Understanding Optimal Size for Group Work in Face to Face and Virtual Research Methods Courses for Undergraduate Psychology Majors

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing and testing a set of exploratory learning activities designed to help students understand foundational scientific concepts in undergraduate STEM courses. Students are often assigned to work in collaborative groups to complete laboratory or recitation activities in their STEM courses. This study intends to answer practical questions that many teachers have asked – What size groups are best for learning?

Is it better for each student to work individually? Are small groups more effective? Are there differences between working with one other student as a pair, or working with two other students in a triad?

This project builds on work suggesting distinct advantages for triads, and study this finding in the context of virtual collaborations (where students interact fully online). Collaborative activities are a popular instructional approach in many educational settings. Consistent with the intuition that two heads may be better than one, many teachers rely on collaborative learning activities in their classrooms with the aspirational goal being that peers can provide some support to each other.

Yet, results are mixed when the learning of students who work with peers is compared to students who work alone, and few experimental studies have tested for group size effects using the same instructional materials. Thus, the main goal of this project is to test which group size leads to more effective learning. Results from this project have the potential to be informative for effective delivery across a broad range of STEM courses and will help to identify effective instructional techniques and best practices to promote student success.

This project will test for differences in learning outcomes as a function of completing recitation activities in different size groups (versus individually) in a gateway STEM course (Introduction to Research Methods in Psychology) at a diverse, urban, public institution. Initial findings suggest that students working in triads may learn better than students working in dyads or alone.

However, these results are from face-to-face settings. This study will test whether the same effects may be found with small group activities through a virtual mode of course delivery. Trace data will be collected to inform how the activities support better learning.

The effects of group size on learning will be examined while holding the activities (and all other aspects of the course) constant, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The main quantitative questions to be explored are whether interacting online with other students to complete recitation activities benefits learning, and whether the size of the group affects the probability of any benefit over working alone.

In addition, the studies will generate a rich corpus of interactions to allow for the exploration of which students might be more or less likely to benefit from working in groups, which patterns of interaction might be afforded by different group sizes or compositions, and which patterns of interaction best support learning. Special attention will be devoted to determining which instructional conditions provide the strongest support for students who may enter college with less preparation for college-level coursework.

A major benefit to society is that the project will investigate which instructional contexts provide the most support for student success in gateway STEM courses, and especially for those students who are less prepared for college-level work, to promote and encourage persistence in later STEM courses and careers. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students.

Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.