1 STUDENTS’ GOAL PREFERENCES, ETHNOCULTURAL BACKGROUND AND THE QUALITY OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION Daphne M. Hijzen
1
STUDENTS’ GOAL PREFERENCES,
ETHNOCULTURAL BACKGROUND AND THE
QUALITY OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING
IN SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
Daphne M. Hijzen
2
STUDENTS’ GOAL PREFERENCES,
ETHNOCULTURAL BACKGROUND AND THE
QUALITY OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING
IN SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van
de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden
op gezag van de Rector Magnificus Dr. D.D. Breimer,
hoogleraar in de faculteit der Wiskunde en
Natuurwetenschappen en die der Geneeskunde,
volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties
te verdedigen op dinsdag 19 september 2006
te klokke 15:00 uur
door
Daphne Minette Hijzen
geboren te ’s Gravenhage
in 1975
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Promotiecommissie
Promotores: Prof. dr. M. Boekaerts
Prof. dr. P. Vedder
Referent: Dr. R. Martens
Overige leden: Prof. dr. G. Kanselaar (Universiteit Utrecht)
Prof. dr. A. E. M.G. Minnaert (Universiteit Groningen)
Prof. dr. W. C. M. Resing (Universiteit Leiden)
Dit proefschrift werd mogelijk gemaakt met financiële steun van de Nederlandse Organisatie
voor Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs (NWO).
4
Voorwoord
Bij de totstandkoming van dit proefschrift zijn vele mensen betrokken geweest. Tijdens mijn
promotieperiode aan de Universiteit Leiden heb ik behalve een proefschrift, ook een aantal
bijzondere vriendschappen gemaakt. Het gaat daarbij allereerst om mijn kamergenoten
Michiel en Marie-José. Ik wil hen ontzettend bedanken voor al hun gezelligheid, hun morele
en natuurlijk intellectuele ‘support’ die ik de afgelopen jaren dagelijks mocht ontvangen. Ook
mijn andere collega’s van de afdeling Onderwijsstudies hebben door hun betrokkenheid en de
gezelligheid, niet in de laatste plaats tijdens de congressen die we samen bezochten, mijn tijd
in Leiden tot een hele fijne tijd gemaakt. Daarnaast verdienen alle proefpersonen mijn dank.
Ik wil van de gelegenheid gebruik maken om alle scholen met hun docenten en leerlingen te
danken voor hun medewerking en gastvrijheid. Deze scholen waren: het Koning Willem 1
College te Den Bosch, het Mondriaan College te Delft, Landstede en het Deltion College te
Zwolle, het Albeda College te Rotterdam, het ROC ASA Zorg en Welzijn Hoogsticht te
Utrecht, het Alfa College te Hardenberg, Hoogenveen en Groningen, het ROC Nijmegen te
Nijmegen en Boxmeer, en ten slotte het Horizon College te Heerhugowaard. Voorts ben ik
mijn eerste scriptiestudente Lineke Witteman dankbaar voor haar grote inzet tijdens de
dataverzameling. Natuurlijk hebben mijn familie en vrienden met hun vriendschap en steun
bijgedragen aan dit proefschrift. In het bijzonder dank ik mijn ouders voor hun hulp, adviezen
en vooral hun vertrouwen in mij. Met Constant bracht ik eindeloze schrijfsessies door, die het
schrijven bijna tot een ‘feestje’ maakten. Daniël bedank ik voor zijn medeleven en zijn
bijdragen aan de nodige ontspanning op zijn tijd. Ten slotte ben ik erg blij dat ik Bas heb
leren kennen tijdens deze periode en dank ik hem omdat hij altijd lief is, met mij meeleeft en
mij stimuleert als dat nodig is.
Daphne M. Hijzen
Den Haag
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CONTENTS
1. Introduction………………………………………………………………. 1
Secondary vocational education: Aim, problems and challenges ………... 2
Problems in secondary vocational schools……………………………….. 2
The Dutch educational system……………………………………………. 4
Structure of secondary vocational schools in the Netherlands………........ 5
Cooperative learning settings in secondary vocational education………... 6
Motivation and the quality of cooperative learning………………………. 7
Contextual factors and the quality of CL..................................................... 8
Aim and design of the study………………………………….................... 8
Research questions………………………………………………............... 9
Structure of the thesis……………………………………………………... 11
2. The relationship between the quality of cooperative learning,
students’ goal preferences and perceptions on contextual factors
in the classroom…………………………………………………………. 15
Abstract…………………………………………………………………... 15
Introduction………………………………………………………………. 16
Method…………………………………………………………………… 23
Results……………………………………………………………………. 25
Discussion and recommendations…………………………….………….. 29
3. Exploring the links between students’ engagement in cooperative
learning, their goal preferences and perceptions of contextual
factors in the classroom………………………………………………… 53
Abstract………………………………………………………………….. 53
Introduction……………………………………………………………… 54
Research question..……………………………………………………… 58
Method………………………………………………………………….. 58
Results…………………………………………………………………... 62
Discussion and recommendations………………………………………. 69
4. Instructing cooperative learning; teacher related conditions
6
steering effective cooperative learning processes of students in
secondary vocational education………………………………………… 83
Abstract…………………………………………………………………… 83
Introduction………………………………………………………………. 84
Research question………………………………………………………… 88
Method…………………………………………………………………… 88
Results…..………………………………………………………………... 90
Discussion and recommendations.……………………………………….. 95
5. Explaining cooperative learning in multi-ethnic classes; the limited
role of students’ ethnocultural background…………………………… 108
Abstract…………………………………………………………………… 108
Introduction……………………………………………………………….. 109
Method……………………………………………………………………. 116
Results…..………………………………………………………………… 118
Discussion and recommendations………………………………………… 122
6. General conclusions and discussion…………………………………… 134
Answering the general questions………………………………………… 134
General implications for theory and practice……………………………. 140
Limitations of the study…………………………………………………. 143
Summary………………………………………………………………… 147
Samenvatting (Dutch summary)………………………………………. 151
Curriculum Vitae (in Dutch)…………………………………………… 156
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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, having a diploma is almost a necessary condition for having access to any job.
Therefore, good education is essential for the future of each and every adolescent. Society has
a major interest in well educated adolescents, to enhance the prosperity of a country.
Unemployed people cost society a lot because of unemployment benefits, but also because
unemployment leads to an increased risk for delinquency and health problems, which in
addition lead to major expenses for society. In the Netherlands full-time education is
compulsory for adolescents up to the age of 16. Partial education is compulsory up to the age
of 18. Recently, the National Council of Education advised to extend compulsory education
up to the age of 23 (National Council of Education, October 2005), for youth who did not
achieve a so-called starter-qualification, which is the presupposed minimum level of
competency development required for entering the job market. Some local initiatives to
implement this advice already have been initiated. In the city of Rotterdam adolescents are
forced to follow an educational program up to 23 years. In Amsterdam, adolescents under the
age of 23 do not receive unemployment benefits, unless they go back to school, or are
prepared to enroll in an on-the-job-training program. The project is so successful that a
discussion was started to consider applying the project to adolescents up to the age of 27.
These examples illustrate the importance that the government and local authorities assign to a
qualified population. Schools hope to contribute to the development of competencies which
adolescents need to be successful in modern society. Secondary vocational education is one
of the places where students should be prepared for the challenges entailed in the modern
knowledge society. This knowledge society requires schools to adapt their traditional
knowledge transmission goals to goals as learning to cooperate, teaching students to learn to
use the knowledge they are taught and prepare them for life-long learning. These new
educational aims coincide with the introduction of many new educational methods.
Cooperative learning methods are part of these. One of the building blocks of many of these
methods is the development of communication skills and practicing all sorts of social skills
such as the skills for communicating and networking. While working in cooperative learning
settings, students learn to use the knowledge they are taught, and at the same time practice
social skills that are required for working in teams. This thesis aims to uncover leads for
future interventions directed at improving students preparation for the new society through
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cooperative learning (henceforth CL) methods in accordance with changing educational
goals.
Secondary vocational education: Aim, problems and challenges
The aim of secondary vocational schools is to bridge the gap between formal learning in
school and practice, between working and learning, in order to realize an optimal form of
knowledge circulation (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, 2005). Legislation for
this type of schools was established in 1996 [Education and Vocational Training Act] (WEB,
1996). This act emphasized the value of the implementation of a nationwide qualification
structure aimed at the development of curricula that are mainly vocationally oriented
(Rozendaal, 2002). The value of having an important practical component in the curriculum is
emphasized in this act (Slaats, 1999). This act highlighted the development of a new
educational and instructional approach that prepares students for the wide range of
requirements being set by employers. In that sense, the function of education has shifted from
knowledge transmission to teaching students how to use knowledge as a tool and how to self-
regulate their learning process.
Apart from emphasizing the practical component of learning in secondary vocational
schools, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (2005) has recently recognized the
importance of social skills and coping with emotions as important for personal development.
In the labor market such skills are highly valued. The labor market is asking for employees
who are emotionally stable, who are able to manage their own careers, are able to cooperate,
communicate in teams, and cope with changes and conflicts.
Problems in secondary vocational schools
Secondary vocational education has to cope with severe problems; high drop-out rates
(Batenburg, 1998), motivation problems and maladaptive social behavior (Neuvel, 2004).
Approximately 40 % of students starting a study program is secondary vocational education
do not finish their study program (School Inspectorate, 2002). Several of these students start a
new study program at the same school or at another school. The number of students that
actually leave school without a diploma is not exactly known, but estimations vary between
12 and 25 %. Research has shown that a lack of motivation is often the reason for students to
quit school. Voncken, Van der Kuip, Moerkamp, and Felix (2000) assessed ‘push and pull
9
factors’ for students to quit their study program in secondary vocational education. The three
reasons that were mentioned most frequently by students all referred to a lack of motivation,
namely ‘the study program is not interesting’, ‘I do not like to go to school any more’, and
‘the study program lacks the connection with the job’.
A part of the explanation for these problems in secondary vocational education can
possibly be found in socioeconomic, ethnic and cultural background factors. The background
of the students in secondary vocational education often is not very favorable for completing a
successful educational and professional career. Many students have an immigrant
background, an educational history with little successes, and parents with a low education
level (Angenent, 1997; van den Dool & Janssen, 1994). Several researchers have shown the
relationship between economic deprivation and problem behavior (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002).
Especially immigrant families have - on average - a lower social economic background than
national families. Moreover, due to a relatively high rate of unemployment, immigrant
families in the Netherlands have to cope more with poverty. Another explanation for the
occurrence of maladaptive social behavior is related to the developmental phase of the
students in secondary vocational education. Most students are in their late adolescence and
several researchers have shown that maladaptive social behavior peaks in this phase (e.g.,
Compas, Hinden & Gerhardt, 1995; Maughan & Rutter, 1998; Moffitt, 1993). Moreover, as
will be explained in the following section, the problem is reciprocal. The reason why more
immigrant students are enrolled in this type of schools is also a consequence of culturally
dependent career courses. Some immigrant students already enter the Dutch educational
system with a lower educational level – mainly due to language difficulties - and the selective
Dutch educational system determines that they only have access to the lower sections of
vocational education.
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The Dutch educational system
Figure 1 represents a broad image of the Dutch educational system.
Figure 1: The Dutch Educational System
The Dutch educational system is divided into three sections: primary, secondary and tertiary
education. School starts with primary education, which lasts eight years and starts for children
at the age of four (voluntarily) or five (compulsory) and ends at the age of 12. At the end of
Primary Education
Pre-university education Senior general secondary education
Pre-vocational education
University Higher professional education
Secondary vocational education
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primary school children are advised as to which type of secondary education they should
pursue. Based on this advice they continue with pre-vocational education, senior general
secondary education or pre-university education. Pre-vocational education, which is the
lowest level, lasts four years and leads on to secondary vocational education. Senior general
education is a five-year program and leads on to higher professional education. The duration
of a pre-university study program is six years and leads on to university. Interestingly, only a
pre-university diploma gives direct access to university. However, there are alternative routes
to get there. Pre-vocational education has four levels and only the highest level gives access to
senior general secondary education, from which students can enter pre-university education.
Students in the two highest levels of secondary vocational education may continue studies in
higher professional education and from there they move on to university. However these are
very long and difficult routes and not many students take these. Most students choose the
direct route. The complexity of diversity is due to the selective nature of the Dutch
educational system. In other words, students’ study program is determined, basically, at the
age of eleven or twelve, when they receive the recommendation about their future education.
As a result of language problems, students with an immigrant background often have had a
learning delay in primary school. This implies that at the time they were tested, their
ethnocultural background resulted in a low advice. This selectivity seems particularly
detrimental for immigrant children. As compared to national students, they start their school
careers with limited national language proficiency and limited competencies in other skill
domains relevant for success in primary school. In recent years they started catching up,
however due to the selectivity of the school system they continue their school career at
secondary levels; levels that may reflect their actual levels of performance but not necessarily
their potential or competency. It will cost these students a lot of willpower to undo the
negative effects of the selectivity of the system.
Structure of secondary vocational schools in the Netherlands
Most of the students in secondary vocational schools are between 16 and 21 years old.
Secondary vocational school begins for most students, after they completed a pre-vocational
school. Senior vocational school is divided into four levels. At the first level students are
trained to become assistants (6 to 12 months). At the second level they follow two to three
year courses for basic vocational training. At the third level students are enrolled in
professional training and at the fourth level they participate in middle-management training (3
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to 4 years) or in a specialized training course (1 to 2 years). Apart from the distinction of
levels, also a distinction in study type is important. In vocational schools a distinction is made
between theoretical vocational training and theoretical apprenticeship training. In the former
type students spend between 20 to 60 percent of their time at the working place while in the
latter type they spend at least 60 percent of their time at the workplace. In the present study
we mainly focused on students enrolled in the second type of program.
Most students finishing secondary vocational school prefer to enter the labor market and do
not proceed with further studies (for further information on secondary vocational education in
the Netherlands, see Euridice database on education, 2004 website). Approximately 435.000
youngsters in the Netherlands choose a vocational education program (website Ministry of
Education, Culture and Science), which is the highest percentage of all students. The second
largest proportion consists of students in higher professional education.
Cooperative learning settings in secondary vocational education
Because of changing educational goals and changing student and teacher roles that
accompany these developments, students need to become self-regulated learners. Nowadays
students are expected to be able to work autonomously, provide social support to their peers,
take responsibility for their own learning processes, and share resources. CL instruction
methods are designed to promote these capacities. Cooperative learning refers to a set of
instruction principles that together describe how students might learn from and with each
other and, through working together, accomplish academic tasks. The term usually refers to
alternative ways of organizing classrooms that contrast with individualistic and competitive
classroom organizations (Webb & Palinscar, 1996). We use this broad definition of CL,
because it captures the broad range of settings of CL in secondary vocational schools. CL
settings may promote students’ involvement with and motivation for school and learning as
well as facilitate integration and prevent discrimination, by functioning as an activity setting
where students are able to connect with each other and learn from each other's abilities and
skills. This seems particularly important for immigrant students in vocational schools. An
earlier study in the Netherlands showed that lack of a sense of belonging characterized by a
poor relationship with teachers and fellow students is an important reason for immigrant
students to quit their study program (Hofman & Vonkeman, 1995; Voncken, Van der Kuip,
Moerkamp, & Felix, 2000).
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In this thesis we will distinguish between four important components that a successful
cooperative learning situation requires. In the first place, students need a number of
cooperation skills, such as the skills to be able to express their own opinion, stimulate each
other, provide and receive help, listen to each other, and clarify their understanding of the task
(Cohen, 1994; Ros, 1994; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). A second important component of
successful cooperative learning is that students perceive some sense of group cohesion. They
need to feel part of their CL teams and feel at ease with each other. Chin, Salisbury, Pearson,
and Stollak, (1999) and Cohen (1994) pointed out that the activity level in the group is at its
best when students feel at home in the group. Thirdly, there has to be a sense of
interdependence within the group (Johnson & Johnson, 1994; Ros, 1994). Team members
have to feel responsible for each other's learning process and in some way have to depend on
each other. Students in a team should rely on each other and provide each other with academic
and emotional support. Fourthly, students’ attitudes towards CL instruction methods should
be positive. Students need to be motivated in order to be successful cooperators.
Motivation and the quality of cooperative learning
In the preceding section we defined the quality of CL. In this section we focus on variables
that affect the quality of CL. The focal point of this dissertation is formed by two foci in
exploring CL processes in secondary vocational schools, namely goal preferences and
contextual factors.
Students need to be motivated in order to be successful cooperative learners. Without
the appropriate motivation, failing cooperative learning processes may be the result instead.
For instance, students might continue to work individually instead of in teams (Vedder, 1985;
Veenman, Kenter, & Post, 1999), or some students might reduce effort by letting other team
members do all the work (Gagné & Zuckerman, 1999), or simply disturb each others’ learning
(Salomon & Perkins, 1998: Shanahan, 1998). Forms of failing CL processes are explained by
ineffective motivational self-regulation strategies. We view motivational processes as an
intricate part of students’ self-regulation, namely that part that is steered by students’ values
and goal preferences. It is generally assumed that students’ steer their behavior in the
direction of valued goals and away from non-valued goals (Boekaerts, Pintrich, & Zeidner,
2000). Therefore, we expect that students’ motivation depends on the connection between
students’ personal goal preferences and the school goals, a person incorporation or acceptance
of school goals will have a positive impact on the quality of CL in schools, whereas an
aversive relationship between personal and school goals will likely result in problematic
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school adjustment. When we relate this to the aforementioned four components of successful
CL, it is expected that only with a positive connection between personal and school goals,
students will invest in building a sense of group cohesion, in being supportive to create
interdependence and they will invest in learning the appropriate CL skills. Generally, their
attitudes towards CL will be positive. Hence, we expect that to a certain extent, students’ goal
preferences predict the quality of cooperative learning processes.
Contextual factors and the quality of CL
We expect that contextual factors will also predict the quality of learning processes to an
important extent. The way CL is organized, the way the teacher guides the CL process and
the availability of social support from teachers and peers will affect the quality of CL. Also,
characteristics that are related to students’ ethnocultural background are expected to influence
the quality of CL processes. Even though the school achievements of immigrant students who
were born in the Netherlands (second generation immigrants) has considerably improved over
the last 15 years, they are nevertheless not leveling Dutch students’ performance and are
characterized by higher levels of grade repetition and drop-out (Glenn & De Jong, 1996).
Many studies report a relationship between school performance and students’ ethnocultural
background, but only few studies analyzed the underlying processes that explain immigrant
students’ educational position in the Netherlands (e.g., Boekaerts, 1998; Teunissen &
Mathijssen, 1996). The present study addresses this latter question by exploring to what
extent and through what processes students’ ethnocultural background influences the quality
of students’ learning in settings inviting them to get involved in cooperative problem solving.
The focal point of this dissertation is therefore the exploration of cooperative learning
processes in secondary vocational schools from the point of view of students’ goal
preferences and contextual factors. Here, we want to emphasize that the study is not an
intervention study, but a descriptive one. In our view, it is a prerequisite of an intervention to
have a thorough understanding of the complexity of factors that determine students’
engagement in cooperative learning.
Aim and design of the study
The main aim of this thesis is to define the role of goal preferences in the quality of CL
processes and to identify factors in the classroom context that teachers can manipulate in
15
order to promote effective CL processes and to prevent forms of misregulation. Special
attention will be paid to differences between students that are related to their gender, program
type, and ethnocultural backgrounds. By gaining more insight into these relationships we
hope to be able to provide some leads for future interventions that aim at improving students’
motivation for CL and the quality of their learning processes as well to help in preventing
drop-out in the long run.
The first wave of data-collection took place from January till May of 2002. The
second wave took place from October 2002 till January 2003, and the third wave started in
April and ended in June 2003. During each wave of data collection students completed several
questionnaires. During the first data-wave teachers also filled in a short questionnaire.
Eighteen CL teams were video-taped and interviewed during the second and third data-wave.
During the first data-wave students were halfway their first year. The second data-wave took
place halfway their second year, and the third at the end of their second year.
Research questions
Four broad questions are central to this study, namely:
1. What is the relationship between the quality of CL and students’ goal preferences and
contextual factors in the classroom?
Do goal preferences add to the prediction of the quality of cooperative learning, or are other
variables, such as the way CL is organized (e.g., the way the teacher instructs the CL process
and the availability of social support) more important variables in predicting the quality of
Cooperative Learning? What is the effect of gender and program type on these relationships?
We predict that belongingness, social support and mastery goals are positively and superiority
goal preferences negatively related to the quality of CL. Furthermore, we hypothesize that the
students’ perception of the quality of CL will be poor when they score low on the context and
social climate variables.
2. How can effective CL teams be distinguished from ineffective ones, and what
distinguishes them in terms of the students’ goal preferences and perceptions of
contextual factors in the classroom?
16
We expect that in effective CL teams, students’ social and mastery goals will be dominant.
We expect that effective CL teams perceive contextual factors as promoting mastery and
social goals as these are challenging, hands-on, and promoting interdependency. These teams
are preferably not too big so that effects of social loafing are minimal and team members get
along and support each other in a beneficial way. Team members of effective teams are also
expected to evaluate their teachers as specialists who are guiding the learning process
sufficiently, and they evaluate the school climate as transparent and supporting.
