Cooperative learning at the university level in Primary Education Degree.

Abstract

Cooperative learning has had a profound impact on educational practices and research in recent years. It has been proven to be an effective teaching strategy for students as it offers numerous benefits to their academic and personal development. Thus, the objective of the present study was to scrutinise the opinions of university students on cooperative learning practice and its possible application in the future. A total of 62 students (69.4 %female; 30.6% male) enrolled in the Primary Education Degree at the University of Málaga participated in the study. The students who worked in groups on numerous tasks throughout the whole semester in the subject “Theoretical and Practical Foundations of Foreign Language Teaching” were administered an ad-hoc questionnaire to evaluate their learning experience at the end of the course. The questionnaire comprised close-ended questions divided into two parts: the first part consisted of nine questions addressing students’ previous experience and general opinion on cooperative learning, while the second part comprised 30 questions related to their learning experience in the given subject. The answers were measured with a 6-point Likert scale ranging from “I strongly disagree (1)” to “I strongly agree (6)”. For the purpose of the present study, only the first part of the questionnaire was analysed.