FACTORS AFFECTING TEAM BASED LEARNING IN A BLENDED COURSE

Dr. Filiz Varol
Firat University

Abstract

In face-to-face, online and/or blended settings, there are many factors affecting team outcomes including communication, listening, trust, roles, managing stress, social skills, common mistakes, motivation, and so on The main goal of the study is to explore various factors that affect team-based learning in an online learning environment. Factors taken into consideration in this study were specialization, credibility, coordination, group harmony, group atmosphere, and cognitive absorption level. Sixty pre-service teachers majoring in early childhood education from an undergraduate blended course participated in this study. During the semester, some assignments were completed within groups, some were completed between groups. At the end of each assignment, students were asked to fill out questionnaires about their groups – transactive memory systems, group atmoshpere and group harmony. The data used in this paper was obtained after students completed asynchronous discussions through Facebook. The data was obtained via four questionnaires administered throughout Fall 2012: cognitive absorption scale, group harmony, group atmosphere, and a field measure of transactive memory systems. The questionnaires were translated into Turkish and reliability checks were completed in other studies. Data analysis was conducted using correlations and multiple linear regression techniques. Results indicated that participants’ cognitive absorption to Facebook was not related to their postings. Also, group harmony was significantly associated with participants’ transactive memory.

Keywords

Blended learning, Social media, Team-work, Team based learning.

FULL TEXT