In ineffective teams we expect that team members’ social, superiority and affective
goals are more important than their mastery goals. These students are expected to be
preoccupied with their well-being and therefore less involved with the learning process.
Furthermore, we expect these team members to be less involved in goal planning, and less
conscious of their goals than effective team members. We anticipate that members of
ineffective teams evaluate the group task as boring and too theoretical. They might
experience difficulties in getting along and perceive teachers as controlling or lacking
compassion.
3. Which teacher related conditions are related to the quality of CL processes, and are
these relationships stable in the course of a year?
We expect that the extent that students were taught skills, knowledge and rules for CL best
predicts the quality at all three data-waves best. Also, we expect to find differences between
effective and ineffective cooperators with respect to whether the stability of particular teacher
related conditions for CL is beneficial or not to their CL.
4. Can we distinguish between separate profiles of person variables (Dutch language
proficiency and goal preferences) and context variables (social resources and school
belonging) that account for variations in the quality of CL and does ethnic
background play a role in explaining differences in these profiles and the quality of
CL?
We expect students that have profiles characterized by high values on social support,
belongingness, and mastery goals, negative or low scores on superiority goals, high values on
Dutch language proficiency, high scores on perceived availability of teacher and peer support,
high scores on school and peer identification and negative scores on school and peer
17
alienation, to report high quality of CL and vice versa for students who report low quality of
CL.
Structure of the thesis
The rest of this thesis consists of four studies that read as articles. In the final chapter we will
formulate general conclusions, based on the findings of the four studies. The chapters were
intended as independent articles. Therefore each chapter starts with an abstract and a short
introduction about the relevant theories. Each chapter also has its own conclusions and
discussion section and list of references. Some of the texts overlap because of this reason.
The first Chapter deals with the first research question, namely the relationship between
students’ goal preferences, their perceptions of contextual factors and the quality of CL. In
this Chapter we will also present the investigation of the role of students’ gender and their
program type in predicting the quality of CL. This Chapter functions as a broad context for
the other three Chapters, because it deals with all the variables (except for the role of
students’ ethnocultural background) that were expected to be related to the quality of CL, and
are explored into more detail in the rest of the thesis. In Chapter 3, an in-depth study on
profiles of effective and ineffective CL teams is presented. Students were interviewed and
took part in a stimulated recall setting where they were interviewed about their CL processes.
This study serves as a qualitative clarification of the quantitative findings of the first study.
Those findings are contextualized into more detail, by focusing on real-life observations and
stimulated recall sessions. In Chapter four, the third research question is answered. The study
has a longitudinal design and deals with conditions for effective CL, in the course of a year.
We attempt to identify conditions that predict effective CL processes and conditions that
predict failing CL processes, in the course of a year. In Chapter 5, the role of students’
ethnocultural background in the relation between goal preferences and the quality of CL is
investigated. Chapter 6 deals with general conclusions and implications that are based on the
conclusions from the four articles.
18
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Rozendaal, J. S. (2002). Motivation and information processing in innovative secondary
vocational education. Leiden University: Doctoral dissertation.
Salomon, G., & Perkins, D. N. (1998). Individual and social aspects of learning. In: P.D.
Pearson & A. Iran- Nejad (Eds.), Review of Research in Education (pp.1-24).
Washington: American Educational Research Association.
School Inspectorate (2002). Vroegtijdig schoolverlaten in het middelbaar beroepsonderwijs
[Drop-out in secondary vocational schools]. Utrecht: Inspectie van het Onderwijs.
Shanahan, T. (1998). On the effectiveness and limitations of tutoring in reading. In : P.D.
Pearson & A. Iran-Nejad (Eds.). Review of research in education, vol. 23 (1-24).
Washington AERA.
Slaats, A. (1999). Learning styles in secondary vocational education: disciplinary
differences. Learning and Instruction, 9, 475-492.
Teunissen, J., & Matthijssen, M. (1996). Stagnatie in onderwijsonderzoek naar de etnische
factor bij allochtone leerlingen [Stagnation in educational research on the ethnic
factor amongst immigrant students] Sociologische Gids, 43, 87- 99.
Van den Dool, P., & Janssen, A. (1994). Schoolloopbaanmanagement en – begeleiding in
het secundair beroepsonderwijs [School career management and – guidance in
secondary vocational schools]. In P. Stijnen, H. Münstermann, N. Deen & J. van
Kuijk (Red.), Management en begeleiding van schoolloopbanen. Alphen a/d Rijn:
Samsom, Tjeen Willink.
Vedder, P. (1985). Cooperative learning: A study on processes and effects of cooperation
between primary school children. Dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
20
Veenman, S., Kenter, B., & Post, K. (2000). Cooperative learning in Dutch primary
classrooms. Educational Studies, 26, 281-302.
Voncken, E., Van der Kuip, I., Moerkamp, T., & Felix, C. (2000). Je bent jong en je weet niet
wat je wilt: Een inventarisatie van push- en pullfactoren die leiden tot voortijdig
schoolverlaten in de BVE-sector [You are young and you do not know what you want:
an inventory of push- and pull factors that lead to drop-out in secondary vocational
education]. Amsterdam: SCO-Kohnstamm.
Webb, N. M., & Palincsar, A. S. (1996). Group processes in the classroom. In: D. C. Berliner
& R. C. Calfee (Eds), Handbook of Educational Psychology (pp. 841 - 873). New
York: Simon & Schuster MacMillan.
21
Chapter 2
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE QUALITY OF COOPERATIVE
LEARNING, STUDENTS’ GOAL PREFERENCES AND PERCEPTIONS OF
CONTEXTUAL FACTORS IN THE CLASSROOM
1
Abstract
This study examined relationships between the quality of cooperative learning (CL) and
students’ goal preferences and perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom. Subjects
were 1,920 students in secondary vocational schools. The study focused on four different
types of goals: social support, belongingness, mastery, and superiority goals. It was found
that social support goals had the strongest relation with the quality of CL. Further we found
that the quality of CL was best predicted by a combination of social support goals,
evaluations of the extent that students were taught cooperation skills, perception of teacher
monitoring behavior, and the availability of academic and emotional peer support. Female
students’ preferences for mastery and social goals were stronger than those of male students,
whereas male students had a stronger preference for superiority goals. Program type
functioned as a moderator variable within the relation of students’ superiority/ individuality
goals and the quality of CL.
Key words: motivation, cooperative learning, contextual factors, vocational education.
1 This chapter is based on: Hijzen, Boekaerts and Vedder (2006). The relationship between the quality of cooperative learning, students’ goal preferences and perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom. Manuscript published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 47, 9 - 21.
22
INTRODUCTION
This paper reports a study into the relationship between motivational processes, contextual
factors and the quality of cooperative learning (CL) processes of adolescent students in
secondary vocational education in the Netherlands. We view motivational processes as an
intricate part of the students’ self-regulation process, namely that part that is steered by their
values and goal preferences. It is generally assumed that students steer their behavior in the
direction of valued goals and away from non-valued goals (Boekaerts, Pintrich & Zeidner,
2000). This is not to say that students are working with a clear goal dichotomy in mind;
personally valued and non-valued goals. Rather, our position is that many goals are located in
between these two extremes. Indeed, students are presented with multiple goals in the school
context. Some students might classify these goals in terms of desirable and undesirable ones
but for the majority of students the classification process might be more complex. Several
researchers, such as Deci and Ryan (1985) and Ryan and Deci (2000) argued that most
students will determine to what extent school goals are similar to – or might be combined
with – personally liked goals; they try to bridge the span between imposed and personal goals,
by “personalizing” the former type of goals (e.g., Lemos, 2002). We assume that students’
motivation levels at school largely depend on their perceptions of the connection between
their personal goals and the school goals.
We expect that the students’ perception of the quality of CL depends to a large extent
on the goal preferences that they bring into the classroom. On the other hand we expect that
their perception of the classroom context itself, and more specifically the way they perceive
teacher behavior and the support they get from teacher and peers, determines the quality of
CL as well. For example, we expect that the students’ perceptions of the extent to which they
were taught cooperation skills (How information) and the social reasons they consider
important for CL (Why information) will affect how they appraise the quality of CL. For
future intervention purposes, attention to how students perceive the CL setting is of prime
importance. Our position is that, although students’ goal preferences have a large impact on
their perception of the quality of CL, it is difficult to influence their goal preferences in a
short period of time. By contrast, information about the contextual factors that influence
students’ perception of CL may provide researchers with useful information to hand down to
teachers and trainers. We realize that adaptations to classroom settings are much easier to
generate than changes in students’ goal preferences.
23
In this paper, we attempt to expand the focus of goal preferences from the
achievement domain to the social domain, acknowledging the large role played by students’
perception of the social context. The article is organized into three main sections. First, we
describe the quality of CL as the general beliefs students have about the reasons for learning
with and from each other and their awareness of how they have to go about learning in the CL
setting. Second, we describe the relation between goal preferences and CL. In the third section
we describe how goal preferences and perception of contextual factors is conceptualized in
the present study and report on the results.
---------------------------------------
Insert Figure 1 about here
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The quality of cooperative learning
CL is not just a learning theory or a teaching method, it refers to a set of instructional
principles that together describe how students might learn from and with each other and,
through working together, accomplish academic tasks. Successful CL situations require in the
first place that students have positive beliefs about CL. In order to feel responsible for group
learning students also need to be aware of the skills that should be used and have easy access
to these skills. For example, students should make use of a number of cooperation skills,
including the skill to express their own opinion, stimulate each other, provide and receive
help, listen to each other and clarify their current understanding of the task (Cohen, 1994;
Ros, 1994; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). Furthermore, students need to feel responsible for each
other’s learning process and experience a sense of group cohesion and interdependence
(Johnson & Johnson, 1994; Ros, 1994; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). Chin, Salisbury, Pearson
and Stollak (1999) and Cohen (1994) pointed out that the activity level in the group is at its
best when students feel at home in the group. Based on a literature review we defined the
students’ perception of the quality of CL in terms of their perception of the group cohesion
and their own skills to participate successfully in CL.
It is easy to imagine that the shift of responsibilities from teacher to students that is
implied by CL may come with a variety of problems when students lack a positive attitude
towards CL or the skills to work together. For example, students may take the opportunity to
work alone instead of together (Vedder, 1985; Veenman, Kenter & Post, 2000), they may
24
disturb each other’s learning processes (Salomon & Perkins, 1998; Shanahan, 1998) or reduce
effort, resulting in lowered levels of engagement (Gagné & Zuckerman, 1999). We assume
that these and similar problems come about because the students perceive the quality of CL as
suboptimal.
Goal preferences and cooperative learning
We divided the studies that examined the relationship between students’ goal preferences and
the quality of the learning process into two categories. The first category examined the
relationship between one type of goal, namely achievement goals, and the quality of the
learning process. The second category focused on the relationship between multiple goals and
the quality of the learning process.
Several researchers took the mastery vs. performance dichotomy as their frame of
reference (e.g., Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck, 1986; Urdan, 1999). These studies
documented that students who are mastery-oriented engage in tasks because they want to
acquire new knowledge and skills; their purpose is to develop competence. Performance
oriented students on the other hand, want to demonstrate competence relative to others.
Boggiano, Main, Flink, Barrett, Silvern and Katz (1989) and Dweck (1986) suggested that
students who have a strong preference for performance goals might easily run into problems
when they have to cooperate. These students might interpret unsolicited help and support as a
threat to their ego, leading to avoidance of CL situations. Functioning as a group member may
contrast with their wish to perform well at a more individual level (see also Schwartz & Bardi,
2001). By contrast, mastery goals are associated with high levels of performance on
personally challenging tasks in general. Students who pursue mastery goals are not focused on
out-besting their peers, they are academically oriented and want to learn something new, even
when it implies a lot of effort. Although many studies have been conducted on the
relationship between these two goal orientations and learning (for review, see Pintrich, 2000),
it is still unclear how these goal preferences are interrelated in CL contexts. In part this is due
to the fact that most of the reported studies dealt with learning in general rather than with
learning in CL settings.
A more complex perspective on goals preferences was adopted in the second category
of studies. Several researchers (Boekaerts, 1998, Dowson & McInerney, 2001; Ford, 1992;
Ford & Nicholls, 1991; Lemos, 1996; Wentzel, 1996) argued that students bring different
types of goals to the learning situation. In addition to achievement goals, students pursue
25
entertainment goals (e.g., I want to have fun at school), self determination goals (e.g., I want
to determine myself how I do things), working goals (e.g. I want to finish that task)
belongingness goals (e.g., I want to make many friends) and social support goals (e.g., I want
to provide help to peers).
Urdan and Maehr (1995) argued that social goals concern the social reasons for trying
to achieve in academic situations and consequently these goals play a crucial role in a CL
setting. Social goals are important to children of all ages (Ford, 1992), particularly to
adolescents who often consider these goals to be more important than academic learning goals
(Covington, 2000). In this respect, McInerney, Hinkley, Dowson and Van Etten (1998)
suggested that a combination of mastery (academic) and social goal orientations might be
more productive than mastery goals alone because feelings of belongingness and social
responsibility engendered by social goals provide added impetus for academic achievement.
Wentzel’s (1991) studies clarified the effect of social goals on learning. She showed that pro-
social behavior is positively associated with academic success (Ford, 1992; Wentzel, 1993;
1994) and that CL facilitates goal realization for those students who like to work in CL
settings and value group cohesion. Likewise, Connell, and Wellborn (1991) and Wentzel
(1994) suggested that a sense of belongingness facilitates the adoption of the goals that are
valued by the social group to which one belongs. The desire of individuals to achieve for the
sake of the group is a well-known phenomenon, and it forms the basis for much of the success
of CL (Hertz-Lazarowitz & Miller, 1992).
Goal preferences and perception of contextual factors in the present study
We adjusted Ford’s taxonomy (Ford, 1992; Ford & Nicholls, 1991) to measure a broad range
of intra- and interpersonal goals. In the present study, we limited the focus to four types of
goal preferences that are central to CL settings, namely mastery goals (e.g., I want to learn
about my future profession), superiority/individuality goals (e.g., I want to impress my peers),
social support goals (e.g., I want to help classmates with their tasks), and belongingness goals
(e.g., I want to make many friends). In line with Hickey and Granade (2004) and Urdan
(1997) we assume that the environment exerts a major influence on the salience of a particular
goal and its adoption. Boekaerts, De Koning, and Vedder (in press) reviewed studies that
examined the relationship between contextual variables and goal preferences. They listed the
context factors that play an important role in the classroom. We based our selection of
contextual factors on this review as well as on reviews of studies on CL (e.g. Cohen, 1994;
26
Webb & Palincsar, 1996). More specifically, in this study we concentrate on instructional
characteristics, such as the type of task, the type of evaluation/rewards, teacher instruction
behavior, teachers’ clarity on rules for CL, and students’ evaluations of the extent that they
were taught CL skills. We also measured the students’ perception of school climate, including
their perceptions of the availability of teacher’s academic and emotional support, and the
availability of peer academic and emotional support. Research on instructional characteristics
revealed that it is essential for effective cooperation that the task elicits positive
interdependence (see Cohen, 1994). This implies that students should perceive the task as
challenging, but not too complex, and that group assignments are structured in such a way
that each group member’s actions relate to and are required for task completion. The role of
reward in CL is not altogether clear yet. For example, Slavin (1995; 1996) concluded in a
meta-analysis that the effects of CL on students’ achievement are maximal and the risk at
social loafing are minimal, when a group reward is combined with individual accountability
for learning and learning outcomes. Other researchers (e.g., Cohen, 1994; Deci & Ryan, 1985)
suggested that a combination of a group reward and an individual reward will undermine the
group process.
Teacher (instruction) behavior has proved to be an important factor in several studies.
Teachers should facilitate students to complete the group assignments increasingly by
themselves. They also need to monitor their students’ learning process and intervene when
necessary to provide assistance or to model students’ social skills (see Johnson & Johnson,
1994), especially when students are not yet used to cooperating. Students prone to off-task
behavior should be monitored in particular. Drawing attention to the teacher’s role in CL
settings, Webb and Palincsar (1996) illustrated that in order to promote CL, teachers should
not only define the group assignment adequately; they should also be clear about the rules for
CL; i.e., teach the required concepts and strategies and give the criteria for success (see also
Johnson & Johnson, 2002). Webb and Palincsar described comprehensive programs of team
building and prosocial skill development that improve peer-to-peer interaction and through it
students’ social goals. Many other scholars (e.g., Gillies & Ashman, 1996; Hoek, Van den
Eeden, & Terwel, 1999; Webb & Farivar, 1994) have shown that explicit teaching of CL skills
coincides with an improvement of the quality of CL.
The quality of CL is also promoted by a social climate that is characterized by optimal
academic and emotional support from teacher and peers. Wentzel (1994) and Wentzel and
Wigfield (1998) showed that a supportive social climate promotes group cohesion, the use of
cooperation skills, and students’ attitude towards CL. In such a climate students feel respected
27
and supported when asking for help. It has also become increasingly clear that a sense of
relatedness with the teacher promotes pro-social behavior, particularly adaptive help-seeking
behavior (Brenner & Salovey, 1997; Newman & Schwager, 1993) and the pursuit of social
support goals. Students experiencing autonomy support and optimal structure were more
likely to be effortful and persistent while completing learning tasks. Our prediction is that
students’ perception of the availability of academic and emotional support from peers
crucially affects their perception of the quality of CL. A learning environment characterized
by social resources will give students confidence that they can rely on each other for support
with their school work. In this study we are dealing with adolescents in vocational education.
Adolescents must adjust to peer pressure and norms not only with respect to academic
performance but also in relation to interpersonal rules for help seeking, helping others, turn
taking, and sharing resources. Accordingly, we anticipate that peers will play a larger role
than teachers when it comes to turning for assistance.
Gender differences
Early studies (e.g., Gardner, 1993; Gardner, Mason & Matyas, 1989) suggested that girls
benefit more from cooperative classroom settings than boys. Several studies, among others
those of Anderman (1999), Charlesworth & Dzur (1987) and Cosden, Pearl, and Bryan (1985)
revealed that girls are more inclined to engage in behavior associated with successful CL,
such as helping others, verbal organization, and turn taking. A recent report from the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2003) also indicates that girls are
– in general – more interested in CL than boys. Eccles (1987) and Wentzel (1991) showed
that female students, as compared to their male contemporaries, prefer to learn in settings in
which they can combine mastery (understanding tasks) and social goals (being with friends,
supporting others, creating a sense of belonging and security). Voncken, van der Kuip,
Moerkamp, and Felix (2000) showed that the way female students experience school is
related to feelings of group cohesion. All these studies imply that female students rate the
quality of CL processes higher than male students. In contrast, school is perceived by male
students as a competitive arena, which makes social comparisons and peer pressure dominant
in their mental representation of the learning situation. Severiens and Ten Dam (1998)
conducted a meta analysis and reported that male students scored higher on a non-academic
orientation than female students and that male students scored higher than females on
superiority/ individuality goals and lower on both types of social goals. Based on the
28
literature, we expect female students to show higher scores on belongingness and social
support goals than male students. We also expect differences in the extent to which male and
female students pursue mastery goals. More specifically, we predict that male students will
have a lower rating of the quality of CL. In short, we expect gender to function as a moderator
variable in the relationship between students’ goal preferences and their perception of the
quality of CL.
Program type differences
As far as we know, no specific research has been done using different program types. Four
program types are represented in our sample, namely information and communications
technology (ICT) and engineering, retail and administration, health and welfare, and food and
tourism programs. It is important to note that male and female students are not equally
distributed over these program types and that this uneven distribution might lead to a program
type effect that masks an underlying gender effect. Therefore, we will explore program type
effects for male and female students separately. Learning how to take care of others is an
important aspect of the health and welfare program and students who enroll in this program
consider “care” as an important aspect of their future job image. It comes as no surprise that
girls are over-represented in this program. We expect that students enrolled in the health and
welfare program show a preference for both types of social goals. By contrast, ICT and
engineering students look forward to a professional career in a company where they are paid
well. They imagine their future in terms of an adventure in the world of bonuses and free
company cars.
Boys are over-represented in these program types. We expect these students to be
oriented more towards superiority/ individuality goals than to social goals. We did not have
clear expectations in relation to the two other program types, albeit that we expected food and
tourism students to report a higher preference for social goals than the ICT/engineering
students due to the alleged lower social orientation of the latter type of students. Health and
welfare students are expected to report higher perceptions of the quality of CL, because these
professional groups are seen as more socially oriented. We anticipate that ICT and
engineering students score lower on the quality of CL. In line with the expected differences in
the scores on the quality of CL and goal preferences, we expect the relationship between
students’ goal preferences and the quality of CL to differ between the program types,
particularly between the health and welfare and ICT/engineering programs.
29
In summary, we will explore the relationship between students’ goal preferences and
the quality of CL. We predict that belongingness, social support and mastery goals are
positively related and superiority/individuality goal preferences negatively related to the
quality of CL. Our second research question pertains to the relationship between the quality of
CL and perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom, including social climate. We
predict that the students’ perception of the quality of CL will be perceived as poor when
students score low on the context and social climate variables. We will also explore gender
and program type effects on the relationship between students’ goal preferences and the
quality of CL. We predict that female students score higher than male students on the quality
of CL and that female students report higher preferences for social support and mastery goals
whereas male students report higher preferences for superiority goals. As far as program type
effects are concerned, we hypothesized that health and welfare students and food and tourism
students score higher on the quality of CL and on social goals, particularly in comparison with
ICT and engineering students. We will examine whether gender and program type moderate
the relationship between goal preferences and perceptions of the quality of CL.
