Group work can engage students in active learning, yet students often resist working with peers in class. We investigated the impact of five minimally structured, easily implemented group work strategies used during weekly problem-based discussion sections in two introductory chemistry courses through student surveys and quiz score analyses. Students reported increased interaction with their classmates as a result of group work but did not feel more prepared for the weekly quiz. Interestingly, students’ performance on the weekly quizzes was anticorrelated with the strategy they felt prepared them best for the quiz. Students at the introductory level appeared unable to “self-assess” what helps them learn. However, group work strategies with greater interaction between students were associated with higher quiz scores. Furthermore, we found that implementing specific strategies over time resulted in more collaboration than simply instructing students to work together. These results are consistent with previous work that highlights the importance of student interaction in learning and suggest that positive interdependence can be created among students even in a less structured collaborative environment.

中文翻译：

---

入门化学中的催化小组工作：五种策略的评估

小组工作可以使学生积极学习，但学生通常会拒绝与同班同学一起工作。我们通过学生调查和测验分数分析，调查了两个基础化学入门课程中，在每周基于问题的讨论部分中使用的五种结构最小，易于实施的小组工作策略的影响。学生们报告说，由于小组合作，与同学的互动增加了，但他们却没有为每周的测验做好准备。有趣的是，学生在每周测验中的表现与他们认为最适合测验的策略无关。入门级的学生似乎无法“自我评估”什么可以帮助他们学习。但是，学生之间互动度更高的小组工作策略与更高的测验分数相关。此外，我们发现，随着时间的推移实施特定的策略所带来的协作不仅仅是单纯地指导学生一起工作。这些结果与以前的工作一致，后者强调了学生互动在学习中的重要性，并表明即使在结构较不紧密的协作环境中，学生之间也可以建立积极的相互依存关系。