Collaborative Learning in the Classroom: The Study of Malaysian University Students' Attitude

Abstract

The aims of this study were (1) to identify the Malaysian university students’ attitude towards Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom at university level, and (2) to identify the lecturers’ perception of using CL in their classrooms. The participants, 160 bachelor students and 5 lecturers, were selected randomly from a private university in Malaysia. A pilot study was done to determine the reliability of the questionnaire when compared against the Cronbach Alpha of 0.857. The data was collected in two stages, first from the students (following the quantitative procedure) and second, from the lecturers (following the qualitative procedure). For this
study, two instruments were used and they are questionnaires and interviews. At the qualitative stage, the instrument was an interview, and at the quantitative stage, it was a questionnaire. The questionnaire was analyzed through SPSS. The transcriptions of five lecturers’ interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. The resultsrevealed that most of the students had a positive attitude towards the CL method and felt that it was beneficial for them, on the contrary, only few students had negative attitude towards CL due to their preferences which was they preferred individual work to group work. The lecturers preferred the CL method because it helped their students to use social skills and interactions during the learning process.