METHOD
Subjects
The present study is part of a larger project on motivational self-regulation in secondary
vocational high schools. Participants in the study were 1920 first-year students from 11
different secondary vocational schools in the Netherlands. The Netherlands has 42 regional
educational centers for secondary vocational education. They all received a letter in which we
explained the purpose and relevance of the study and invited them to participate. Eleven
schools responded positively. The other schools had a variety of reasons for not participating.
The most frequent reasons concerned the time investment of students and teachers and the
extra organizational burden of participation in a large research project. The eleven schools
that participated were spread evenly across the Netherlands. The students’ age ranged from 15
to 55 years and 5 months with an average of 18 years and 1 month (SD = 3.56 years). About
18% of the participating students had an immigrant background (defined in terms of either the
students’ own country of origin or the country of origin of at least one of the parents). Table 1
shows the distribution of participating students by gender and program type. Most students
were enrolled in health and welfare programs. More than three quarters of the health and
welfare students were female. Relatively few students were enrolled in engineering and ICT
and these students were predominantly male.
30
-----------------------------
Insert Table 1 and 2 about here
------------------------------
Instruments
Students were invited to complete several self-report questionnaires. Here, we focus on
students’ goal preferences, students’ perception of contextual factors in the classroom and the
quality of CL. Data collection took place in the second semester of the students’ first year.
Table 2 presents an overview of scales, sample items and Cronbach’s alphas of the different
scales used in this study. Students’ personal goals were assessed with the goal preference list
based on the Ford (1992) and Ford and Nichols (1991) taxonomy of broad goals. Students had
to report on the importance they attach to each of the goals by giving an indication of the
extent to which they want to achieve them. They were asked to choose from five response
categories ranging from “not at all” to “very much so”. Four goal domains were highly
relevant for the quality of CL: superiority and individuality goals, mastery goals,
belongingness goals and social support goals. The students’ perception of the quality of CL
was measured with the questionnaire for the Quality of Cooperative Learning (QCL).
Originally the list comprised four subscales, namely students’ perception of the quality of
group cohesion, which was made up of seven items, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.86. The second
subscale measured interdependence within the group, and had 7 items, Cronbach’s alpha was
0.83. The third subscale measured students’ perception of the quality of their cooperation
skills, this subscale was made up of 10 items and Cronbach’s alpha was 0.83. The fourth
subscale aimed to measure students’ attitude towards CL, it contained 8 items and Cronbach’s
alpha was 0.75. These subscales were highly correlated and were all part of the quality of CL.
A Principal Component Analysis on these four subscales resulted in one-factor solution. This
factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.8 and it explained 58% of the total variance. Sample items were
“I perceive myself as part of this group”, “When we work on a group task, we make sure that
all the team members understand the answers”, “I know when another person needs help” and
“Together you learn better than alone”. Students had to indicate on a four-point Likert scale to
what extent they agreed with each statement. Response categories ranged from “I disagree
very strongly” to “I agree very strongly”.
Students’ perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom were measured with a
questionnaire registering the Conditions for CL (CCL). This questionnaire measures students’
31
perception of the extent that teachers create or maintain conditions for the quality of CL.
Items are mainly based on reviews of studies on CL (e.g., Cohen, 1994; Webb & Palincsar,
1996). Four single items (response categories: 1= yes, 2 = no) concerned students’
perceptions of the type of task; these were about task difficulty, task challenge, the time for
the task and the need to consult group members in order to finish the task. One single item
concerned the type of reward students received after finishing the group task. The CCL
further measured the students’ evaluation of the extent that they were taught skills and
knowledge for CL at their present schools, rules for CL, and teacher behavior in relation to
CL. This latter scale consists of three subscales focusing on teachers’ monitoring behavior,
interventions and evaluations. Students had to report on a four-point Likert scale to what
extent they agreed with each item (1 = I completely disagree, 4 = I completely agree).
Four scales derived from the Questionnaire for Social Support (Boekaerts, 1987;
Vedder, Boekaerts & Seegers, 2005) measured students’ perceptions of the availability of
academic and emotional support from their teachers, and perceptions of the availability of
academic and emotional support from their peers. Students had to indicate how often their
teachers or peers provided them with emotional and academic support. Response categories
(4) ranged from “almost never” to “very often”.
Procedure
The questionnaires were administered during regularly scheduled lessons and the students
were instructed and supervised by the researchers. Each student received a personal code,
meaning that answers remained confidential. It took students two sessions of 45 minutes to
complete all the questionnaires. These sessions were spread over two different days, which
explains the different sample sizes. Many students failed to attend classes at both sessions.
Some students simply refused to cooperate with us the second time or to fill in the entire
questionnaires. The drop-out was therefore unsystematic.
RESULTS
Students’ goal preferences and the quality of cooperative learning
------------------------------------------------------------
Insert Table 3 about here
---------------------------------------------------------
32
Table 3 presents mean scores, standard deviations and correlation coefficients for the four
scales of the goal questionnaire, the scales for students’ perceptions of contextual factors in
the classroom and the scales for students’ perceptions of the social climate for the whole
sample. The table shows that students were quite optimistic about the quality of the CL
processes and that mastery was the most important goal domain among all students.
Belongingness and social support goals were also rated as important goal domains.
Superiority/individuality, however, was the least important goal domain.
We expected that students who value social and mastery goals perceive the quality of
CL as high and that students who value superiority/individuality goals perceive it as low.
Results presented in Table 3 indeed show that attaching importance to both mastery and social
goals relates positively to the quality of CL. Social support goals showed the highest
correlation coefficient (r 1339) = 0.33, p = .000). The correlation with belongingness goals (r
(1281) = 0.23, p = .000) and mastery goals (1262) = 0.23, p = .000) was slightly lower.
Superiority/individuality goals were not significantly related to the quality of CL, although in
contrast with our prediction, the correlation coefficient was not a negative one.
Students’ perceptions of contextual factors and the quality of CL
Apart from a positive relationship between students’ social and mastery goal preferences and
the quality of CL, we also predicted that the quality of CL would be related to students’
perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom, as defined by the type of task, reward
systems, students’ evaluations of the extent to which they were taught CL skills, teachers’
clarity on rules for CL, teachers instruction behavior, and aspects of social climate. Inspection
of significant correlation coefficients (above 0.20) between students’ perceptions of
contextual factors in the classroom revealed that students’ evaluation of the extent that they
were taught CL skills at their present schools was positively related to the quality of CL (r
(1465) = 0.35, p = .000) and so was the students’ perception of the teachers’ clarity on rules
for CL (r (1416) = 0.24, p = .000) and monitoring behavior (r (1453) = 0.20, p = .000). A
closer look at the social climate scales showed that our expectations were confirmed. Both
perceived availability of peer academic (r (1343) = 0.28, p = .000) and emotional support (r
(1336) = 0.30, p = .000) were related to the quality of CL. The scales for perception of the
availability of teacher support were also related to the quality of CL (r (1327) = 0.21, p =
.000).
33
Gender differences
---------------------------------
Insert Table 4 about here
----------------------------------
We expected gender and program type differences for students’ goal preferences and the
quality of CL. However, as explained in the Method section male and female students were
not evenly distributed over the different program types. For the following analyses we
excluded ICT/engineering students, because only 6% of these students were females. Table 4
shows means, standard deviations and F -values for the four goal preference subscales and the
quality of CL, for male and female students separately.
Univariate analyses showed that the main gender effects concern social support (F
[1,1340] = 35.61, p = .000, �2 = .03), superiority (F [1,1274] = 29.74, p = .000, � 2 = .02) and
mastery goals (F [1,1249] = 9.53, p = .002, � 2 = .01). As predicted, male students’ scores are
significantly higher in the superiority goal domain, whereas female students show higher
scores for social support goals and mastery goals. No significant differences were found for
belongingness goals. The difference for male and female students on the quality of CL
subscale is small but statistically significant (F [1, 1207] = 12.66, p = 0.000, � 2 = .01). Girls’
scores are slightly higher than boys’ scores. We examined the correlation coefficients that
were significant at the p < 0.01 level using Fisher’s z transformations of r’s. No significant
differences were found between the two samples. We conclude that gender does not moderate
the relationship between students’ goal preferences and the quality of CL. Next, we will
investigate program type differences.
Program type differences
The influence of program type differences were analyzed for male and female students
separately, because males and females were not evenly distributed across program types.
For female students we excluded comparisons that include ICT/engineering students since
female students were hardly represented in this program type. Univariate analyses showed
significant effects of program type for male students in three goal domains: social support
(F[3, 619] 11.47, p = .000, � 2 = .05), mastery (F[3, 570] = 4.09, p = .007, � 2 = .02) and
superiority goals (F[3, 588] = 4.47, p = .004, � 2 = .02). The significant program type effect
for female students concerned social support (F[3, 1007] = 2.71, p = .040, � 2 = .00). Table 5
34
presents means and standard deviations for the goal domains, the quality of CL subscales as
well as the results of post hoc multiple comparison tests (Scheffé; p < 0.05).
As can be seen in Table 5, health and welfare male students scored significantly higher
on social support goals than retail and administration and ICT/engineering male students did.
This confirmed our expectation that health and welfare students, including the male students,
show a preference for social support goals. Interestingly, the male health and welfare students
were more mastery-oriented than their male food and tourism peers. In line with our
expectations, male ICT/engineering students scored higher on superiority goals. Overall, the
ICT group seemed to be a special group compared to the other groups; they had the lowest
scores on social support and mastery goals. As expected, their scores differed most from the
health and welfare group, who had the highest scores on most goal domains and also on the
perceived quality of CL. We calculated the correlation coefficients between the quality of CL
and the four goal domains within each of the four program types separately using Fisher’s z-
transformations of r’s in order to test the significance of these differences. Significant
differences were only found for the relationship between superiority goals and the students’
quality of CL. In the ICT/engineering (male) subgroup this correlation coefficient was
positive (r (186) = 0.28, p = .000); in the health and welfare male subgroup no relation was
found (r (136) = -0.03, ns; Z = 2.71, p = .003), and in the food male subgroup the correlation
was negative (r (31) = -0.33, p = .063) (Z = 3.09, p = .001). The other correlation coefficients
did not differ significantly between the program types. Since the predicted moderator effect of
program type was limited to male students’ superiority goal preferences and the quality of CL,
we may conclude that we can hardly speak of a moderator effect of program type.
------------------------------
Table 5 about here
------------------------------
Unique contribution of goal preferences and perceptions of contextual factors to the quality
of CL
-----------------
Insert Table 6
------------------
35
In order to examine the unique contribution of each of the related goal preferences and
contextual variables to the quality of CL, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted
with the students’ perception of the quality of CL as a dependent variable. In the first step we
entered gender and program type, in the second step we entered the students’ perception of
contextual factors, including their evaluations of the extent that they were taught CL skills at
their present schools, their perceptions of teachers’ clarity on rules for CL, monitoring
behavior, perceived availability of peer academic support and peer and teacher emotional
support. In the third step we entered students’ goal preferences, including social support
goals, belongingness goals, and mastery goals. In the fourth step, two-way “gender × goals”
and “gender × context” interactions were entered and in the fifth step “program type × goals”
and “program type × context” interactions were entered into the equation. The analyses did
not yield significant interaction effects on step 4 and 5. Table 6 presents the results of the first
three steps. Gender significantly contributed to the explained variance in the quality of CL.
However, inclusion of contextual variables in the regression equation led to the disappearance
of the unique contribution of gender. Further inspection of step 2 shows that 21% of the total
variance was accounted for and that all contextual factors had a unique contribution to the
explained variance in the quality of CL, except for teachers’ clarity on rules for CL and
availability of teacher emotional support (see Table 6). When goal preferences were added in
step three, 25% of the variance was explained.
Hence, having information about students’ goal preferences explained 4% unique
variance in the quality of CL and this was mainly due to the students’ score on the social
support goals.
DISCUSSION
First of all we explored the relationship between students’ goal preferences and the quality of
CL. At the outset of the study, we predicted that belongingness, social support and mastery
goals would be positively relatively and superiority/ individuality goal preferences negatively
related to the quality of CL. The students in our sample gave most preference to mastery
goals, followed by social support goals and belongingness goals. Social support goals had the
strongest relationship with the quality of CL, again followed by mastery and belongingness
goals. Students who value helping and supporting each other, rated the quality of CL higher,
independent of their mastery and belongingness goals. We expected an overall negative
relationship between students’ superiority/individuality goals and the quality of CL. However,
36
superiority/individuality goals were not significantly related to the quality of CL, meaning
that whether students are high or low on preference for this type of goal is unrelated to their
perception of the quality of CL. This unexpected finding will be discussed later in relation to
the program type differences that we found.
Our second research question involved the relationship between the quality of CL and
perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom, including social climate. We assumed that
in order for students to cooperate well it is very important that they know how to cooperate in
the first place. In other words, we assumed that the quality of CL will be poor when students
indicate that they were not taught the necessary skills. Multiple regression analyses showed
that all contextual variables made a significant contribution to the variance explained in CL,
except the students’ perception of available emotional teacher support and the teacher’s
clarity of rules for CL. Important predictors were the students’ awareness that they had been
taught the necessary CL skills and that their teachers were monitoring their effective use of
these skills. Interesting for future research is to explore whether this relationship changes over
time. As predicted, perception of social climate was related to the quality of CL. Recall, that
the simple correlations showed all four social climate variables to be related to the perceived
quality of CL. In the regression analyses we noted that only perceived availability of
emotional and academic peer support were related to the quality of CL. It seems plausible,
therefore, that the higher students rate the availability of peer support the better they will
cooperate.
Thirdly, we explored gender and program type effects on the relationship between
students’ goal preferences and the quality of CL. Examination of gender differences in the
relationship between students’ goal preferences and the quality of CL revealed that, as
predicted, female students showed higher scores than male students on the quality of CL. Also
in line with our expectations, female students reported higher preferences for social support
and mastery goals whereas male students reported higher preferences for superiority goals.
The findings suggest that female students, more than their male peers, feel confident in CL
settings. These findings confirm previous findings (Eccles, 1987; Townsend & Hicks, 1997;
Voncken et al., 2000; Wentzel, 1991). We did not find a gender moderator effect but the
study revealed interesting program type effects.
Because of their social orientation, we predicted that health and welfare students and
food and tourism students score higher on the quality of CL, and on social goals, particularly
in comparison with ICT and engineering students. This prediction was partially confirmed.
Health and welfare students scored significantly higher on the perceived quality of CL and on
37
social support goals than ICT/engineering students, but also higher than retail and
administration students. These conclusions only pertain to male students. We explained
previously that health and welfare students are preparing for a career that requires them to
gain a favorable attitude toward and proficiency in social skills. We also found that health and
welfare students scored significantly higher in relation to this goal domain than food and
tourism students did. Another prediction was that ICT and engineering students report a
higher preference for superiority goals in anticipation of their future job in the world of
business. We found that these students scored higher on superiority goals than both the health
and the food sub-samples and that they had the lowest scores on social support goals and
mastery goals.
The program type moderator effect was limited to the relationship between
superiority/individuality goal preferences and the quality of CL. In the total sample the
correlation between CL and superiority goals was non-significant. A stronger correlation was
noted in the male samples of the ICT/engineering subgroup as compared to the correlations
in the health and welfare and food and tourism subgroups. Interestingly, the direction of the
relationship differed between program types as well. In the health and welfare sample no
relation was found, meaning that whether or not these students give preference to superiority
goals is independent of their perception of the quality of CL. In the food and tourism sample a
negative correlation was found, implying that food and tourism students, who want to impress
others and outperform their peers, report that the quality of CL is lower than peers who do not
have this tendency. In the ICT/ engineering group, superiority goals were positively related to
the quality of CL and this contradicted our predictions. However, in line with our discussion
on program type dependent goal orientations it is conceivable that this dominantly male
group, who scored significantly higher than the other groups on superiority goals, prefers
group assignments that invite them to compete with their peers and with other groups. In this
study we did not collect information on the nature of the curriculum or the group assignments
set to the students in the different program types. It might be that the group assignments set in
the socially oriented program types differ from those in program types that encourage students
to be more superiority minded. Several researchers (e.g., Boggiano et al., 1989; Dweck, 1986)
have argued that superiority goals are prevalent in traditional educational settings where
competition and achievement goals are a crucial part of the learning process. More research is
needed to study the underlying mechanisms of the program type effect.
Recommendations
38
Our main aim was to study the effect of goal preferences on CL and to identify factors that
teachers can manipulate to promote successful CL and to prevent forms of misregulation (e.g.
chatting, social loafing). Our findings to date are that the context plays a significant role in
predicting the quality of CL. This is very promising. Indeed, adjustments in the context are
much easier to bring about than changes in students’ goal preferences. Based on our findings
we are able to provide some guidelines for future interventions.
In the first place, it is important that teachers make students aware of what is required
for working in a CL setting and teach the necessary and sufficient skills explicitly. More
specifically, it is crucial that teachers teach their students how to listen to each other, to
evaluate the group process, to discuss, to support group members, to give an opinion, or to
solve group conflicts. Secondly it is important that teachers monitor the CL process, which
means that they need to walk around in the classroom, frequently check with the groups and
ask them how they are doing. Thirdly, teachers need to be aware that availability of peer
support is essential for effective CL, emotional as well as instrumental support. This implies
that teachers should not only encourage students to provide this type of support but also
encourage them to role-play this type of behavior.
The role of the teacher in providing support was less important than peer support.
However, this could be an artifact of the type of analyses that we conducted; several other
variables in the analyses referred to teacher behavior and these variables explained a large
portion of the variance in CL.
Finally, we want to remark that the relatively weak link between student goal preferences and
the quality of CL may be due to the fact that not all students are aware of the multiple goals
they pursue in the classroom and of the relationships between their multiple goals and aspects
of CL. Currently we are conducting a follow-up stimulated-recall study where we assess the
significance that students attach to different types of goals while working on specific tasks in
a CL setting. After their group working sessions, groups of students are invited to provide
information about their goal preferences and their actual perception of the quality of CL.
Preliminary findings indicate that students do not spontaneously reflect on the link between
their goal preferences and the quality of CL. Discussing personal goals in order to make
students aware of the role these goals play in the learning process might be an important step
towards more successful CL. Teachers need to invite their students to think about their own
goals and about the links between personal goals and the goals presented to them by teachers,
39
course books, and other students. Such reflection might help them to adopt teacher-set
learning goals and self-regulate their learning more efficiently (see Boekaerts & Corno,
2005). Also, teachers need to create a classroom environment where peer support is promoted
and valued. At the same time, this type of environment will stimulate students to pursue their
social support goals, which are also crucial for successful CL.
40
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Figure 1
Model of research
Goal Preferences
Perception of contextual factors in the Classroom
Quality of Cooperative Learning
Gender/ program type
46
Table 1
Sample Characteristics
Program Type N % Female
ICT/ Engineering 347 6.05
Retail & Administration 355 52.1
Food & Tourism 96 55.2
Health & Welfare 1122 83.2
Total 1920 62.4
47
Table 2
Categories, Sample Items, Number of Items and Cronbachs’ Alpha Coefficients
Category Sample item # items Alpha
Students’ Goal
Preferences
Superiority/
individuality
I want to impress others 9 .93
Mastery I want to learn more about my profession 6 .92
Belongingness I want to get along with my peers 6 .86
Social Support I want to help others in case they need help 7 .91
Perceived
Quality of CL
Quality of CL I perceive myself as part of this group 29 .90
Conditions for
CL
48
Task difficulty Most group members think the task is too difficult 1 -
Task challenge Most group members think the task is challenging 1 -
Task time We have sufficient time for finishing the task 1 -
Task consulting Students need to consult each other in order to finish
the group task
1 -
Type of reward After finishing the task, we receive an 1) individual
reward, 2) group reward 3) both
1 -
Cooperation skills
and knowledge
At this school we learned how to have a good quality
group discussion
8 .86
Rules for CL Before we start to work on the group task, teachers
explain us how to plan
9 .87
Teachers
Monitoring
Behavior
Teachers walk around the classroom when we
cooperate
5 .83
Teacher
Interventions
If we are too noisy while we cooperate, teachers
intervene
5 .77
49
Teacher
Evaluations
After finishing the group task, teachers explain what
went well during CL and what needs improvement
4 .80
Social Climate
Academic support
teacher
When I do not understand the lesson, I get support from
my teacher
7 .80
Academic support
peers
When I do not understand the lesson the I get support
from my peers
7 .82
Social support
teachers
When I am sad my teacher supports me 6 .82
Social support
peers
When I am sad my peers support me 6 .89
50
Table 3
N, Mean Scores, Standard Deviations and Correlation Coefficients of the quality of CL, Goals, Contextual factors, and Social Climate
N
M
SD
Sup
Mas
Bel.
Soc
Task
chall.
