Cooperative pair problem solving: a strategy for problem solving tutorials in the engineering sciences

• Autores: Willem van Niekerk, Elsa Mentz
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 31, no. 6 (Parte A), 2015, págs. 1516-1525
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Engineering science courses, such as Thermodynamics, are often seen as difficult, and students have difficulty understanding theconcepts and solving the problems. In an effort to improve the situation, we developed a well-structured, cooperative teaching-learning strategy, Cooperative Pair Problem Solving (CPPS), suitable for large groups (more than one hundred students) forimplementation during tutorial sessions. CPPS will be of interest to educators already making use of tutorial sessions wherestudents solve problems under the guidance of the lecturer and/or assistants. For educators expecting students to solve problems ontheir own, as homework, CPPS presents a viable alternative strategy to harness the proven advantages of Cooperative Learning.This article describes the procedure we followed with the implementation of CPPS during the tutorials. It further reports on theextent to which we were able to structure the five elements of CL and the effect this had on the tutorials. The study was performedat two universities in South Africa. The population comprised the second-year engineering students taking their first course inThermodynamics—in total, approximately 400 students in three groups. The students and assistants completed questionnaires andtwo observers were asked to attend tutorials and report on their observations. There was almost universal agreement that CPPS ledto effective cooperation between the students. From the questionnaires, it was clear that positive interdependence was sufficientlystructured into the procedure. The majority of students engaged in promotive interaction and took responsibility to complete thetask. The students possessed sufficient social skills to work effectively together, and group processing was effected by letting thegroups grade their own work. It was found that an effective group formation procedure is vital for the successful implementationof CPPS otherwise students tend to sit with friends, and positive interdependence and promotive interaction suffer. Although CPPSwas developed in a Thermodynamics environment, we are convinced that it can also be implemented successfully in otherengineering science and even pure science courses where instructors want to implement CL during problem solving tutorials.