Pre-service teachers' perceptions of collaborative learning at university: A repeated cross-sectional study

Siobhán Dowling Long and Fiachra Long
University College Cork, Ireland

This study explores how a group of pre-service teachers in the second year of a pre-service teachers masters program - the Postgraduate Master of Education (PME) - understood and practised collaborative learning (CL). Conducted over a six-year period (2015-2021), the study used semi-structured interviews (n=14) and surveys (n=100) to shed light on students' experience of collaborative learning in one 5 ECTS credits module (ED6341), taking account of their previous experience of CL, and their perceptions of CL as it emerged during the group work component of the module. The results indicate that the attitudes of students to CL were largely positive, despite the challenges they recognised. In particular, the study considered students' understanding of (1) the challenges of CL; (2) the benefits of CL; (3) the authority of faculty members.
[ PDF full text for this article ]

Authors: Dr Siobhán Dowling Long is a College Lecturer in the School of Education at University College Cork where she is also Module Coordinator of the Collaborative Seminar: Contemporary Issues in Irish Schools (ED6341). A contributor to scholarly journals and edited collections, she is the author of two books. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9879-9644 Email: s.dowling@ucc.ie Dr Fiachra Long is Senior Lecturer and former Head of the School of Education at University College Cork. He designed the parameters of the original Collaborative Seminar module (ED6341) launched in 2014. Author of numerous articles, his recent monograph Essays in the Phenomenology of Learning [https://www.routledge.com/Essays-in-the-Phenomenology-of-Learning-The-Challenge-of-Proximity/Long/p/book/9781032245744] was published by Routledge in 2022. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6364-4036 Email: f.long@ucc.ie Please cite as: Dowling Long, S. & Long, F. (2023). Pre-service teachers' perceptions of collaborative learning at university: A repeated cross-sectional study. Issues in Educational Research, 33(2), 529-552. http://www.iier.org.au/iier33/dowling-long.pdf