Task
diff
Task
consult
Task
time
Rew
Skill
Rules
Mon
Int
Eva
T ac
T em
P ac
P em
Quality of CL
(QCL)
1526 2.8 .28 .02 .23** .23** .33** -
.16**
.10** -.10** -.06* .03 .35** .24** .20** .19** .19** .17** .21** .28** .30**
Superiority (Sup) 1816 3.11 1.01 .14** .26** .09** -.03 -
.08**
.05 .05 .03 -.01 .01 .05 .09** .04 -.01 .05 -
.02**
-
.01**
Mastery (Mas) 1784 4.27 .64 .46** .66** -.07* .03 -.10** -
.08**
-.04 .09** .01 .05* .02 -.03 .16** .12** .13** .17**
Belongingness
(Bel.)
1821 4.15 .68 .49** -.03 .04 -.08 .01 -
.07*
.13** .05 .05 .09** .04 .17** .17** .16** .22**
Social Support
(Soc)
1915 4.18 .72 -.04 .04 -.07** -.06* -.02 .12** .01 .04 .04 -.02 .15** .15** .19** .33**
Task challenge 1704 1.57 .49 .05 .03 -.04 .01 - - - - - - - -.03 .01
51
(Task chall) .18** .16** .18** .15** .19** .09** .10**
Task difficulty
(Task diff)
1740 1.87 .34 -.05 .11** -.02 .03 -.03 .03 .00 .02 .02 .02 .02 .05
Task consulting
( Task consult)
1745 1.10 .30 .04 -.04 -
.08**
-.02 -.05 .01 .06** -.03 -.05 -.05* -.07*
Task time
(Task time)
1731 1.37 .48 .06* -
.14**
-.16* -.12* -
.07**
-
.12**
-
.08**
-
.14**
-
.12**
-
.16**
Type of reward
(Rew)
1636 1.83 .89 .06* .08** .05 .03 .03 -.03 -.02 -.02 -.00
Coop. Skills
(Skill)
1908 2.65 .45 .52** .34** .29** .36** .23** .23** .09** .13**
Rules for CL
(Rules)
1933 2.48 .46 .47** .40** .52** .23** .26** .01 .01
Teacher Monitoring
(mon)
1893 2.52 .53 .45** .50** .28** .25** .09** .08**
Teacher Intervening
(int)
1924 2.44 .56 .51** .22** .24** .04 .04
52
Teacher Evaluation
(eva)
1932 2.30 .60 .21** .24** .04 .00
Teacher Aca
Support (Taca)
1951 2.8 .63 .62** .38** .29**
Teacher Emo
Support (T emo)
1895 2.09 .64 .31** .47**
Peer Academic
Support (P ac)
1926 2.8 .60 .67**
Peer Emotional
Support (P emo)
1909 2.64 .80
*p <.01, ** p < .001,
53
Table 4
Means and Standard Deviations for the Goal Preference Subscales and the quality of CL Subscale,
for Male (N = 402) and Female (N = 1171) Students
M SD F p η 2
Mastery Learning
Goals
Male 4.21 .63 9.53 .002 .00
Female 4.33 .60
Belongingness Male 4.13 .70 .62 .43 .00
Female 4.16 .67
Social Support Male 4.07 .71 35.61 .000 .03
54
Female 4.33 .64
Superiority Male 3.30 .99 29.74 .000 .02
Female 2.93 1.03
Quality of CL Male 2.76 .26 12.66 .000 .01
Female 2.83 .28
55
Table 5
Means and Standard Deviations for Goal Preferences and the quality of CL by Program Type and Gender
ICT/ eng
Health
Retail
Food
Multiple Comparisons
(Scheffé, p <.05)
η 2
Mastery Goals Male 4.13 (.76) 4.31 (.57) 4.15 (.67) 3.93 (.67) health > food
.02
Female - 4.33 (.60) 4.33 (.60) 4.29 (.61) .00
Social Support Male 3.81 (.79) 4.23 (.62) 3.93 (.79) 3.94 (.65) health > ICT/
engineering,
retail
.05
Female - 4.33 (.62) 4.24 (.69) 4.38 (.70) .00
Belongingness Male 4.15 (.73) 4.17 (.67) 4.15 (.73) 3.85 (.63) .01
Female - 4.16 (.67) 4.19 (.64) 4.02 (.76) .00
Superiority Male 3.43 (.80) 3.19(1.03) 3.49 (.93) 3.05(.94) .02
Female - 2.91(1.02) 2.98(1.09) 3.05(1.07) .00
56
Quality of CL Male 2.76 (.33) 2.78 (.24) 2.75 (.29) 2.75 (.22) .01
Female - 2.83 (.27) 2.79 (.30) 2.86 (.22) .01
57
Table 6
Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analyses for Background, Contextual Factors and
Goal Preferences Predicting the Quality of CL
step predictor ß R� F
1 Back ground .01 5.40**
Gender .09*
Program type .04
2 Back ground .21 31.44***
Gender .05
Program type -.03
Perceptions of Contextual Factors in the
Classroom
Students evaluations of the extent that they
were taught CL skills
.24***
Rules for CL skills .07
Teachers monitoring behavior .07*
Perceptions of the Social Climate
Perceived availability of emotional peer
support
.20***
Perceived availability of academic peer
support
.12**
Perceived availability of emotional teacher
support
-.02
3 Back ground
Gender .02
58
Program type -.04
Students Goal Preferences .25 28.67***
Social Support .20***
Belongingness .00
Mastery .03
Perceptions of Contextual Factors in the
Classroom
Students evaluation of the extent that they
were taught CL skills
.23***
Rules for CL skills .07
Teachers monitoring behavior .08**
Perceptions of the Social Climate
Perceived availability of emotional peer
support
.13**
Perceived availability of academic peer
support
.13***
Perceived availability of emotional teacher
support
-.02
*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p�.001
59
Chapter 3
EXPLORING THE LINKS BETWEEN STUDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT IN
COOPERATIVE LEARNING, THEIR GOAL PREFERENCES AND PERCEPTIONS
OF CONTEXTUAL FACTORS IN THE CLASSROOM
2
Abstract
In this in-depth study we questioned effective and ineffective cooperative learning (CL) teams
about their goal preferences, the quality of CL, and perceptions of contextual factors in the
classroom in a stimulated-recall setting. Mastery and social responsibility goals – together
with ‘learning for a certificate’ goal- tended to be more prevalent in effective teams, while
learning for a certificate and entertainment goals were dominant in ineffective teams.
Students’ belongingness goals were negatively related to socially oriented task engagement in
ineffective teams. Task characteristics, group composition, and teacher behavior were
mentioned as reasons for effective or ineffective CL.
Key words: goal preferences, engagement, contextual factors, cooperative learning
2 This chapter is based on: Hijzen, Boekaerts and Vedder (2005). Exploring the links between students’ engagement in cooperative learning, their goal preferences and perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom. Manuscript (re)submitted for publication in: Learning and Instruction.
60
INTRODUCTION
In a study on the quality of cooperative learning in senior vocational high schools in the
Netherlands one of the students commented during an interview: “It is just dead boring at
school, I don’t think I actually learn anything at all, I hope I will at least learn something in
my traineeship”. This statement indicates a mismatch between students’ goal preferences and
the goals that are set by the school, which may result in low levels of student engagement and,
eventually, in a state of disengagement for large groups. This comment points at a common
problem in senior vocational high schools where the drop out rate is alarmingly high. About
37 percent of the first year students quit school (School Inspectorate, 2002). Many of these
dropouts reported that they had experienced their study as uninteresting, too theoretical, too
difficult and non-supportive for their future career (Voncken, Van der Kuip, Moerkamp, &
Felix, 2000). Dropping out of school often is an outcome of underlying motivational problems
that students experienced during their school history. In the present in-depth study we will
focus on students’ engagement levels in cooperative learning (CL) settings in secondary
vocational education. CL is a common instructional method in senior vocational high schools
in the Netherlands. Of the first–year students in secondary vocational schools, one third work
less than 45 minutes per week on CL, and one third between 45 to 90 minutes per week,
whereas the other one third work between 45 and 90 minutes per day in CL teams (Hijzen,
Boekaerts, & Vedder, 2005). Often CL methods involve hands-on tasks, in which students
can develop their professional skills together. In CL settings students depend on each other
for learning and the conditions may encourage them to attend school regularly. CL methods
are also believed to foster a mastery goal orientation which is related to positive educational
outcomes (Midgley & Urdan, 1992). Unfortunately, placing students in CL groups does not
automatically create favorable conditions for learning. Many students do not actually work
together when asked to collaborate. They are engaged in task-irrelevant behavior instead. In
this study we will approach this problem from the perspective of motivational self-regulation.
Three types of engagement
Motivation strategies are a crucial aspect of students' self-regulation in academic and non-
academic activities. We define motivation strategies as processes that are governed by goal
preferences. Elliot and Sheldon (1998) view goal preferences as the “personally meaningful
objectives that individuals pursue in their daily lives”. We would like to add that these goal
61
preferences steer and direct, or in other words self regulate student behavior in the classroom.
Self-regulation refers to a multi-level, multi component process where students target their
cognitions, feelings and actions in the service of their goals (Boekaerts & Corno, 2005).
Students are expected to regulate their own learning behavior appropriately, showing higher
levels of engagement when their goal preferences are in line with the goals they are expected
to achieve in school. Engagement refers to the intensity and quality of students' involvement
in initiating and carrying out learning activities (Wellborn, 1991). Ryan (2000) made a
distinction between motivation and engagement; the former concerns cognitions underlying
involvement in one’s schoolwork (e.g., motivational beliefs) and the latter refers to students’
actual involvement in their schoolwork (concrete actions, engagement). Hence, engagement
can be perceived as an indicator of students’ motivation.
In this study we will focus on students’ actual involvement or engagement in CL.
Following Chapman (2003) we distinguished between three types of engagement that may
occur during CL, namely task-relevant engagement, task-irrelevant engagement and socially
oriented task engagement. The behavior of students who are actively engaged in the task is
characterized as task-relevant behavior. These students are active, focus on the task and
persist when obstacles occur. The behavior of disaffected students is characterized as task-
irrelevant behavior. These students do not try hard, give up easily in the face of challenges
and engage in task-irrelevant behavior like chatting or disturbing others (Chapman, 2003).
Socially oriented task engagement is related to the first type of engagement. Students who are
socially engaged are primarily involved in social activities such as providing help and
emotional support.
In this study we will attempt to distinguish CL teams that predominantly show (social)
task-relevant engagement during CL (i.e. effective CL teams), from teams that show task-
irrelevant engagement most of the time (ineffective CL teams), in terms of their goal
preferences and their perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom.
Previous studies
In a previous study (Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder, 2006), we focused solely on students’
general cognitions underlying their perception of the quality of CL. Generally weak
relationships were found between students’ goal preferences and the quality of CL. Several
reasons were given for this relatively weak link. First, students might not be aware of their
goal preferences and therefore do not consider them when reflecting on the quality of CL. It is
62
also plausible that students’ general goals, as measured with the goal questionnaire, differ
from goal preferences in a context (see for example Lemos, 1996). It was found that students’
scores on the quality of CL were most strongly associated with their social support goals (e.g.,
“I want to support my peers”), followed by belongingness goals (e.g., I want to get along
with my peers) and mastery goals (e.g., “I want to learn new things”). No relationship was
found with students’ superiority or individuality goals (e.g., “I want to be the best student of
my class”).
In this study we explored students’ goal preferences and their perception of the quality
of CL using stimulated-recall. The quality of CL was analyzed using a measure of
engagement during CL. In order to discover which types of goals were most salient in the CL
setting, we did not limit the range of goals to the traditional mastery and performance
distinction (e.g., Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck 1986; Urdan, 1999), or to the four goals, that
were the object in our previous research. Instead, we explored the full range of goal
preferences that students spontaneously mentioned in combination with the quality of CL. We
reasoned that several goal preferences may underlie students’ engagement in the classroom.
With the exception of a few studies (e.g., Downson & McInerney, 2001; Lemos; 1996),
students’ subjective goal definitions have not been the object of research. In this in-depth
study, we combine students’ self-reports on a-priori goal preferences with the goals that they
spontaneously mention while reflecting on their own activities in actual CL settings.
We reasoned that the relatively weak link between students’ goal preferences and the
quality of CL in our previous study is largely due to students’ perceptions of contextual cues.
We assume that the context plays an important role in shaping the quality of CL. Earlier
research supports that environmental features trigger specific goal preferences, thus
influencing the quality of CL (e.g., Ames, 1992; Ames & Archer, 1988, Blumenfeld, 1992;
Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder, 2006). We will pay close attention to students’ perceptions of
contextual factors in the classroom that may or may not promote goal preferences that might
shape the conditions for effective CL. In the present study a multi-method, context-bound
approach was used in order to capture students’ thinking about the type of goal preferences
and the type of context that stimulate their CL processes best.
Engagement, goal preferences, and contextual factors in effective CL teams
By comparing participating CL teams that have reported to cooperate very well with teams
that have reported to cooperate poorly, we will gain insight into the salient goal preferences of
63
these reflective groups, and into the nature of the relationship between perceptions of the
members of the teams of contextual factors and the reported quality of CL. Based on findings
of previous studies we expect that in effective CL teams, students’ social and mastery goals
will be dominant. For example, McInerney, Hinkley, Dowson and Van Etten (1998)
suggested that a joint mastery and social goal orientation is more productive than mastery
goals alone because a sense of belongingness and social responsibility provoked by social
goals provides an added drive for academic achievement. Indeed, the foundation for much of
the success of CL is the well-known phenomenon that individuals show goal striving for the
sake of the group (Hertz-Lazarowitz & Miller, 1992) Wentzel (1989) found that high-
achieving students and low-achieving students displayed specific unique social goal patterns.
High-achievers tended to focus on getting things done on time and being successful,
responsible, and dependable students, whereas making friends and having fun were less
valuable goals. Low-achieving students on the other hand reported that the latter two goals
were important. In line with these results, we expect that students in effective CL teams
combine salient mastery and social goals. We also expect that these team members are more
conscious of their goal preferences than students in ineffective teams. Earlier research
suggested that formulating mastery goals facilitates students’ intrinsic motivation (e.g.,
Cantor, Norem, Niedenthal, Langston, & Brower, 1987; Sheldon & Kasser, 1995; Sheldon &
Elliot, 1997) and at the same time boosts their socially oriented task engagement in CL.
Based on reviews of conditions for CL (e.g., Cohen, 1994; Webb & Palincsar, 1996),
we expect that effective CL teams perceive contextual factors as promoting mastery and
social goals as these are challenging, hands-on, and promoting interdependency (Webb &
Palincsar, 1996). These teams are preferably not too big so that effects of social loafing are
minimal and these team members get along and support each other (e.g., Chin, Salisbury,
Pearson, & Stollak, 1999; Sharan & Sharan, 1992) in a beneficial way. Team members of
effective teams are also expected to evaluate their teachers as specialists who are guiding the
learning process sufficiently, but not in a too strict way. In other words, they view their
teachers as coaches who make appropriate use of scaffolding methods (Brown & Palincsar,
1989; Oortwijn, Boekaerts, & Vedder, in preparation) and they evaluate the school climate as
transparent and supporting.
Engagement, goal preferences and contextual factors in ineffective CL teams
64
In ineffective teams we expect that team members’ social and affective goals are more
important than their mastery goals. They are expected to target their cognitions, feelings and
actions in the service of task-irrelevant engagement, such as chatting, making friends or just
having fun. These students are expected to be preoccupied with their well-being and therefore
less involved with the learning process. Furthermore, we expect these team members to be
less involved in goal planning, and less conscious of their goals than effective team members.
Because superiority goals (i.e. having a performance orientation) are likely to conflict with
goals that are salient in CL settings, we expect that students who hold these goals to
experience the CL setting as a threat to their wish to perform at a more individual level (e.g.,
Schwartz & Bardi, 2001). Lepper and Hodell (1989) found that students who try to get good
grades, because they want to comply or to obtain a certificate are not intrinsically motivated
and they may disengage from a task when they judge that they might not achieve this goal
We expect that members of ineffective teams evaluate the group task as boring and too
theoretical. They might experience difficulties in getting along and perceive teachers as
controlling or not involved.
Research question
Students’ perspectives on their goal preferences were taken as a starting point and their task-
relevant, task irrelevant and socially oriented task engagement levels were observed during
CL and further examined in a stimulated-recall setting. CL teams that function well will be
compared with teams that function poorly or in fact are not cooperating at all. The main
research question in this study is: “How can we distinguish effective CL teams from ineffective
CL teams, and characterize them in terms of students’ goal preferences and perceptions of
contextual factors in the classroom?” We will investigate whether our findings lend support
to models of CL that were presented on the basis of previous research and whether
conceptualizations used in earlier studies adequately cover processes that bring about or
substantiate effective CL.
METHOD
Subjects
Participants in this in-depth study were 57 second year-students from five different schools
for secondary vocational education in the Netherlands. Secondary vocational school starts for
65
most students at the age of 16 after they completed a junior vocational school. Senior
vocational school is divided into four levels. At the first level students train to become
assistants (6 to 12 months). At the second level they have two to three year courses for basic
vocational training. At the third level students are enrolled in professional training and at the
fourth level they participate in middle-management training (3 to 4 years) or in a specialized
training course (1 to 2 years). Most students finishing secondary vocational school prefer to
enter the labor market and do not proceed with further studies (for further information on
secondary vocational education in the Netherlands, see Euridice database on education, 2003
website). Secondary vocational schools offer a broad range of program types. Subjects in the
present study were enrolled in three different program types; ICT, health and welfare and
retail and administration programs, these were level 3 and level 4 studies. Five teachers, who
often used CL instruction methods, and their classes were willing to participate. In the five
classes 18 CL teams participated. From these 18 teams we selected four teams (nine males;
eight females in total) that reported to cooperate very well and four teams (five males; nine
females in total) that said to cooperate very badly or that did not cooperate at all. Two of the
teams that said to cooperate very well were enrolled in retail and administration, one in ICT,
and one in health and welfare programs. In the teams that were unsatisfied with their CL one
team was enrolled in retail and administration, two in ICT and one in health and welfare
programs. The eight teams were spread over four different classrooms.
Group composition
The CL settings differed from class to class. In the ICT class we selected three teams of
students that worked on a (computer) project for an eight week period in teams that consisted
of four individuals. Students were expected to work on the project for three days a week.
Teachers were present to assist when help was required. All courses that students attended
during the rest of the week were related to the project.
Two CL teams of health and welfare students were selected and were observed during
social science classes. The teams consisted of six persons. Students in these classes worked on
a variety of group assignments. For example, students were asked to prepare a role play or to
cooperatively work out a treatment plan for an imaginary person with a certain type of
behavioral problem. For the assignments the students had to work together.
Two retail and administration classes participated. In the former class (two teams were
selected) modes of direct instruction were combined with group work. This was the only
classroom where direct teaching was dominant. In the latter (one team was selected) we
66
observed students during a simulation project. A team of six students had to organize their
own virtual company and their aim was to make it profitable. The project lasted for almost
one school year. Each student had a specific role in the company, with the attached
responsibility (e.g., director, secretary, assistant). Different aspects of what they were taught
during class were integrated in the project, e.g., working out a business plan. We observed
during the weekly meetings when these six students had to evaluate, plan and divide tasks.
Procedure and instrumentation
In each classroom, we made three video-registrations of the CL teams, with two weeks
intervals. The first video-recording started at the beginning of the (CL) projects and each
recording took 10 minutes. The students also participated in a self-report study and completed
questionnaires on their goal preferences and the Quality of Cooperative Learning. After the
last video-registration we confronted students with a video-recording of their CL team and
interviewed them about their goal preferences, the quality of CL, influences on their
engagement levels and goal conflicts.
Questionnaires
Before students were observed and interviewed they participated in a survey. They completed
the Goal Importance and Facilitation Inventory (GIFI) which is based on Fords’ taxonomy of
broad goals (Ford, 1992; Ford & Nichols, 1991). Students indicate how salient each of the
seven broad goal domains are in their current life, namely students’ mastery, affective,
belongingness, social support, self-determination, material gain, and superiority/ individuality
goals. Response categories ranged from "I disagree very strongly” (1) to “I agree very
strongly” (5).
Observational studies
In order to rate engagement levels of the individual students in CL, we developed an 18-item
rating list. Items were based on a study by Skinner and Belmont (1993) and the Quality of CL
questionnaire (Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder, 2006). The rating list contained three subscales.
Items in the first subscale measured students' task-irrelevant engagement. A sample item is
"this student chats", Cronbach’s alpha was .89. A second subscale measured students' task-
relevant engagement. A sample item is "this student concentrates on the task", Cronbach’s
alpha was .95. The third subscale aims to measure students’ socially oriented task
67
engagement. A sample item is “this student offers team members help”, Cronbachs’ alpha
was .90. Response categories (4) of the items varied from "almost never" to "very often".
In order to optimize interrater reliability, a scoring guide was developed before the
actual rating process started. Examples were listed for each item in the rating list and two
raters were trained to identify them. They rated the engagement levels of the 57 students, on
one video-tape using the rating list. This video-recording was the same as the one used in the
stimulated recall session. Cohens’ Kappa indicated an acceptable level of agreement between
the two raters, K = .66, p < .01.
