Raja, Najma, and Ahmad Saeed. "The Effectiveness of Group Work and Pair Work for Students of English at Undergraduate Level in Public and Private Sector Colleges." Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business 4.5 (2012): 155-163. Business Source Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
This text had to do with second-language learners of English in Karachi. Given that the goal of instruction was improvement of English acuity and many students when left to their own devices prefer to revert to their native language, this study of collaborative learning was faced with a unique challenge, which leads to the first shortcoming of the piece: it never addressed that challenge. In fact, it didn’t directly address several of the challenges set forth such as controlling noise and retaining interest, but instead gave the advice that collaborative learning is to be used in conjunction with other strategies for classroom interaction. Also, this piece seemed as though it sought to be more generally applicable yet was rife with idiosyncrasies given the nature of the sample. Though in all fairness, there was a concession at the end that a different study should be performed in order to receive generalized results.
Burnette, Jeni L., Jeffrey M. Pollack, and Donelson R. Forsyth. "Leadership in Extreme Contexts: A Groupthink Analysis Of The May 1996 Mount Everest Disaster." Journal of Leadership Studies 4.4 (2011): 29-40. Business Source Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
This source began by defining groupthink, a potential negative result of collaborative learning, as “. . . a failure in group decision making that occurs in highly cohesive groups.” The author attributes the failure of the 1996 Everest expeditions led by Rob Hall and Scott Fischer respectively to groupthink. According to Janis, one of the authors reviewed for the article, there are three antecedents to groupthink: “high interpersonal cohesion, a provocative context, and strong leaders who state their preferences clearly.” According to Keyes, another reviewed author, these three manifested themselves in a poor understanding of both the purpose and the problem. And understanding that was referred to as “ineffective team learning.” This “ineffective team learning” bears similarity to similar classroom pitfalls. For example, when six people had already reached the summit, instead of listening to the warnings not to continue up the mountain, they continued anyway,
Baddeley, Michelle, and Parkinson, Sophia. “Group Decision-making: An economic analysis of social influence and individual difference in experimental juries.” The Journal of Socio-Economics 41. 5( October 2012): 558-573. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
This source mentions potential pitfalls to jury efficacy that bear striking similarity to those of collaborative learning in a traditional classroom setting such as the potential of a “minority of individuals” to influence a jury’s ruling. There’s mention of social learning as juries converge on personally suboptimal choices for the sake of conformity when a majority begins to establish itself. This conformity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The results of the study reflect that there is little to weak correlation between areas of expertise and verdicts as well as individual personality traits and verdicts; the nature of the group as a whole is much more important. This suggests, provided the group is chosen with care to ensure some degree of diversity, that there may indeed be true learning or discovery regardless of the education or background of the jurors.
Diamond, Shari Seidman, Beth Murphy, and Mary R. Rose. "The "Kettleful Of Law" In Real Jury Deliberations: Successes, Failures, And Next Steps." Northwestern University Law Review 106.4 (2012): 1537-1608. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
The primary advantage of this study over the other jury studies I sorted through was that this one consisted of real juries, not mock/experimental ones. Also, it makes the assertion that “jury commonsense may in some instances be preferable to announced legal standards,” which speaks a great deal towards the cognitive power of a group of people. The actual study involved coding transcripts of jury deliberations to discover the frequency and accuracy that the jurors refer to the legal knowledge and jargon they are taught before reaching a verdict. Repeated mention of the same idea isn’t counted, and had this study been tailored to my topic, this would be an issue for complaint, as repetition from other jurors potentially shows collaborative learning, but given that it isn’t, this is acceptable. The numeric results show the juries’ propensity for learning and consideration for the provided information. Across all of the comments recorded by the researchers, 17.1% of them referred directly to legal concepts the jurors had been taught. In 96% of the test juries, at least one juror read aloud from the jury instructions. The juries typically addressed 74.9% of potential topics for consideration regarding a case. Also, of all comprehension errors regarding the law, almost half were corrected, not by the judge, but by another juror.
Thanudca, Sirinun, Suttipong Houksuwan, and Paitool Suksringarm. "A Collaborative Learning Model On Web-Based Instruction Using Learning Together (LT) For Enhancing Metacognition." European Journal Of Social Science 33.1-2 (2012): 23-31. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
This source establishes a definition for collaborative learning (“A type of learning that divides learners into small groups of at least 2 persons for each to learn together for achieving their goal to collaboratively learn and work…”). This source also further establishes this definition later. According to the text, “There are five essential components that must be present for small-group learning to be truly collaborative. They are (a) clear, positive interdependence among students, (b) regular group self-evaluation, (c) interpersonal behaviors that promote each member’s learning and success, (d) individual accountability and personal responsibility, and (e) frequent use of appropriate interpersonal and small group social skills.” Following the usage of a group based, online learning program, students underwent significant gains in three areas of metacognition: awareness, planning, and self-evaluation.