Collaborative learning is a pedagogical approach wherein students work together and capitalize on one another's resources and skills to complete tasks or meet learning objectives. However, the potential benefit of collaborative work on test-taking specifically has received less attention, with the pervasive belief that students should complete such assessments individually. Nevertheless, with ever-increasing access to information, and a society more reliant on cooperation, it is becoming more ecologically valid to engage in diverse shared knowledge in addition to individual retention. To date, studies of collaborative test-taking have yielded mixed results regarding its impact on retention, performance, and student attitudes. To this end, we examined the efficacy and fairness of collaborative test-taking within an upper-year undergraduate statistics course in applied regression - a challenging course in which students benefit more from intergroup work and discussion to promote learning as opposed to rote memorization. We modified the original two midterm examinations in this course to include a collaborative opportunity after students completed the midterms individually. During the first midterm examination, students were permitted to self-select into their collaborative groups. During the second midterm examination, however, students were randomly assigned to their collaborative groups, allowing us to examine the effects of group dynamics on learning outcomes. Another important deviation of this study relative to prior studies on collaborative test-taking was that the highest grade between the collaborative and individual phases counted towards the students’ final grade. To this end, we were also able to examine the effects of social loafing during collaborative test-taking. Finally, in addition to assessing collaborative versus individual grade performance, we surveyed students on a variety of items, including confidence, anxiety, focus, fairness, and preparation levels, as well as their perceptions of group contributions and their preferences for future testing formats. Our findings revealed that collaborative testing significantly improved performance and confidence among students when compared to individual testing. Despite some concerns over group dynamics and social loafing, the overall student feedback was favorable, with many expressing a preference for the collaborative testing formats for future assessments. We also found that students engaged in critical discussion among group members, rather than one student dominating the discourse, demonstrating that collaborative test-taking was indeed collaborative. This study, therefore, emphasizes the value of collaborative learning in fostering not only academic success but also positive educational experiences in complex disciplines such as statistics, supporting its integration into advanced coursework to elevate both the pedagogical practice and student learning trajectory.

Keywords:

Collaborative, learning, pedagogy, statistics, education.