Interviews/ stimulated-recall
Semi-structured group interviews were conducted with the observed teams of students. The
videotape formed the basis for the interviews which contained 16 questions. We asked
students about their goal preferences, their perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom
and the quality of the cooperation in their team. Teams were asked to explain motives for
task-relevant and task-irrelevant behavior during CL. On average an interview took 45
minutes. The interviews were taped and transcribed and the interview protocols were
restructured by subdividing the statements into broad categories. We distinguished two
categories of statements, namely those about students’ goal preferences and those about
students’ perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom. Interview protocols were
analyzed, using an inductive content analysis approach, based on the work of Lemos (1996)
and Dowson and McInerney (2001). Table 1 presents the scoring categories.
-------------------------------
Insert Table 1 about here
------------------------------
A scoring guide was developed with examples of each category and statements about goals
were counted and categorized, by four raters. Interrater agreement was 83 % ((100/ n
statements) x n agreements). An agreement meant that at least three out of four raters agreed
about the classification of a particular statement (see Lemos, 1996). Interrater agreement (two
raters) for assigning statements about contextual characteristics (see Table 1) was 94 % ((100
/ n statements) x n agreements).
Quantitative analysis
Quantitative analysis of the self-reports and observed scores for engagement consisted of
calculating mean scores, univariate analyses of variance and correlation analyses. In line with
68
Lemos (1996) quantitative analyses of the interview statements consisted of frequency
analysis and analysis of the profiles’ congruency (Serafini coefficient C). The congruence
coefficient is a measure of the relative distance between two profiles. A profile considers
several variables at the same time and C summarizes the different distances between the
profiles. C values range from 0 to 1:
From 0.90 to 1.00: Perfect congruence
From 0.70 to 0.89: High congruity
From 0.40 to 0.69: Moderate congruity
From 0.20 to 0.39: Low congruity
From 0.00 to 0.19: No congruity
For more information on calculating congruence coefficients see Lemos (1996). Goal profiles
were derived by calculating the percentage of students’ statements on each goal. We counted
the proportion of each particular goal type as compared to the total number of goal statements.
RESULTS
In this section, we will compare goal profiles and perceptions of contextual factors of teams
that reported in the interviews that the quality of CL in their team was very good with teams
that were highly unsatisfied with the quality of CL. An additional selection criterion was that
the mean scores on task-relevant and socially oriented task engagement in the effective teams
should be above 3, and in the ineffective teams below 3. By contrast, task-irrelevant
engagement should be higher in the ineffective teams as compared to the effective teams.
Table 2 presents these teams engagement scores
----------------------------------
Insert Table 2 about here
----------------------------------
As predicted, observed engagement scores were dissimilar in the teams. In ineffective teams
task-relevant and socially oriented task engagement tended to be lower and task-irrelevant
engagement higher than in effective teams. Univariate analyses showed that the teams scored
significantly different on socially oriented task engagement (F (1, 20) = 9.44, p = .006, �² =
.32). We will conclude this section with two case studies in order to illustrate in more detail
why some teams were successful in CL and others were not.
69
----------------------------------
Insert Table 3 about here
----------------------------------
Goal preferences and engagement in CL
Table 3 presents effective and ineffective team members’ goal preferences as obtained by
their GIFI-self reports. A closer look at these teams’ goal preferences showed that effective
teams’ most prevalent goal preferences were affective, social support goals and self-
determination goals, whereas ineffective team member’s most prevalent goal preferences
were belongingness, affective and self-determination goals. The most striking difference
concerned students’ belongingness and social support goals. Effective team members tended
to report slightly lower scores on belongingness goals than ineffective team members, while
the reversed pattern is observed for social support goals. However, no significant differences
between goal preferences for effective and ineffective CL teams were found. In order to
explore how the different goals are related to the three engagement types we calculated
Pearson correlation coefficients for effective and ineffective teams for task-relevant, task-
irrelevant and socially oriented task engagement, and the goal domains of the GIFI. We
expected students’ mastery and social goals to be related to task-relevant and socially oriented
task engagement. Remarkably, only one goal domain was significantly related to students’
engagement scores, namely students’ belongingness goals. This relationship only concerned
the ineffective teams. The direction, in ineffective teams, of the relationship was not in line
with what we predicted. That is to say, preferences for belongingness goals were negatively
related to their socially oriented task behavior (r = -.75, p < .05), implying that ineffective
team members who report that belongingness goals are salient in their current life
demonstrate less socially oriented task behavior than those report that these goals are not
important in their life. Inspection of Table 3 reveals that in the group of ineffective teams,
belongingness goals were dominant over mastery and social support goals, while this pattern
is reversed in the effective teams. This finding suggests that wanting to feel at home in the
group (belong) may hinder rather than facilitate socially oriented task engagement.
Goal profiles
After the categorization of students’ statements on all goal preferences, it became apparent
that the aforementioned goal preferences were not the only ones that were prevalent in the CL
70
setting. A profile was elaborated for the two types of teams in order to account for the relative
importance of each goal within the total set of goal preferences. We counted all the statements
that referred to goal preferences per subgroup, and calculated the proportion of each particular
goal type as compared to the total number of goal statements. Figure 1 presents percentages of
students’ statements in effective and ineffective CL teams referring to their goal preferences.
----------------------------------
Insert Figure 1 about here
----------------------------------
Figure 1 shows that in effective teams the most prevalent goals were mastery, learning for a
certificate, social responsibility and entertainment goals. Interestingly, these goals are largely
the same type of goals that were found to be positively related to the quality of CL in previous
studies (Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder, 2006). In ineffective teams, entertainment, learning for
a certificate, mastery and work avoidance goals rated high. The most considerable, and
expected, difference was the strong prevalence of entertainment goals in ineffective CL
teams, they were as salient as the ‘learning for a certificate’ goal. In the effective CL teams,
mastery goals were most salient and revealed learning for certificate goals for importance.
Interestingly in this group, social responsibility goals scored as high as entertainment goals.
Social responsibility goals were not mentioned at all in ineffective CL teams. Another striking
difference concerned the percentage of statements on work avoidance goals, in ineffective
teams the percentage of statements on this goal domain was much higher than in effective
teams.
The congruence coefficient (C) (Serafini, 1981 in Lemos 1996) allowed comparisons
between the two profiles. The goal profiles of students in effective and ineffective CL teams
showed a moderate congruity (coefficient C between the two profiles = .55), meaning that the
profiles of effective and ineffective teams are only moderately comparable. Moreover, as
expected, students in the ineffective teams were less conscious of their goals; fewer
statements referred to goal preferences (27 statements) than in effective teams (54
statements). Also, the range of different goal preferences mentioned was smaller for
ineffective teams than for the effective teams.
Compared to students self-reports about their overall goal preferences, many of the
same goals were mentioned when they were asked to reflect on the actual CL setting (e.g.,
mastery, social support, belongingness and affective goal preferences). Surprisingly, self-
determination, superiority/ individuality and material gain were not mentioned at all in the CL
context. Conceivably, these goal preferences are not important in the CL setting. Furthermore,
71
it was noted that mastery goals were more prevalent in the actual learning situation compared
to the students’ scores reported on the GIFI, a finding that was also detected by Lemos. She
found that “The confrontation with the real classroom activities strengthens the focus of
students’ behavior within the academic dimension” (Lemos, 1996, p. 167).
Contextual factors and engagement in CL
Important to note is that goal preferences were rarely spontaneously mentioned while
reflecting on task-relevant, task-irrelevant, or socially oriented task engagement during CL
sessions. Groups pointed far more often at the context for explaining their CL. We asked all
teams to explain instances of effective and ineffective CL. Results presented here are limited
to the four ineffective and four effective CL teams.
Statements that explained successful CL in the effective teams referred to the group
composition (17 statements). The size of the team (“In a large team it is harder to keep your
promises”), and the types of relationships among the team members were mentioned as
reasons for cooperating successfully (“We are friends, therefore we cooperate better”. “You
dare to say more, for example when somebody did not complete his part of the project”. “We
understand each other very well and our communication is exceptionally good, I think that is
an important part of the success”). Students alluded to particularly motivated persons in the
group who contributed to successful CL (two teams), to improvements in teacher behavior in
the sense that the teacher became less dominant and to students’ improvement of cooperation
skills. Improvement of school climate was also mentioned as an explanation for improvement
in CL (more transparency). Several statements referred to the fact that the team was just good
at working independently.
The ineffective teams explained their ineffective CL in terms of concerns about task
characteristics (Some teams worked before the period of data-collection at tasks that were not
real group tasks), teacher behavior (according to some of the participants, some teachers were
just not capable of teaching; their lessons were unstructured, unclear and chaotic), absence of
rewards and school context (school structure was experienced as chaotic).
More negative statements referring to contextual factors were made in the ineffective
CL teams than in the effective teams. Thirteen statements referred to the curriculum. Many
tasks were not real group tasks, they could easily be accomplished as individual tasks and no
consultations were required to complete the task. The group tasks were often experienced as
boring, non-supportive for a future career, too easy or unstructured. “I think that the lessons
72
de-motivate me. The tasks are just dead boring. Often I do not understand the purpose of the
lessons”. Teacher behavior was mentioned as a reason for ineffective CL twelve times.
Complaints varied from too little coaching “I would like to get more support from the teacher.
I mean … When I have a question and this person just gives you a book and says “It is in
here” and walks away. What kind of help is this”, to chaotic lessons “I really would like to
know what the purpose is, I think that when she (the teacher) changes her teaching method all
of a sudden, that she can not expect that the class will take her seriously”, and boring
teaching methods “She is reading the book, not knowing other ways to explain what we
should do and how”. It was found that in case of too much autonomy, students were of the
opinion that more teacher involvement was required. This was the situation in the ICT-class.
Students were unsatisfied with the quality and quantity of help they received from teachers.
They were unable to get support from the teacher when they were looking for help. For these
students autonomy tended to correspond to teacher negligence. Group composition was
mentioned seven times as an explanation of task-irrelevant engagement. Problems ranged
from regular absenteeism of one of the group members or the dominance of group members
who were absolutely not motivated. One team mentioned that they were rewarded
individually while they worked on a group project. This was perceived as demotivating. Six
students blamed the chaotic and unstructured school climate for ineffective CL instances. A
statement referring to this issue is “The organization at school is dreadful, you never know
what to do, nothing gets settled, and I get so annoyed by that”. Some teams acknowledged
that they chatted too much or were not serious enough (6 statements). Two of the ineffective
CL teams admitted that the most important reason for ineffective CL was that they were just
not capable of working independently.
Case study of an effective CL team
In order to illustrate the role of goal preferences and students’ perceptions of contextual
factors in the classroom on the quality of CL, we will conclude the result section with a case
study of a team (n = 6) that displayed high task-relevant engagement (M = 3.4, SD = .90) and
low levels of task-irrelevant behavior (M = 1.5, SD = .77). The mean observation score of
socially oriented task engagement was 3.2, SD = .86. We will compare this team with an
ineffective CL team. The second team (n = 3) displayed low levels of task-relevant
engagement (M = 1.4, SD = .72), high levels of task-irrelevant engagement (M = 3.5, SD =
.07) and low levels of socially oriented task engagement (M = 1.5, SD = .50). This team
73
initially consisted of four male ICT-students. One group member cuts classes on a regular
basis and was therefore omitted from this in-depth study.
The effective team consisted of retail and administration students who were involved
in the virtual company (see method section). The team consisted of five male students and one
female. Interesting to note is that interviews with these students revealed that their goal
preferences were very similar. All team members stated they learned to get a certificate (To
get the certificate that is my only goal”). However, most of the time certificate goals were
mentioned in combination with mastery and social responsibility goals (“I want to obtain my
certificate and do it with the team. You will be a lot more experienced after this”). Social
support goals were mentioned as well (“We think that everybody in the team deserves the
certificate, so you’ll try to help and motivate each other. You do want him or her to receive
his or her certificate as well”). Inspection of the GIFI goal profile showed that, as expected,
social support (M = 4.7, SD = .39), and academic learning (M = 4.6, SD =.36) were the most
popular goal domains in this team.
The group composition was mentioned as one of the main reasons for an improvement
of the quality of cooperative learning processes (“The group is smaller now, the weakest
persons left the team and we are now willing to sacrifice more for each other. Help each
other with things. Like “Can I help you?” And we feel far more responsible for each other.
You help each other and it is a win/win situation”). At the time the project started ten team
members were involved, the least motivated students left the team in the course of the school
year. Task-irrelevant engagement was common in the beginning (“We just sat together for
three hours and actually worked for 10 minutes at the most, the rest of the time we were
chatting”). Conflicts were also common at that time. The following statement referred to the
behavior of a person that had left the team (“He never kept his promises. He did not do
anything. Time and again he would promise to do things, but he never did. If we said
something about his behavior, he got angry”). A person who is still a member of the team and
showed little effort in the beginning of the project said “Well, I said my life was very busy
then, but others said you simply had other priorities”. At the time that the team got smaller
and the team members started acting more responsibly this person’s behavior improved
significantly. In the beginning this team was not very good at solving conflicts (“We were too
afraid to start a major dispute, which could spread discord in the team”). When the team got
smaller and students got used to each other, conflicts were solved more easily. At the end they
knew each other much better and comprehended how to treat each other and what to expect of
each team member. Their fear of saying something about a group members’ task-irrelevant
74
engagement decreased over time. Another influence on the QCL was teacher behavior. In this
particular case the teacher initially gave them too little autonomy which made them passive.
One team member said: “He guided too much, he was very dominant”. Later on, the teacher
got less involved and the QCL improved. The team members increasingly took up their own
responsibilities.
Case study of an ineffective CL team
Goals that students in the ineffective CL team mentioned most frequently were academic/ to
get a certificate goals, statements that captured this goal are “The only reason why I am here
is to get my certificate, I am not interested in what we learn, because that is just dead boring”
Academic/ to prepare for a future education goals were also frequently mentioned. As one of
the team members puts it: “It’s about getting my certificate, not about the stuff I learn here,
because that is just not very interesting, I want to go to another program type after this
study”. Inspection of the GIFI goal profile showed that, in line with previous findings,
belongingness (M = 5, SD = .00) and affective goals were most prevalent (M = 4.9, SD = .10)
for the team.
The high level of task-irrelevant engagement in this team was strongly related to the
negative behavior of the group member who was often absent. A statement referring to this
issue is: “T. really isn’t motivated, he does not show up a lot and yes…that influences the
group as a whole, it demotivates the group as well”. It was very difficult to plan group
sessions in this team, because of T’s high rate of absenteeism. In the end, they just decided to
work without T. A second reason for high task irrelevant engagement scores in this group was
the behavior of another group member, who -although physically present- showed very low
engagement during CL. His task-irrelevant behavior can be explained by the fact that he
actually wants to become an actor, and admitted he chose the wrong school. Again teacher
support was mentioned as an important factor that influenced engagement levels during CL.
This team (as was the whole class) was not satisfied with the quality and quantity of their
teachers’ support. Teachers were often unavailable when their help was required. Also the
type of project that they were working on was not a real group project. According to these
students (and other ICT students), many aspects of the project had to be prepared individually
and they obtained individual grades afterwards, whereas the project was introduced as a group
project. Furthermore, they were not interested in the curriculum itself, they said that it was not
75
challenging and interesting. A statement illustrating this is “Last year I started this course.
When you ask me now what I have learned so far, I must say that it is close to nothing”.
DISCUSSION
Students’ goal preferences in effective and ineffective CL teams
Effective CL processes seem to be associated with students’ goal preferences as well as with
their perception of contextual aspects and the appropriate context. We predicted task-relevant
engagement to be dependent on a combination of social goals and mastery goals. We found
that the difference between effective and ineffective CL teams lies precisely in the
combination of these goals. We also found that it is essential to distinguish between different
types of social goals. Comparison of effective and ineffective team members’ self-reports
suggested that belongingness goals might be more popular in ineffective teams. A negative
relationship between students’ belongingness (GIFI) goals and socially oriented task
engagement in the ineffective teams was found. On first sight this finding may seem strange
but it actually corroborates the findings presented by Wentzel (1989), namely that low-
achievers consider making friends and having fun as valuable goals and that pursuing these
goals might interfere with task-relevant engagement. It is important to keep in mind that this
result only concerns ineffective CL teams. Perhaps these students are more concerned with
their well-being and therefore preoccupied with the social environment and cues that signal
threats to friendships. The analysis of the goal profiles supports this notion; it showed that in
ineffective teams, entertainment and work-avoidance goals are popular goals, while in
effective teams mastery goals are equally important as certificate goals. Another valuable
difference regarded the prevalence of social responsibility goals in the effective teams.
Students in these teams reasoned that in their future career people will also expect them to be
able to cooperate, while ineffective teams did not mention these goals it at all. Effective CL
teams seem to be engaged in learning because they have a genuine interest in what they learn
and they understand the value of CL. This finding seems in line with findings of a study of
Levy, Kaplan, and Patrick (2004) who found that mastery oriented students’ evaluated
cooperation in the first place in terms of its contribution to their academic goals and were less
concerned with social relationships.
Students in ineffective teams seem less conscious of their goal preferences than
students in effective teams. Their goals were very broad. Although getting a certificate was in
76
both type of teams one of the most popular goals, how and why they wanted to achieve that
goal seemed to be of inferior importance in the ineffective group. A significant finding of this
study is that not all students devote much thinking to choosing their goals and think about
their goal systems (Conti, 2000). Earlier research suggested that formulating goals, especially
goals that connect with and well-represent one’s sense of self, can facilitate students’ intrinsic
motivation (Cantor et al, 1987; Sheldon & Kasser, 1995; Sheldon & Elliot, 1997). Hence,
formulating goals in the classroom ought to be put on the teacher’s agenda.
Contextual factors and engagement in CL
One of the major points made in this article is that students’ engagements cannot be
understood separately from the environment. In short, the type of task, the teacher, and the
group composition were the most frequently mentioned factors for explaining effective or
ineffective instances of CL. Effective and ineffective teams clearly had different appraisals of
contextual factors that impacted on their quality of CL.
Ineffective teams explained their task-irrelevant engagement as a result of the group
tasks. According to these students, many tasks were not genuine group tasks. They
complained that many group tasks were boring, not supportive for a future career, too easy
and not challenging enough.
Ineffective team members had many complaints about their teachers, who were often
not there in case they needed help. A healthy balance between teacher guidance and student
autonomy seems crucial for CL. Skinner and Belmont (1993) argued that student engagement
is optimized when the social context fulfills children’s basic psychological needs. These
include the needs to be competent, autonomous, and related to other people. The feeling of
competence is influenced by the amount of structure the teacher provides by communicating
clearly about expectations and responding consistently and predictable to students’ questions.
Students in ineffective teams expected more assistance while cooperating. They also
experienced a lack of explanations on the purpose of the lessons. Teachers’ sloppiness in this
respect was a recurring complaint. Students often did not know how to proceed because
teachers were not clear enough about the purpose of the tasks, before they started. The need
for autonomy is promoted when students experience autonomy support. However, more
teacher involvement was required in a situation of too much autonomy as in the ICT-class.
Teachers need to economize on autonomy generating learning situations, reserving that type
of learning environment for situations where students are used to cooperate. At such a point
77
they can decrease guidance and increase students’ responsibility in the learning process (see
also Boekaerts & Martens, in press).
Students’ need for relatedness (Skinner & Belmont, 1993) is associated with the level
of involvement, which refers to ‘the quality of the interpersonal relationship with teachers and
peers”. The group composition was very important in explaining successful CL. Students in
effective teams usually work longer in the same teams and feel more at ease with each other.
Negative effects on the quality of cooperative learning may also arise when the group is too
cohesive. Under such conditions group members might conform to group norms that are
adverse to learning, in which case erroneous or incomplete solutions for problems or a lack of
intersubjectivity may go unnoticed (e.g., Kanselaar & Van der Linden, 1984). However, it is
a long way before cohesion becomes a problem. This study primarily points at a lack of
cohesion as a motive for problematic CL. In ineffective teams, students had to deal with
absent or strongly demotivated group members more often.
The quality of CL also depends on students’ general abilities to cooperate. Students in
ineffective teams mentioned the fact that they were just not good at working independently.
Also these teams mentioned that they had chatted too much, meaning that for them
entertaining and belongingness goals were more important than mastery goals. In effective
teams students explained the successful CL, by the fact that they were simply good at CL,
while in the ineffective teams students admitted that they were not capable of dealing with the
independence that comes with CL. This finding implies that it is important to teach students
the skills and knowledge to cooperate and for teachers to guide the CL process along (Gillies
& Ashman, 1996; Hoek, Van den Eeden, & Terwel, 1999; Oortwijn, Boekaerts, & Vedder, in
preparation; Webb & Farivar, 1994).
Interesting to note is that ineffective and effective teams came from the same
classrooms and were therefore enrolled in the same CL settings, therefore one contextual
factor can not solely explain the quality of CL. We assume that the combination of the above
mentioned contextual factors is crucial in explaining the quality of CL. For example the tasks
may be boring at some point, but with a motivated teacher and team members, students may
still be capable to self-regulate the motivation process (Boekaerts, 2005).
Recommendations
The goals that were identified in this study were spontaneously mentioned student goals.
