Designing strategies to make cooperative learning culturally appropriate in the Vietnamese context

Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Designing strategies to make cooperative learning culturally appropriate in the Vietnamese context by Pham Thi Hong Thanh, Robyn M Gillies and Peter Renshaw

 This study investigated how university students behaved and interacted as they were grouped in large and small groups and while they engaged in intra-group and inter-group peer assessment. One hundred forty five students from two classes at a university in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam participated in this one-term study. The students worked in mixed-gender and heterogeneous achievement groups. The results show that when the students worked in small groups of 4-5 students, every group member had a better chance of being involved in discussions and interactions, providing a better opportunity to improve their cognition than when they worked in large groups of 8-9 students. The findings also show that the students worked more effectively and felt more relaxed when they engaged in inter-group peer assessment than when they engaged in intra-group peer assessment. Future research should investigate similar strategies to make cooperative learning more adaptive in a non-Western context.  

Higher Education Review, 44, 1: 43-57

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