Marshal B Anderson, M.Ed. Workshop 2 Co-operative Project, Spring 1999

Two groups were found for this work, one on-line and one real world, both working on courses that had collaborative elements in them. These particular groups were chosen simply because of their availability; opportunistic sampling. The main criteria, beyond practicalities like availability and time frame, was that they should be a large group that at some point split into smaller groups. It's this split and the process that lead to the final arrangements of members in the smaller groups that gives us a focus of study. The split needed to be managed by the group members and in both cases there was no external intervention in the process - i.e. tutors/facilitators/administrators made no attempt to affect the outcome.

The on-line group consists of 30 adult learners on a vocational course exploring design issues in marketing. For the most part they are very computer literate and fully able to use the network to exchange ideas both as text and images. This is important for the study because it substantially removes the 'technophobia' factor from the picture - i.e. assuming that the statements made by the group about their level of expertise are truthful, the level of interaction is unlikely to be affected by any discomfort with the use of the technology. The group has never met face to face either formally or informally, to the knowledge of the group administrator and this study.

The group has been working together for just under a year at the time of the study. This is bound to affect the results of this work from the point of view that there has been some drop-out since the group started. Any of the drop-out engendered by social/interactive factors will be lost from the study and, in both cases, it's important to see the results as a 'snap-shot', albeit several months long, of the relationships within the group.

The project being worked on by the group is their first major collaborative assignment and this was not completed before the end of this study. They have, however, had experience of working on short-term (maximum one week) research projects in small groups during the lead-up to their first major assignment. This is important as that experience seems likely to inform the choices they make as they form sub-groups for the collaborative project in question.

It is also important to note that the course as it currently stands provided no explicit group-building tasks or activities at any point. It's administrators had not considered this was needed and expected cohesion and working relationships to develop as the course went on.

Assignments are set by the group’s tutor as are deadlines, but there are no rules about frequency of visits to the conference or levels of contribution.

The real-world group of 25 students are working together on a commercial design course in a UK FE college. This is a non-degree level two year course and the study is based on the project completed in the second term. At the beginning of this project the students had already had time to get to know each other well enough for us to assume that they will be well apprised of the factors they might consider in group formation and interaction.

The class meets formally for a total of 10 hours per week. The collaborative subgroups formed from the class were given that time plus access to the building for additional working time should they require it.

It is important to understand the similarities and differences between the two groups before proceeding to any study of their social interaction and making comparisons. In a study of this size it is not possible to analyse deeply the meanings of these factors and the ways in which they might affect the results, but they do form a filter through which we should review the results and allow us to get some measure of their reliability. That is, we are interested in the ways in which the real-world/on-line difference affects interaction, but the relationships will involve a huge number of other factors that will also affect the results. The main factors will include:

The real-world group have an age range in a narrow band from 17 to 21 years. The on-line group range from 23 to 47 years; though, in fact, no member of the group seems to be aware of the ages of all the other group members. While this suggests that age in the on-line group is not seen as an important factor in interactions, age, coupled with employment and education, might be expected to have a baring on the way members interact. That is, we might expect a higher level of social maturity in this group.

The real world group have come either straight from school or via short periods of employment. None have degree level education. Further, many of them are only just getting to the point where they begin to learn as adults; this kind of difference is pointed out by Knowels (1979) as the move from pedagogy to andragony and we might see it as both a potential problem within the group, though that is not a subject for this study, as well as a difference between the two groups, which may affect our conclusions.

The on-line group are all university graduates of one level or another. However, their experience of collaborative working is not necessarily a function of this as collaborative learning is by no means a quintessential element of first or even higher degrees. So, while we might expect a more ‘mature’ or ‘adult’ approach, we can’t make any real judgement at this stage about the level of comfort or familiarity with collaborative learning.

While some of the real world group have experience of employment, none have currently worked in a design company or used their design skills in any professional way. Both groups are on vocational courses and we might expect different agendas from the on-line group who are looking for specific career-enhancing qualifications and will have a lot of specific expectations. They bring with them all the baggage of adult learners in terms of their expectations of the course, the amount of work they expect to do and the perceived responsibilities of the tutor/facilitator/course designer. It’s worth noting here too, that the on-line group are paying for their course, or their company is paying, whereas the real life group are universally not, though there are issues about subsistence amongst them.