They differ somewhat from the goals that were specified prior to the research in the GIFI.
78
Lemos (1996) suggested that students bring a set of general goals to the classroom and
implement these when faced with the real classroom setting. We think that the general goals
that students bring to the classroom are rather abstract goals and that they still need to adapt
them to the local CL conditions. The interviews and the stimulated recall sessions allowed us
to register context-sensitive goals because, the setting possibly gave a type of context and
relevance to thinking about goals that made students more aware of their goals and their
importance in the specific context of the CL. If indeed reflecting on and formulating goals is
important, than the stimulated recall setting situation in this study might be seen as a proto
type approach to encouraging it throughout the school program in order to make students
more aware of their goals. Ideally, reflection on students’ goal preferences should be a
recurring element of the curriculum, especially in secondary vocational education where the
drop-out rate is very high. As explained in the introduction, dropping out of school often is an
outcome of underlying motivational problems that students have experienced, which might
have been caused by a mismatch between students’ goal preferences and school goals. Goal
reflection can be a means for enhancing students’ motivation, so that they become more aware
of the goals they want to achieve and think of strategies how to achieve these. Discussing goal
preferences in order to make students aware of the role these goals play in the learning
process might be an important step towards more successful CL (Hijzen, Boekaerts, &
Vedder, 2006). Students should be invited to think about their own goals and about the links
between goal preferences and the goals presented to them by teachers, instruction methods,
course books, and other students. Such reflection might help them to adopt teacher-set
learning goals and self-regulate their learning more efficiently (see Boekaerts & Corno,
2005).
CL may be a way to enhance students’ motivation for learning, provided that students
are aware of their goal preferences and CL is well implemented. In order to predict the quality
of students’ CL processes more accurately, more (longitudinal) research on contextual factors
is needed. Important to note is that the quality of CL differed within settings, therefore a
combination of personal goal preferences and contextual factors might explain the quality of
CL best. Some teams are able and willing to cope with obstacles, distractions and draw backs,
while others are not. As we discussed previously, this highly depends on what goal
preferences they had in the first place. If, for example, students’ most important goal is to
have fun, they will easily get distracted by ill designed group tasks and poor teacher behavior,
while students whose mastery goals are salient might try harder to cope with ill-structured CL
settings. Nevertheless, a well-designed CL setting is crucial, because it triggers, promotes,
79
stimulates or hampers certain goal preferences. Although the comment that we started the
article with “It is just dead boring at school, I don’t think I actually learn something at all, I
hope I will at least learn something in my traineeship” reflected a lot of dissatisfaction and
seemed very negative, it also gives reason for hope. It means that students are in school
because they want to learn something. Schools are no unchangeable institutions and this study
yielded some interesting and specific leads, perceived and stated by students themselves,
which may promote better CL and increase students’ general motivation for school.
80
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Table 1
Student Statements referring to Goal Preferences
Goal preferences Sample from the interview
Achievement/ mastery
Academic Learning “Yes, I like to learn new things all the time”. “I am here to learn stuff, so I will
be able to do it myself later in my career”.
Achievement/ performance
Academic/ to get a certificate “It want to engage in school tasks, because getting my certificate is very
important, just to have something in my pocket, eh well yes it is just handy and
easy. I don’t know yet what I want to do later”.
Superiority/ Individuality ‘I want to be a better student than others”
Academic/ to prepare for a
future education
“Before this school I was in Pre Vocational Education, and eventually I want to
go to higher vocational education. So this is just a stepping stone”.
Academic/ complying “I will engage in the group task, otherwise I get kicked out of the classroom”
(see Lemos, 1996).
Academic/ working “So that I don’t have to do homework” (see Lemos, 1996).
Work avoidance “Minimize the effort, I just try to do as little as possible” (See Dowson &
McInerney, 2001).
Well-being goal domain
Entertainment “I want to enjoy myself (laugh) as much as possible. I would like to say that I
enjoyed my time at school” (compare enjoyment goals of Ford, 1992; Lemos,
1996).
Affective Goals “I want to feel at ease and self-confident, I express myself better than”
Social Goal domain
Social Responsibility “It’s all about cooperation, alone you are nothing. Therefore it is important to
learn how to do it” (Ford, 1992).
Social Support “It is important to support each other, ask questions like “Can I help you?”
Belongingness “I think it is very important that you like your group members”
Self-Determination
Self-Determination “I like to use my creativity and think for myself. If I already know that we have
to write up some boring things and I can see no challenge at all, then I lose my
motivation”.
Context
Type of Task “The task is not really a group task, otherwise we would have to ask each other
questions, and answer them. This is just answering questions from a book and
85
that is not what I consider group work”
Teacher Behavior “I want more guidance; I think we have too much freedom now. She (the
teacher) was never there”
Group Composition Since we got to know each other better, the quality of our cooperation is much
better. In this group we all like each other”
Reward “I think it is good that with a group task, everybody still receives an individual
reward, so you know exactly who did what and when”. “We work much harder
when we receive a reward afterwards”
86
Table 2
Effective teams’ (N = 4, 17 persons ) and ineffective teams’ (N = 4, 14 persons) engagement
scores
CL Engagement (observation) Effective teams Ineffective teams
Task-relevant engagement 3.46 .87 2.98 1.24
Task-irrelevant engagement 1.57 .86 1.92 1.01
Socially oriented task engagement 3.18* .88 2.02 .80
87
Table 3
Effective (N = 18) and ineffective teams members’ GIFI goal preferences (N = 14)
Goal Preferences Effective teams Ineffective teams
Affective goals 4.48 .72 4.30 .69
Social Support 4.42 .73 3.86 .73
Mastery 4.29 .60 3.91 .85
Self Determination 4.43 .53 4.25 .62
Belongingness 3.80 1.07 4.52 .74
Material Gain 4.05 .77 3.94 .66
Superiority 3.50 .96 3.16 .92
88
master
y
soc r
esp.
learn
ing fo
r a ce
rtifica
te
enter
tainm
ent
learn
ing fo
r fut.
edu.
belon
gingn
ess
affec
tive
supe
riority
aca w
orkin
g goa
l
socia
l sup
port
work a
voida
nce
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
effective CL
ineffective CL
Figure 1
Goal Profiles (Interviews) of Effective CL Teams (N = 4) and Ineffective CL Teams (N = 4)
89
Chapter 4
INSTRUCTING COOPERATIVE LEARNING; TEACHER RELATED CONDITIONS
STEERING EFFECTIVE COOPERATIVE LEARNING PROCESSES OF STUDENTS
IN SECONDARY VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS 3
Abstract
In this study, we examined the relationship between the quality of cooperative learning (CL)
processes and students’ perception of conditions for the quality of CL steered by teachers, in
the course of a year. Subjects were 1016 students in secondary vocational schools. Two
questionnaires were used. The first measured students’ perceptions on the extent that they
have been taught skills and knowledge for CL, teachers clarity on rules for CL and teachers
monitoring, intervention and evaluation behavior. The second questionnaire measured
students’ perceptions on the quality of CL. It was found that the extents that students were
taught skills and knowledge for CL and teachers’ clarity on rules for CL were highly related
to the quality of CL, during all three waves. The quality of CL was evaluated most favorably
at its best during wave II when scores on all teacher related conditions were also highest. We
distinguished between a group of ineffective and effective cooperators that completed
questionnaires at all three waves and found that effective cooperators had higher scores on
all scales, in particular on the extent that they were taught skills and knowledge for CL.
Key words: teacher behavior, cooperative learning, secondary vocational schools
3 This chapter is based on: Hijzen, Boekaerts and Vedder. Instructing cooperative learning: teacher related conditions steering effective cooperative learning processes of students in secondary vocational education: Manuscript submitted for publication in: Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice
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INTRODUCTION
Cooperative Learning (CL) methods are generally acknowledged to promote deep level
processing, positive peer relationships, social skills, positive attitudes and increased
motivation towards school subjects, as well as interracial acceptance (e.g., Cohen, 1994;
Slavin, 1995; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). Made enthusiastic by this resourcefulness, many
secondary vocational schools experiment with and introduce a wide range of cooperative
instructional methods. Unfortunately, in daily classroom practice many attempts to stimulate
students to engage in CL fail. During CL, students can easily hide in the group and free-ride
with the more active group members (Cohen, 1994; Salomon & Globerson, 1989), resulting in
a reduction of effort. Although placed in groups, in reality students often work individually
instead of together (Vedder, 1985; Veenman, Kenter, & Post, 2000; Witteman, 2003).
Furthermore, some students perceive working in groups mainly as an opportunity to chat and
disturb each other’s learning processes (Shanahan, 1998).
In the present study we examined the learning conditions that teachers in secondary
vocational education create in order to promote students’ CL processes. The study is
embedded in a larger project on motivational self-regulation strategies of students’ enrolled in
Dutch secondary vocational education. In previous studies (Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder,
2006) it was found that the quality of CL was related to students’ goal structure.
Belongingness goals (e.g., I want to get along with my peers), mastery goals (e.g., I want to
learn more about my profession) and social support goals (e.g., I want to help others in case
they need help) were found to be related to the way students cooperate. Especially students
that gave a high rating for these latter goals perceived a high quality of their CL processes.
Furthermore, the availability of emotional and academic peer support predicted the quality of
CL. In the same study we explored classroom context variables, such as task characteristics,
the group composition, reward structures and students’ perceptions on teacher behavior. The
study showed that -apart from students’ goal preferences- contextual factors that were related
to teacher behavior predicted the quality of CL. Students indicated that the extent that they
were taught knowledge and skills for effective CL, as well as teachers’ clarity on rules for CL
were important variables determining the quality of CL. A previous in-depth study (Hijzen,
Boekaerts, & Vedder, in press) also revealed the importance of teacher behavior in
influencing students’ engagement levels during CL. For example, students reported that their
motivation to engage in CL was strongly determined by teachers’ instructional behavior. A
typical statement that referred to this issue was: “I would definitely like to get more teacher
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support. I mean … that when I have a question and this person just gives you a book and says
here it is and walks away, what kind of help is that?” In our opinion the role of the teacher
has been underestimated in many studies; the focus has been too much on the assumption that
students consciously regulate and steer their learning processes themselves, independent of
what teachers do.
The present study was set up to further explore the relationship between students’ perceptions
on teachers’ behavior in relation to the quality of CL in the course of a year. In previous
studies (Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder, 2006) we focused on these relationships in a cross-
sectional design. In the present study we investigate whether changes or stability in students’
perceptions of teacher related conditions for CL over time coincide with changes or stability
in the quality of CL. Insight into the relationship between teachers’ instructional behavior and
the quality of CL may be helpful for determining leads for future intervention purposes,
directed at improving CL in secondary vocational schools. Various studies (e.g., Boekaerts,
de Koning, & Vedder, 2006; Cohen, 1994; Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder, 2006; Slavin 1995,
1996; Webb & Palincsar, 1996) investigated and reviewed effects of particular conditions on
the quality of CL. In earlier studies we found that the types of teacher related conditions for
CL related to the quality of CL, concerned students’ perceptions on teacher control behavior
(monitoring, intervention and evaluation instances) and instructional behavior (the extent that
students were taught rules for CL and the extent that they were taught knowledge and skills
for CL).
In the present study, students’ perceptions on teacher related conditions for CL and the
quality of CL will be measured three times in the course of a year. Conceivably, some types
of teacher related conditions are less important in a later stage than at the beginning of
working in CL teams. For example, we hypothesize that monitoring behavior will become
less significant to students after they become more experienced in CL. Next, we will describe
the (expected) relationships between the quality of CL and teachers’ control behavior and the
extent that they taught skills and rules for CL. We will conclude this section with our
expectations and hypotheses on stability and change of these relationships.
Teachers’ control behavior
In the last two decades the classroom setting in senior vocational schools in the Netherlands
has gradually changed from an exclusively, traditional, competitive, and individualistic
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educational setting to a setting with more attention on cooperative learning that requires and
stimulates both cognitive and motivational self-regulation skills (Boekaerts & Minnaert,
2003). Cooperative learning refers to ‘a set of instructional methods in which students are
encouraged and required to work together on academic tasks’ (Slavin, 1987). The term
usually refers to alternative ways of organizing classrooms that contrast with individualistic
and competitive classroom organizations (Webb & Palinscar, 1996).
While learning activities are always performed by students, teachers can engage in a
wide range of behaviors to facilitate and regulate students’ behavior in the classroom
(Brophey & Good, 1986; Resnick, 1989; Vermunt & Verloop, 1999). The way the teacher
instructs and guides the CL process influences students’ engagement in CL and academic
achievements. Students’ CL processes and performance are positively affected when teachers
encourage high level cognitive interactions (i.e. discussions, explaining and reflecting on
problem solving strategies) (Chinn, O’Donnell, & Jinks, 2000; Webb, Troper, & Fall, 1995).
It is suggested that teachers should only provide help on request. Direct supervision during
CL processes is not desirable; students’ feelings of responsibility will decrease (Cohen, 1994).
Ames (1992) found that a mastery goal orientation will be promoted when teachers allow
students to participate in decision-making, share responsibility and grant them increasing
independence with regard to the learning process. A mastery goal orientation is associated
with high levels of engagement, responsibility and academic achievements (Deci & Ryan,
2000).
It has also been found that teachers should monitor students learning and intervene to
provide assistance (Johnson & Johnson, 2002). More specifically, teachers need to increase
students’ group skills, as long as students lack experience with CL methods and prevent off-
task behavior. Before students start working on the group task, the teacher should clearly
specify the objectives and rules for the lesson both with respect to social and academic
aspects of the task. Furthermore, it is also important that teachers evaluate the group
processes with the CL teams afterwards. Finally teachers should diminish the level of
coaching in the course of learning processes, so that students increasingly take responsibility
for their own learning processes.
Teachers’ instructional behavior
Students need a number of cooperation skills, such as the skills to express their own opinion,
stimulate each other, provide and receive help, listen to each other and clarify their current
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understanding of the task (Cohen, 1994; Ros, 1994; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). It is important
to acknowledge that students' early attempts at regulating their own work may not always be
successful. Effective CL requires practice. Comprehensive programs of team building and
prosocial skills development seem to improve peer-to-peer interaction skills (Webb &
Palincsar, 1996). Many other scholars have shown that explicit teaching of CL skills supports
an improvement of the quality of CL (e.g., Gillies & Ashman, 1996; Hoek, Van den Eeden, &
Terwel, 1999; Webb & Farivar, 1994). Gillies (2003) mentioned the following skills: actively
listening, considering the other person’s perspective on issues, stating ideas freely, being
responsible for one’s own behavior and constructively critiquing the ideas presented as
interpersonal skills that facilitate communication. Teachers need to model positive
interpersonal skills, have students practice the skills, and encourage the students to process
how effectively they are performing the skills (Phipps, Phipps, Kask, & Higgins, 2001).
Stability of conditions and the quality of CL
The study has a longitudinal design in order to investigate the stability of conditions and the
quality of CL over time. We hypothesized that it is crucial that teachers keep paying attention
to teaching skills, knowledge and rules for CL during all three data-waves. In order to become
independent cooperators it is essential that students need to know how to cooperate (e.g.,
Webb & Palincsar, 1996). However, with regard to teachers’ control behavior we expect that
decreasing control promotes effective CL over time. We expect that students become more
independent and skilled at working in CL settings, over time. Therefore, we argue that
students need more extrinsic stimulation (as in teachers monitoring, and interventions)
initially, but that their stimulation should be decreased once they have become sufficiently
skillful (e.g., Johnson & Johnson, 2002). We expect differences between effective and
ineffective cooperators; we expect that ineffective cooperators need to be stimulated more
than effective cooperators. The latter need their teachers to monitor their CL processes and
intervene during a prolonged period.
Research question
The main question of the present study is:
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“Which teacher related conditions are related to the quality of CL processes, and are these
relationships stable in the course of a year?” We expect that a stability of teaching students’
skills and knowledge and rules for CL, and a decrease in teachers’ control behavior during the
second and third data wave correspond to an increase in the quality of CL from the first to the
third wave.
METHOD
Subjects
Participants in the study were 1016 students from 11 different schools for secondary
vocational education in the Netherlands. The Netherlands have 42 regional educational
centers for secondary vocational education. They all received a letter in which we explained
the purpose and relevance of the study and invited them to participate. Non-participating
schools had a variety of reasons. The most frequent reasons concerned the time investment of
students and teachers and the extra organizational burden of participation in yet another
research project. The eleven schools that participated were spread evenly across the
Netherlands. Schools for secondary vocational education offer a variety of programs,
preparing students for particular professional careers. Secondary vocational school starts for
most students at the age of 16 after they completed a junior vocational school. Senior
vocational school delivers educational programs for four broad competency levels. At the first
level students train to become assistants (6 to 12 months). At the second level they have two
to three year courses for basic vocational training. At the third level students are enrolled in
professional training and at the fourth level they participate in middle-management training (3
to 4 years) or in specialized training courses (1 to 2 years). Most students finishing secondary
vocational school prefer to enter the labor market and do not proceed in further studies4. We
distinguish engineering, ICT, retail and administration, food and tourism and health and
welfare programs. Participating students were students that worked at least 45 minutes per
week in CL settings. Table 1 presents the distribution of participating students by program
type and level.
--------------------------
Insert Table 1 here
--------------------------
4 For further information on secondary vocational education in the Netherlands, see Euridice database on education, 2003 website.
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A closer look at Table 1 shows that most students were enrolled in health and welfare and
level 4 programs. Only a few students were enrolled in level 1 and food and tourism
programs. For exploring longitudinal data we selected students that participated in all three
data-waves. Only 260 students completed all questionnaires at all measurement points. The
loss of students between measurement points was considerable, partly due to students’
decisions not to participate in all rounds of data collection and partly because students
changed schools or program type or were absent for other reasons. However, since students
from different program types and levels were not equally distributed (for example, only three
ICT-students completed all three questionnaires), we limited analyses to the group that was
most representative to the total sample and which was also the largest group; the health and
welfare students (N = 120).
Instruments
Table 2 presents an overview of scales, sample items and Cronbachs’ alphas of the different
scales used in this study.
--------------------------
Insert Table 2 here
--------------------------
The quality of CL was measured with the questionnaire for the Quality of Cooperative
Learning (QCL). Originally the list comprised four subscales, namely students’ perception of
the quality of group cohesion, students’ perception of interdependence within the group,
students’ perceptions of the quality of their cooperation skills and students’ attitude towards
CL. Items in these subscales were “I feel part of my group”, “In this group we support each
other”, “I know how to support my group members, when they need help”, and “I prefer to
work in a team over working individually”. Students had to indicate on a four-point Likert
scale to what extent they agreed with each statement. Response categories ranged from "I
disagree very strongly" to “I agree very strongly”. These subscales were highly correlated and
together measure the quality of CL. A Principal Component Analysis on these four subscales
resulted in a one-factor solution, representing an overall QCL score. This factor had an
Eigenvalue of 2.4 and it explained 59 % of the total variance.
The questionnaire for the Conditions for CL (CCL) aimed to measure students’
perceptions of the extent that teachers create or maintain conditions for the quality of CL.
Items were based on review studies on the conditions for productive small-groups (e.g.,
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Cohen 1994; Ros, 1994; Slavin 1995; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). The questionnaire consisted
of five scales. A first scale captured students’ evaluations on the extent that they have been
taught cooperation skills and knowledge at their present schools skills. A second subscale
aimed to measure students’ perceptions on the clarity of the rules for effective CL. Items in a
third scale aimed to assess teacher monitoring behavior. The fourth scale assessed teachers’
interventions in cases of off-task behavior. The fifth scale aimed at measuring teachers’
evaluation methods. Sample items are presented in Table 2. Students were asked to evaluate
the conditions during the last four weeks. Response categories (4) ranged from "I disagree
very strongly" (1) to “I agree very strongly” (4).
Procedure
Questionnaires were administered three times, once during the students’ first year and twice
during their second year, with intervals of six months. Researchers assisted students while
administering the questionnaires. It took students one hour on average to complete the
questionnaires.
RESULTS
First we will present an overview of means and standard deviations of the time spent on CL,
interrater agreement, and the instructional subscales, and the relationship with the quality of
CL as reported for the whole sample at three data-waves (wave I: N = 1016, wave II: N =619,
wave III: N = 424).
Organization characteristics
-----------------------------
Insert Figure 1 here
----------------------------
Amount of time spent on CL
Figure 1 presents the amount of time spent on CL of students in the total sample.
Most students (33 percent) spent approximately 90 minutes per week in CL teams and 23
percent spent at least 45 minutes per day in CL teams.
Earlier we reported about the quality of the instruments. Another aspect concerning
the quality of the data is the interrater agreement, after all the way this study is designed
97
allows exploring to what extent students agree on their evaluations of teachers control and
instructional behavior. We calculated intra-class agreements (ICC) on all three waves, for all
classes. The ICC score (Rho score) is an index of reliability for measurements of the same
phenomenon. With the ICC score we can investigate whether several raters independently
measured the same phenomenon. An instrument with Rho score 1 will produce the same
measurement each time it is used, while a Rho score of 0 will produce different scores each
time it is used (Hayes, Walton, Szomor, & Murrell, 2001). Reliability coefficients ranged
from .80 to 1.00. Interestingly, students within the same classes highly agreed with each
other, only five out of 32 classes had intra-class agreement coefficients that were below .99.
