Choosing Interdependence: How Undergraduates' Choices Align With Team- and Self-Related Perceptions

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 8
  In Poster Session: Affective Influences on Learner Success

Abstract

Cooperative learning requires individuals to work interdependently with others to accomplish common goals. Education students and professionals require skills that can foster such social interdependence. Yet not all students use such opportunities to support their own and others’ learning. Undergraduates (n=149) assigned to intact groups across a semester chose to work interdependently or individualistically after completing structured group activities. Volunteers completed pre- and post-surveys and reflected on their group learning experiences. Most undergraduates chose to work interdependently. Their commitment was strengthened when they perceived greater control over their own and others’ learning. Some were unable to reconcile team-related constraints and worked individualistically. By exploring the intentions of undergraduates, I described why only some persisted at group learning.

Authors

• Persis Driver, Dominican University

• Theresa A. Thorkildsen, University of Illinois at Chicago