This means that individual students’ scores are indicative of what happens at class level in
terms of conditions for and the regulation of CL.
Students’ perceptions on teacher behavior and the quality of CL at three data waves
------------------------------
Insert Table 3 here
-----------------------------
Table 3 presents mean scores, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients of the five
teacher related conditions subscales and the quality of CL, of the total sample at three waves.
Inspection of Table 3 shows that, students were generally positive on the quality of their CL
processes. The highest scores were found during wave II. Scores on the five subscales of
teachers’ instructional behavior were somewhat lower and seem quite stable over time;
generally scores are higher during wave II and lower during wave I. Scores on teachers’
evaluation behavior during wave III, were quite low.
In order to explore the relationship between the teacher related conditions and the
quality of CL, correlation coefficients between the scales of the conditions and the quality of
CL at three measurement points, were calculated. As described in the introduction during
wave I, we expected positive correlations between all scales of teachers’ instructional
behavior with the quality of CL. We expected that during wave II and wave III the association
between the scales that measured teachers’ control behavior and the quality of CL would be
less significant than during wave I. Because of the large sample all subscales measuring
teacher related conditions were related to the quality of CL. However, we will limit the
discussion to correlation coefficients above .20. In line with our expectations, the quality of
CL was related to the subscales that measured students’ perceptions on the extent that rules
for CL were clearly explained by their teachers and their evaluations on the extent that they
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were taught CL skills and knowledge. This was the case for all three waves. During wave II
teachers’ monitoring, intervention and evaluation behavior were also related to the quality of
CL, which was in contrast with our expectation that teachers’ control behavior would be
negatively related to the quality of CL at a later stage of CL. In line with our expectations,
during wave III only the scales that measured students’ perceptions on the extent that they
were taught skills and knowledge for CL, and teachers’ clarity on rules for CL were related to
the quality of CL. However, comparisons of correlation coefficients of teachers control
behavior and the quality of CL between wave III and the other two waves, resulted in only
one significant difference, namely the relationship between teachers monitoring behavior was
significantly less strong during wave III than during wave II (Z = -2, 65, p = .003).
The analyses described in the latter two paragraphs function as a framework for
understanding longitudinal results of the group health and welfare students that completed the
questionnaires at the three data points. In order to explore whether students’ perceptions on
teacher control and instructional behavior were stable in the course of a year, we will explore
the longitudinal data next.
Stability and changes of conditions for effective cooperative learning
--------------------------------
Insert Table 4 about here
------------------------------
In order to investigate whether the students that completed the questionnaire at all three data-
points (N = 120) were stable in their ratings on the five subscales in the course of a year, we
conducted GLM repeated measures analyses separately for the five subscales, as within-
subjects factors at three points in time. Table 4 presents an overview of the scores.
A main effect was found for rules for CL for measurement time (Wilks’ F [2, 136] =
14.98, p = .000, �² = .18). Measurement time also (weakly) co-varied with monitoring (Wilks’
F [2, 139] = 3.28, p = .040, �² = .04) and with the evaluation scores (Wilks’ F (2, 136) = 3.07,
p =.050, �² =.04). Interestingly, scores on all three subscales were significantly higher during
wave II. Stability of scores was found for the two other scales, namely students’ perceptions
on the extent that they were taught skills and knowledge for CL and teachers’ intervention
behavior.
We also conducted a repeated measures analysis on the quality of CL. A weak time
effect was found (Wilks’ F [2, 118] = 3.08, p = .050, �² = .05). Inspection of the within
subject contrasts table showed that the quality of CL was significantly higher at wave II than
99
it was at wave I. These higher scores parallel the earlier reported scores for all students
participating in wave II. In order to analyze the combination of changes in conditions and
changes in the quality of CL, we looked for patterns in the quality of CL first.
Longitudinal patterns of the quality of CL and teacher related conditions
We conducted cluster analysis in order to identify groups of students with different
longitudinal patterns of the quality of CL. The k-means method was used, because this
method is sensitive to decisions on the preferred number of clusters and the values for the
initial cluster centers. Two clusters were used, based on the interpretability of the resulting
clusters and the desire to have a reasonable number of students within the clusters.
The first profile captured students with overall high scores on the quality of CL, with
somewhat higher scores on the second data-wave, and the lowest scores on the first data-
wave. The second profile grouped students with overall low scores on the quality of CL and
similar scores on the three data waves. Sixty-one students were grouped in profile 1 and 59
students were represented by profile 2. The distinction of these two profiles implies that we
did not find a group of students that clearly changed their quality of CL in the one-year
period. This finding suggests that whatever teachers do in terms of creating conditions for CL,
they do not affect students to the extent that ineffective cooperators become effective.
We hypothesized that ineffective cooperators are more dependent on the teachers’
control behavior during the second and third data wave than effective cooperators, who were
expected to rely more on the extent that they were taught skills and knowledge and rules for
CL. Hence, we expected interaction effects between teacher related conditions and the
profiles and hoped that these interactions would reveal the teachers’ capacity to adapt
conditions for CL to the needs of particular groups of students depending on their repeated
quality of CL. A repeated measures analysis was conducted using the five subscales at the
three measurement points as within-subject factors and the quality of the students’ CL profile
as the between subject factor. No interaction effects were found and thus no support was
found for our hypothesis. We found a within-subjects factor effect for time though (Wilks’ F
[10, 88] = 2.68, p =.006, �² = .23) and a main between-subject factor effect for quality of CL
profile (Wilks’ F [5, 93] = 4.77, p = .001, �² = .20). Figure 2.1 to 2.5 graphically represent the
relationships.
100
------------------------------
Insert Figure 2.1 to 2.5 here
---------------------------------
The time effect concerned the subscale that measured students’ perceptions of the extent to
which they were taught skills and knowledge for CL (see Figure 2.1), and the extent that
students were taught rules for CL (see Figure 2.2). Posthoc tests showed that scores for both
students with the weak and high quality of CL profiles on the quality of CL was at its highest
at wave II, confirming our previous findings. For whatever reasons teachers have adjusted
their instruction as regards CL. The findings suggest however that adjustment was hardly for
adaptive reasons (e.g., compensating for lacking skills or reported low quality of CL). The
effect that we found resembles a self-efficacy effect (i.e. teachers feel more in control and
more positive about themselves when interacting with students who perform and behave the
way they want them to. It might be the reason why these students get more attention.
Inspection of the plots shows that at all times students with profile 1 (i.e., the high quality
profile) scored higher than students with profile 2 on the scales that measured teachers control
behavior and teachers’ instruction behavior and that the extent that students were taught skills
and rules was highest (Figure 2.1 and 2.2) at wave II. Inspection of the plots also shows that
the difference between effective and ineffective cooperators was highest for the scale that
measured students’ perceptions of the extent that they were taught skills for CL (see Figure
2.1); effective cooperators scores were considerably higher than ineffective cooperators
scores.
Despite the fact that we were unable to find significant interaction patterns, inspection
of the plots showed some interesting trends that are in line with our hypotheses that teachers
need to improve their adaptivity. First of all, inspection of Figure 2.3 shows that the weak
cooperators perceived a major decrease in teachers’ monitoring behavior after wave II.
Secondly, inspection of Figure 2.4 shows a similar trend in relation to teachers’ intervention
behavior. In contrast, the effective cooperators perceived almost no change in teachers’
monitoring and intervention behavior after wave II. Moreover, Figure 2.5 shows that for the
effective cooperators scores on the teachers’ evaluation behavior between wave I and wave II
highly increased, whereas this pattern was not that obvious for the ineffective cooperators.
In short effective cooperators can be characterized by high scores on all teacher related
conditions. Especially their high scores on the extent that they have been taught skills and
knowledge for CL distinguishes them from ineffective cooperators. Ineffective cooperators,
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on the other hand, can be characterized by low scores on all teacher related conditions,
particularly their scores on the extent that they were taught skills and knowledge for CL were
low. Moreover, they reported that teachers’ control behavior highly decreased after wave II.
DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Our primary objective in this research was to explore the relationship between teachers’
control and instructional behavior and the quality of CL. The stability of scores on teacher
related conditions and the relationship with the quality was analyzed.
We expected optimal CL processes when students were explicitly taught rules,
knowledge and skills for CL and when teachers’ regularly monitor the CL process, intervene
when the situation required it and evaluate the group process regularly. Moreover, a decrease
of teacher monitoring and intervention behavior and a stability of the other variables was
expected to predict the best CL results over time. In line with previous findings (Hijzen,
Boekaerts & Vedder, 2006), we found that the scales that measured students’ evaluations of
the extent that they were taught skills and knowledge for CL and rules for CL were most
strongly related to the quality of CL at wave I. Complementary findings are that these scales
were also related during the other two waves. In other words, we can add to previous findings
(Hijzen, Boekarts & Vedder, 2006) that -also in the long run- it is important that teachers
make students aware of what is required for working in a CL setting. They should explicitly
and sufficiently teach them the necessary skills. More specifically, it is crucial that teachers
teach their students how to listen to each other, to evaluate the group process, to discuss, to
support group members, to give an opinion, or to solve group conflicts, and explain what is
expected of them in terms of goals and the evaluations of CL processes.
We also expected that the relationships between teachers’ control behavior and the
quality of CL would diminish over time, following either an improvement of the QCL or the
maintenance of an already high level of the QCL. However, despite a positive relationship of
intervention behavior at wave I, our expectations could not be confirmed. Teachers’ control
behavior and the quality of CL were also positively related at wave II, while we expected that
a decrease in teachers control behavior would predict the quality of CL at a later stage. Of
course students need to be monitored when learning how to cooperate, but an unexpected
finding is that this scale still contributed to the model during wave II that took place in the
students’ second school year. Perhaps students were more motivated and independent
cooperators in the beginning of their second year as compared to first year students, but why
102
did they still feel the urge to receive teacher guidance and feedback and why did this urge
disappear at the time of the third round of data collection? Lack of a strong relationship
between the quality of CL and teachers’ monitoring, intervention and evaluation processes
during wave III may indicate that the students in our sample became indeed more independent
cooperators and relied more on their own skills and capabilities.
We expected that a stability of teaching students’ skills and knowledge and rules for
CL, and a decrease in teachers’ control behavior during wave II and wave III correspond to an
increase in the quality of CL from wave I to wave III. Cluster analysis on the quality of CL of
the health and welfare students that completed the questionnaires of CL at all three waves
showed that we could distinguish between students that had generally high scores on the
quality of CL and students that had generally low longitudinal scores on the quality of CL.
Inspection of these two groups’ scores on the five teacher related conditions showed that
teacher related conditions indeed make the difference, at all stages. Students with high scores
on the quality of CL scored higher on all teacher behavior subscales. Again the importance of
the extent that students were taught skills and rules for CL is illustrated by the large difference
on scores between the high and low quality cooperators.
103
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106
Table 1
Sample characteristics
Program Level
Program Type Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Total
Engineering 3 7 63 73
ICT 10 21 91 123
Retail & Administration 10 22 41 108 181
Food & Tourism 1 13 5 4 23
Health & Welfare 43 61 177 355 616
Total 54 109 251 602 1016
107
Table 2
Categories, Sample Items, Number of Items and Cronbachs’ Alpha Coefficients
Category Sample item ��
������
Alpha
Perceived Quality
of CL
Quality of CL I perceive myself as part of this group 31 -
Conditions
Subscales
Rules for CL Before we start to work on the group task, teachers explain
us how to plan
9 .87
Cooperation skills At this school we learned to listen to each other during
group work
8 .86
Teacher:
monitoring
While working on the group task the teacher evaluates the
progress
5 .83
Teacher:
intervention
When we are very noisy during group work, teachers
intervene
5 .74
Teacher: evaluation After we finish the group task, the teacher explains what
went well and what needs improvement
4 .80
05
10152025303540
45 minp/w
90 minp/w
45 minp/d
90 minp/d
> 90min p/d
Time spent on CL data wave1Time spent on CL data wave2Time spent on CL data wave3
Figure 1:
Time Spent on CL
109
Table 3
Pearson Correlation Coefficients between the Quality of CL and Conditions for CL
Data wave 1 Data wave 2 Data wave 3
N M SD r
QCL
N M SD r
QCL
N M SD r
QCL
Quality of CL 1135 2.83 .29 - 619 2.91 .29 - 434 2.88 .32 -
Rules for CL 1170 2.46 .44 .25** 615 2.55 .46 .33** 434 2.46 .41 .28**
CL knowledge
and skills
1171 2.67 .41 .34** 616 2.74 .43 .41** 434 2.71 .41 .39**
Teacher:
monitoring
1170 2.54 .52 .18** 616 2.61 .49 .28** 432 2.46 .52 .12
Teacher:
intervention
1166 2.45 .49 .20** 614 2.51 .54 .25** 432 2.36 .53 .18**
Teacher:
evaluation
1168 2.35 .57 .18** 614 2.40 .67 .20** 432 2.19 .59 .14*
** p < .001, *p < .05
110
Table 4
Mean scores and standard deviations of contextual factors at three data-waves
wave I wave II wave III
M SD M SD M SD Test of within contrasts
( p <.05)
Rules for CL 2.35 .44 2.53 .39 2.44 .45 wave 2>1,3
CL knowledge and skills 2.69 .41 2.76 .41 2.68 .42
Teacher: monitoring 2.44 .52 2.54 .47 2.47 .49 wave 2>1,3
Teacher: intervention 2.41 .52 2.46 .51 2.39 .51
Teacher: evaluation 2.21 .54 2.34 .59 2.19 .63 wave 2>1,3
Quality of CL 2.83 .30 2.91 .28 2.89 .27 wave 2>1
111
1 2 3
time
2,50
2,60
2,70
2,80
2,90
3,00
Estim
ated M
argina
l Mea
nsCluster Number of Case
profile 1profile 2
Estimated Marginal Means of CL skills
Figure 2.1:
Strong and weak cooperators’ mean scores on the scale that measured students’ evaluations of the
extent that they were taught skills and knowledge for CL, at three data waves
1 2 3
time
2,30
2,40
2,50
2,60
Estim
ated M
argin
al Me
ans
Cluster Number of Case
profile 1profile 2
Estimated Marginal Means of rules for CL
Figure 2.2:
Strong and weak cooperators’ mean scores on the scale that measured students’ evaluations of
teachers’ clarity on CL rules, at three data waves
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1 2 3
time
2,30
2,35
2,40
2,45
2,50
2,55
Estim
ated
Mar
gina
l Mea
ns
Cluster Number of Case
profile 1profile 2
Estimated Marginal Means of monitoring
Figure 2.3:
Strong and weak cooperators’ mean scores on the scale that measured students’ evaluations of
teachers’ monitoring behavior, at three data waves
1 2 3
time
2,25
2,30
2,35
2,40
2,45
2,50
Estim
ated M
argina
l Mea
ns
Cluster Number of Case
profile 1profile 2
Estimated Marginal Means of intervention
Figure 2.4:
Strong and weak cooperators’ mean scores on the scale that measured students’ evaluations of
teachers’ intervention behavior, at three data waves
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1 2 3
time
2,05
2,10
2,15
2,20
2,25
2,30
2,35
2,40
2,45
Estim
ated
Mar
gina
l Mea
ns
Cluster Number of Case
profile 1profile 2
Estimated Marginal Means of evaluation
Figure 2.5:
Strong and weak cooperators’ mean scores on the scale that measured students’ evaluations of
teachers’ evaluation behavior, at three data waves
114
Chapter 5
EXPLAINING COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN MULTI-ETHNIC CLASSES; THE
LIMITED ROLE OF STUDENTS’ ETHNOCULTURAL BACKGROUND 5
Abstract
This study explored cooperative learning in multi-ethnic classes. We explored what combination
of student characteristics and student appraisals of the school context was related to higher levels
of the quality of cooperative learning and whether these varied by ethnocultural group. Eighteen
hundred students were clustered into four profiles specifying the characteristic levels of language
proficiency, goal preferences, social resources and school/ peer identification/alienation. Four
student profiles were identified; a school-disaffected, a weak communication/school bonding, a
school-adjusted and a frustrated profile. Students that were grouped in the school-adjusted
profile showed the highest scores on CL. This profile was characterized by clear goals, high
perceived availability of social support and high scores on school and peer identification. The
school-disaffected profile had the lowest scores on CL. This profile was characterized by no clear
goals, a lack of social resources and peer/school identification. Students from different
backgrounds were disproportionately distributed. The weak communication profile was
characteristic of Caribbean students and the school-adjusted profile was characteristic of the
Dutch.
Key words: ethnocultural background, goal preferences, quality of cooperative learning
5 This chapter is based on: Hijzen, Boekaerts and Vedder (2006). Explaining cooperative learning in multi-ethnic classrooms; the limited role of students’ ethnocultural background. Manuscript submitted for publication in: Applied Psychology: An International Review.
115
INTRODUCTION
Even though school achievements of immigrant students who were born in the Netherlands
(second generation immigrants) have considerably improved over the last 15 years, they still do
not match Dutch students’ performance and are characterized by higher levels of grade repetition
and drop-out (Mulder, Roeleveld, Van der Veen, & Vierke, 2005). Many studies have reported a
relationship between school performance and students’ ethnocultural background, but only a few
studies have analyzed the underlying processes and student characteristics that explain immigrant
students’ educational position in the Netherlands (e.g., Boekaerts, 1998; Teunissen & Mathijssen,
1996). The present study addresses this latter question by exploring what processes and what
student characteristics influence the quality of students’ learning. We particularly focus on
learning in settings that invite students to get involved in cooperative problem solving. Once we
have a better picture of the processes and characteristics that underlie the quality of cooperative
learning we will explore whether and to what extent these processes and characteristics vary by
ethnocultural group. We hope to identify groups of students that allow for a group wise approach
in education that goes beyond a general class wide educational approach or an approach adapted
to individual students; a class wide approach may lack adaptability to the needs of particular
groups of students, whereas an individualized approach is hardly feasible, at least in the Dutch
secondary vocational schools that participated in the present study.
In this study we focus on the quality of cooperative learning (CL) of students in secondary
vocational schools. The choice of CL is related to the suggestion by some scholars (e.g., Cohen,
1994; Slavin, 1995; Webb & Palincsar, 1996) that CL settings may promote students’
involvement with and motivation for school and learning; as well as facilitate integration and
prevent discrimination, by functioning as an activity setting where students are able to connect
with each other and learn from each other's abilities and skills. This seems particularly important
for students in vocational schools in the Netherlands, because many of them drop out of school
for motivational reasons and communication problems (e.g., Voncken, Van der Kuip, Moerkamp,
& Felix, 2000).
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In the last two decades the classroom setting in senior vocational schools in the
Netherlands has gradually changed from an exclusively, traditional, competitive, and
individualistic educational setting to a setting with more attention for cooperative learning
requiring and stimulating both cognitive and motivational self-regulation skills (Boekaerts &
Minnaert, 2003). Cooperative learning refers to ‘a set of instructional methods in which students
are encouraged or required to work together on academic tasks’ (Slavin, 1987). This study deals
with three important components that a successful CL situation requires. In the first place,
students’ attitudes towards CL methods should be positive. They need to acknowledge the value
of CL, in order to be prepared to engage in CL in the first place. Secondly, students need a
number of cooperation skills, such as the skills to express their own opinion, stimulate each other,
provide and receive help, listen to each other and clarify their current understanding of the task
(Cohen, 1994; Ros, 1994; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). A third important component of a successful
CL setting is interdependency. Students need to feel responsible for each other's learning process
and experience a sense of group cohesion (Johnson & Johnson, 1994; Ros, 1994). Chin,
Salisbury, Pearson, and Stollak, (1999) and Cohen (1994) pointed out that the activity level in the
group is at its best when students feel at home in the group.
Person-related explanations for variation in the quality of CL
Dutch language proficiency
Dutch language proficiency is crucial in CL. Learning in CL teams may promote students’
language competence. However, for effective CL, students need a number of cooperation skills in
the first place (Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder, 2006). These skills heavily depend on their language
competences; in order to provide team members with sufficient support, or to be a good listener
and debater students have to be fluent in the Dutch language.
Students’ goal preferences
Whether students engage in CL depends on the personal significance they attach to the tasks and
the context in which it is embedded. The extent to which a task triggers personal significance
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depends on the type of goal preferences that students have (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). In
previous studies we explored the extent to which students endorse social support, belongingness,
mastery and superiority goals in close relation to the quality of their CL. Studies by Eccles (1987)
and Wentzel (1991) suggest that cooperative learning is an effective learning setting for students
preferring a combination of mastery (understanding tasks) and social goals (being friends with
and, supporting others). In such a setting they can create a sense of belongingness and security.
Mastery goals are associated with high levels of performance on personally challenging tasks in
general (Ford, 1992). A combination of social and mastery goals should be most conducive to the
quality for CL (McInerney, Hinkley, Dowson, & Van Etten, 1998). It is exactly this combination
with mastery goals that is likely to predict the quality of CL.
Also, and in contrast to this goal profile Wentzel and Wigfield (1998) showed that
students who prefer superiority and individuality goals have lower scores on the quality of CL
than students who prefer social goals. Functioning as a group member may contrast with students’
wish to perform well at a more individual level.
Context related explanations for variation in the quality of CL
Social resources, school and peer identification, and alienation
Apart from students’ goals we expect students’ perceptions of the social environment to be
important to the CL process (Vedder & Boekaerts, in press). Samdal, Nutbeam, Wold, and
Kannas (1998) found that students’ sense of security and feelings of being treated fairly and
supported by their teachers were crucial in predicting their general satisfaction with school.
Feelings of well-being and school identification are important to the quality of the learning
process. Feelings of alienation on the other hand will negatively influence students’ learning
processes (Deci & Ryan, 2000)
A number of studies showed that perceived availability of social support is a better
predictor of well-being than actually received support (Wethington & Kessler, 1986); therefore
we will focus on students’ perceptions of emotional and academic support, in relation to their
identification with and alienation from school and peers.
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In this study we explore what combination of student characteristics and student appraisals
of the school context is related to higher levels of the quality of cooperative learning. Particular
combinations will be referred to as profiles.
We hypothesize that students who have profiles characterized by good language
proficiency, a preference for social support, belongingness, and mastery goals, negative or low
scores on superiority goals, high scores on perceived availability of teacher and peer support and
on school and peer identification, and negative scores for school and peer alienation to report high
quality of CL and vice versa for students who report low quality of CL.
The role of students’ ethnocultural background
Research findings as regards the question whether immigrant students profit more or less from,
and perform better or worse in CL settings than national students are inconclusive. This is logical
since the two categories of students compared, i.e., national versus immigrant students, are
unspecified, which makes it impossible to compare whatever in-group variation with whatever
between-group variation. In this particular study the national students are Dutch adolescents with
white west European born parents and the immigrant students are either from the Caribbean
(Surinamese or Antilleans) or from the Mediterranean (Moroccan or Turkish).
Nationals and immigrants in the Netherlands
With almost 10% of its 16 million population born elsewhere, the Netherlands has a modest
immigrant population in comparison to other Western countries (Berry, Phinney, Sam, & Vedder,
2006). The population’s ethnic origin is 94% Dutch, which includes about 125,000 immigrants
from the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (the Antilleans), who have Dutch citizenship (because
these are dependent overseas territories), as well as an unknown portion of 295,000 immigrants
from Surinam (which is a former overseas territory). The main origins of other immigrants are
Morocco, Turkey, and former Yugoslavia.
In this study we focus on second-generation immigrants, defined as those students that
were born in the Netherlands with at least one parent who came to the Netherlands as an
immigrant. We distinguish Mediterranean students, who are from Turkey and Morocco, and
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Caribbean students who are from the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and Surinam. Dutch students
clearly differ from immigrant students in educational attainment levels, with Turkish and
Moroccan students having the lowest levels, Dutch the highest, while Antillean and Surinamese
students are in between (Van Ours & Veenman, 2001).
The migration history of the Caribbean community clearly differs from that of the Mediterranean.
The former have a history of contacts with the Dutch, who were the colonizers of these
communities. The cultural distance is rather small. This is clearest with respect to language
proficiency. The language of instruction in most schools in Surinam and in the Netherlands
Antilles is still mainly Dutch, meaning that they grow up learning Dutch, before they arrive in the
Netherlands. Moreover, the legal systems, the health care system, and religious institutions are all
rooted in a common colonial history. This is not to say they are similar, but they look very much
the same. This is completely different with Turkey and Morocco, which population is mainly
Muslim. The cultural distance between the Netherlands and these two countries is large, even
larger because Turkish and Moroccan immigrants did not come from the more Westernized large
cities, but came and come from rural areas.
The possible impact of ethnocultural background on cooperative learning, student characteristics
and student appraisals of the school context
CL methods are based on socio-constructivist theories that strongly emphasize students’
autonomy. Palfreyman (2001) suggested that autonomy is contradictory to concepts as tradition,
authority and non-Western culture. He clarified that non-Western students are low on feelings of
autonomy and therefore encounter problems in Western schools. However, students from more
collectivistic cultures than the Dutch, such as Moroccans (Pels, 1998) are more used to participate
in group behavior, which might make them better equipped for learning in CL settings than Dutch
students. In particular their cooperation skills may be better developed than those of Dutch
students. A recent study on the effects of educational settings and instructional approaches that
emphasize cooperative learning, discussion, and justifying particular problem solving strategies in
mathematics showed that, for disadvantaged students (mainly immigrant students), “modern”
settings that stress the role of social interaction are less effective in terms of achieving teacher
120
desired learning outcomes than more structured and teacher guided approaches (Timmermans,
2005). Wittebrood and Keuzekamp (2000) suggested that Turkish and Moroccan students, unlike
Surinamese and Antillean students experience difficulty when working with modern, interactive
instruction methods. At the same time, Matthijssen (1993) suggested that immigrant students have
difficulty in attaching relevance to the knowledge and skills that they are supposed to learn in
Dutch schools. Moreover, these students tend to be docile towards teachers, whom they see as
authorities. The first characteristic hinders learning and requires additional support, whereas the
second impedes asking for help. In fact, these students need greater security and self confidence
and they should be encouraged to develop self initiative and autonomy in learning. CL may be
quite appropriate in such a situation.
The uncertainty about the possible blessings or risks of CL for immigrant students led us
to explore the relationship between such aspects of the quality of CL as perceived group cohesion,
cooperation skills or attitudes towards CL and students’ ethnocultural background.
For future intervention purposes, ethnocultural background in itself, although interesting,
is not a variable that can be manipulated to improve CL processes in secondary vocational
education. We will therefore focus on changeable individual and contextual characteristics that
can account for ethnic differences in the quality of CL processes, represented by students’ Dutch
language proficiency, their motivation or goal preferences, and students’ identification with
school and peers.
The language assimilation model posits that immigrant students’ proficiency in the national
language is a better predictor of students’ academic achievements and social participation than
proficiency in the home language (e.g., Vedder & Virta, 2005). For second language acquisition,
the actual oral and written contacts between two ethnic groups are important (Bialystok, 2001).
Blom and Severiens (2000) found that in the Netherlands immigrant students’ vocabulary was
significantly smaller than that of Dutch students. In a CL setting students use language to
understand the learning tasks, to ask for help and support other students. Some researchers (e.g.,
Boers, 2001; Hajer, 1996; Kirchmeyer; 1993) found that immigrant students participated little in
collaboration and processes of decision making, because of limited language proficiency.
Students who are less fluent in Dutch can hardly participate at the same level as their Dutch
classmates do. As mentioned previously, Mediterranean students encounter more language
121
difficulties than Antillean and Surinamese students because the latter groups are more familiar
with Dutch customs and language due to historical bonds with the Netherlands.
Earlier studies on goal preferences and students’ ethnocultural background yielded
contradictory findings. McInerney, Roche, McInerney, and Marsh (1997) studied Anglo,
Australian Aboriginal and native American students and found that these groups hardly differed
in the appreciation of goals that were related to learning and achievement. Vedder and Boekaerts
(2006) also found comparable goal structures between Dutch students and students living in
Curacao in the Caribbean. However, Dutch students were just a little more oriented towards
superiority than the Caribbean students. Other studies (e.g., Suarez-Orosco, 1998; Valdez, 1998)
suggested that differences in appreciation of culture-bound values did influence students’ goal
preferences.
In this study we will investigate whether students with different cultural backgrounds
differ with regard to their goal preferences and whether these differences have consequences for
CL.
In terms of students’ feelings of school identification and alienation earlier research reported that
particular groups of immigrant students in the Netherlands switch schools so frequently that this
impacts on their school identification. They change schools because their parents frequently move
into different neighborhoods or even between cities (Mulder, Roeleveld, Van der Veen, & Vierke,
2005). This is even more worrying because another study (Vedder, Boekaerts, & Seegers, 2005)
found that young Dutch adolescent students rely more on parental academic support than
immigrant students, who rely more on instructional support from the teacher. No differences were
found for the perceived availability of parental emotional support or the perceived availability of
peer support between different ethnic groups. Pels (1998) showed that Moroccan students were
brought up with less personal parental attention than their Dutch peers. Also, Distelbrink and Pels
(2000) found that Turkish and Moroccan students felt less academically supported by their
parents than by their teachers and peers. In short immigrant students in the Netherlands in matters
of learning and school tend to depend more on the teachers than on their parents.
In the present study we will explore whether students from different ethnic groups differ in their
appraisal of the availability of academic and emotional support from teachers and peers, and in
the degree to which they identify with or alienate from school and peers, and what the
122
consequences are for the quality of CL. We hypothesize that immigrant students will rely more on
teacher and peer support than Dutch students do. If we find support for this hypothesis this may
indicate an additional risk for the immigrant students. Students’ higher desire for teacher and peer
support may lead to higher feelings of frustration, when their desire for support from teacher and
peers is not satisfied.
Based on the evidence presented thus far we expect to find differences between national,
Mediterranean, and Caribbean students living in the Netherlands, both as regards the quality of
cooperative learning and the profiles representing particular combinations of student
characteristics and student appraisals of the school context.
METHOD
Participants
Participants in this study were 1806 students from 11 different secondary vocational schools that
were spread evenly across the Netherlands. Students were enrolled in different study programs,
namely ICT, engineering, retail and administration, food and tourism, and health and welfare
programs. They were predominantly of Dutch origin (N = 1599), and their mean age was 17.11,
SD = 3.52 during the first data collection period. About 12 percent of the participating students
had an immigrant background, determined by their parents’ birthplace. The Mediterranean group
(Moroccan and Turkish) consisted of 119 students, while 88 students had a Caribbean
(Netherlands Antilles or Surinam) background.
Instruments
Students’ ethnocultural background: Participants were asked in which country they were born
and in which country their parents were born.
Four scales were administered. Table 1 presents an overview of scales, sample items and
Cronbachs’ alphas of the different scales used in this study. Structural equivalence of the scales in
the three ethnic groups was assessed using exploratory factor analyses followed by a test of
123
factorial agreement. Tucker phi coefficients higher than .90 are seen as evidence for factorial
agreement (Ten Berge, 1986). Values of these tests are also presented in Table 1.
------------------------------
Insert Table 1 about here
------------------------------
The quality of CL (QCL) comprised four subscales, namely; students’ perceptions of the quality
of group cohesion, students’ perceptions of the quality of interdependence within the group,
students’ perception of the quality of their cooperation skills and a subscale that measured
students’ attitudes towards CL. All questions referred to the group learning situations that the
students had participated in during the previous four weeks. Students had to indicate on a four-
point Likert scale to what extent they agreed with each statement. Response categories ranged
from "I disagree very strongly" to “I agree very strongly” (Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder,
2006).These subscales were highly correlated and were all part of the quality of CL. A Principal
Component Analysis on these four subscales resulted in a one-factor solution. This factor had an
Eigenvalue of 1.8 and it explained 58% of the total variance.
Students’ personal goals were assessed with the goal preference list based on the Ford
(1992) and Ford and Nichols (1991) taxonomy of broad goals. Students had to report on the
importance they attach to each of the goals by giving an indication of the extent to which they
want to achieve them. They were asked to choose from five response categories ranging from “not
at all” to “very much so”. Four goal domains related to the quality of CL, represented by four
scales, were selected from the list and used in this study, namely superiority and individuality,
mastery, belongingness, and social support goals (For more details see Hijzen, Boekaerts, &
Vedder (2006)).
Students’ language competence was measured with one subscale assessing students’
proficiency in the Dutch language (Kwak, 1990). Students had to indicate how well they did in
speaking, writing, understanding and reading Dutch. The scale items were measured on a four-
point Likert-type scale (1= not at all, 4= very good). The scale for Perceived Availability of
Social Support (e.g., Vedder, Boekaerts, & Seegers, 2005) measures students’ appraisals of the
availability of academic and emotional support from their teachers and peers. Students had to
indicate on a four-point Likert scale how often they get support. Answering categories ranged
from “almost never” to “very often”. Four scales were from the Relational and School Identity
124
Scale (Meeus, 1996) and measured students’ identification with their peers and school, students’
feelings of alienation from peers and their school. Response categories (4) ranged from “I
disagree very strongly” to “I agree very strongly”.
Reliability coefficients of all measures were good, Cronbachs’ alpha coefficients ranged
from .73 to .93. Tucker’s phi comparisons for each pair of countries were very high (0.97 – 1.00),
indicating overall good structural equivalence for all measures.
Procedure
The scales were administered during regular classroom activities. Researchers were present to
assist the teachers, and to answer any questions. All participants were informed that participation
was voluntary, and that responses were anonymous. It took students two sessions of 45 minutes to
complete all the scales.
RESULTS
The relationship between individual and context related characteristics and the quality of CL
Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated in order to explore the relationships between
individual and context related characteristics and the quality of CL. Because of the large sample,
almost all correlations were statistically significant. The associations were generally in the
expected direction, all person-related (Dutch language proficiency and goal preferences) and
context-related (social resources, belongingness and alienation) appraisals were significantly
correlated with the quality of CL. Especially students’ mastery (r = .23, p = .000) and social
support (r = .29, p =.000) goal preferences and their appraisals of the availability of emotional (r
= .27, p =.000) and academic support (r = .25, p =.000) and identification with peers (r = .19, p =
.000) and school (r = .23, p =.000) were interrelated with the quality of CL. Contrary to our
expectations, peer alienation was not significantly related to the quality of CL. We therefore
excluded this subscale from further analyses.
Profiles
125
A person-oriented approach was used to gain insight into student profiles. Cluster analyses were
conducted with the following variables: language proficiency, goal preferences, academic and
emotional peer and teacher support, school and peer identification, and school alienation scales.
We used the k-means method, because this method is sensitive to decisions as to the preferred
number of clusters and the values for the initial cluster centers. Based on the fit with the dominant
theoretical notions guiding the study and on the interpretability of the resulting clusters, we found
four clusters. Figures 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 present the four clusters.
--------------------------------------
Insert Figures 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 about here
---------------------------------------
Cluster 1 can be described as the school disaffected profile. This highly negative profile groups
students who score low on the goal domains, meaning that they had no clear goals. They were
slightly positive about their proficiency in the Dutch language, but dissatisfied with the
availability of academic and emotional support from teachers and peers. These students also
lacked a sense of school and peer identification. However, they scored slightly negative on school
alienation.
A second, more diffuse cluster shown in Figure 1.2, can be defined as the weak
communication / weak school bonding profile. Scores on Dutch language proficiency were
extremely low. Students with this profile scored relatively high (and positive) on school
alienation, meaning that compared to students in the other clusters, these students were highly
unsatisfied with their study program. The scores on the availability of academic and emotional
peer and teacher support were positive, meaning that students in this profile were satisfied with
the amount of support they received, but their goal preferences were diffuse, implying that they
pursued no clear goals. Interestingly, superiority was the most valued goal domain. The marked
discrepancy between being satisfied with social resources but feeling alienated at the same time
implies that these students’ wish to change school program might be related to personal
characteristics, such as their lack of Dutch language proficiency.
Cluster 3 is the positive school adjusted profile. Scores on superiority goals were
negative. Students in this cluster scored positively on the other goal domains and they were also
positive about the availability of support. They felt attached to school and peers and had no
126
intention at all of changing peers or school. Students with this profile enjoyed school and focused
on learning.
We labeled cluster 4 ‘the frustrated profile’ (Figure 1.4). Interesting about this profile is
the overall frustration that it expresses. Students with this profile seem to have good intentions but
their resources - or in other words their environment - do not match their needs. They score
positively on all goal preferences, are satisfied with their level of Dutch language proficiency, but
dissatisfied with the availability of academic and emotional support, especially from teachers
(possibly caused by a mismatch between students’ social goal preferences and the perceived lack
of academic and emotional support from persons in their environment). They were slightly
negative on identification with peers and school and were considering changing their school
environment. Unlike cluster 2 that grouped students who seem frustrated due to personal
characteristics, this cluster expresses frustration as a consequence of a lack of resources. A
relatively high proportion of students fell in this cluster. Indeed cluster 4 (see Figure 1.4) was the
largest cluster consisting of 704 students, followed by the first and third cluster (see Figure 1.1
and 1.3) that consisted of 652 and 654 students, respectively. The second cluster consisted of 395
students.
The relationship between student profiles and the quality of CL
In order to investigate the relationship between student profiles, the quality of CL and
ethnocultural background a four (profiles) by three (ethnocultural groups) ANOVA was
conducted with the quality of CL as the dependent variable.
Since students with a disaffected profile had negative scores on social and mastery goals,
weak scores on language proficiency, negative scores on the availability of support, a lack of
school and peer belonging and a wish for changing school and peer group, we expected that this
profile would express the lowest quality of CL. In the school adjusted profile we expected the
highest quality of CL, since the scores on social and mastery goals were high, and the Dutch
language proficiency satisfactory (also appraisals of the availability of social support were
positive, and scores on belongingness to school and peers were high, whereas scores on alienation
were low).
127
The analysis yielded a main effect of cluster only (F [3, 1442] = 13.81, p = .000, �² = .03).
Neither an ethnicity main effect nor an interaction effect was found. Contrary to our expectations,
Dutch (M = 2.83, SD = .29), Mediterranean (M = 2.86, SD=.33) and Caribbean students (M =
2.83, SD = .31) hardly differed on the quality of CL. Posthoc tests showed that, as expected,
students with a disaffected profile (M = 2.73, SD = .21), together with students with a weak
communication/school-bonding profile (M = 2.76, SD = .27) had the lowest scores on the quality
of CL. Students with a school adjusted profile had the highest scores on the quality of CL (M =
2.93, SD = .29). This finding confirmed our predictions namely that positive scores on social
goals and mastery goals, negative scores on superiority goals, positive perception of the
availability of support, identification to school and peers and no wish for changing school and
peers are related to perceptions of high CL. The frustrated profile (Figure 1.4) was characterized
by intermediate scores for the quality of CL (M = 2.84, SD = .29).
The fact that students from different ethnic background had similar scores on the quality
of CL does not rule out the possibility that a comparable quality of CL is realized on the basis of
resources and conditions for CL that vary between ethnocultural groups. We analyzed whether the
proportions of students in each profile varied in terms of the students’ ethnocultural background.
--------------------------------
Insert Figure 2 about here
--------------------------------
Figure 2 presents the distribution of ethnic groups over the four clusters. The distribution of
clusters clearly differed by group (�² (6, N = 1791) = 20.80, p = .002). Inspection of Figure 2
shows that cluster 2 - the weak communication profile-, is clearly more characteristic of the
Caribbean group than of the Dutch and Mediterranean groups. This contradicts our expectation
that Dutch and Caribbean students would have a higher language proficiency than their
Mediterranean peers. Moreover, profile 3 - the school adjusted profile, is most representative of
the Dutch group and is least represented in the Caribbean group. Furthermore, profile 4 - the
frustrated profile is most characteristic of the Mediterranean students. This latter finding
corroborates earlier reported findings that Mediterranean students feel less supported whereas
they actually need more support than Dutch students.
128
DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This study explored what combination of student characteristics and student appraisals of the
school context was related to higher levels of the quality of cooperative learning and whether
these vary by ethnocultural group. We expected to find differences between national,
Mediterranean, and Caribbean students living in the Netherlands, both as regards the quality of
cooperative learning and the profiles representing particular combinations of student
characteristics and student appraisals of the school context. Cluster analyses resulted in four
different profiles, namely a 1) school disaffected profile, 2) weak communication/ school bonding
profile, 3) school adjusted profile and 4) frustrated profile.
The relationship between student profiles and the quality of CL
We expected a relationship between the different profiles and the quality of CL. In line with
Wentzel and Wigfield (1998) and McInerney, Hinkley, Dowson, and Van Etten (1998), we
anticipated that students with high and positive scores on social and mastery goals would express
high quality of CL. Furthermore, we expected that positive scores on Dutch language proficiency,
appraisals of the availability of academic and emotional support from teachers and peers, and
identification with school and peers, and negative scores on school and peer alienation would be
associated with the quality of CL. As expected, we found that students in the school adjusted
profile had the highest scores on the quality of CL, while -in line with our expectations- students
in the school disaffected and the weak communication/ school bonding profiles had the lowest
scores on the quality of CL. Students with a frustrated profile had intermediate scores on the
quality of CL. Inspection of the distribution of students over the different clusters showed that
most students had a frustrated profile. While these students did not display low scores on the
quality of CL, many students felt unsupported by their environment and alienated from their
schools. Future interventions in the schools should explicitly focus on strengthening the social
environment. It is vital that schools shape an environment where it is logical that students support
each other, for example by investing in social skill development and improving group attachment.
Teachers need to create a classroom atmosphere where emotional and academic support is
promoted and valued. At the same time, this type of environment will stimulate students to pursue
129
their social support goals, which are crucial for successful CL as well (Hijzen, Boekaerts, &
Vedder, 2006). Many students (profile 1 and profile 2) had no clear goal preferences. Having
clear goals is very important for successful learning (e.g., Conti, 2000). Hence, suggestions for
interventions concern goal setting. Teachers should invite students to think about their personal
goals and the way these goals connect to school goals. Talking about personal goals in order to
make students conscious of the role these goals play in the learning process might be a significant
move towards more successful CL. Fortunately, a high number of students were in cluster 3, the
school adjusted profile, that was associated with the highest quality of CL and satisfaction with
the availability of support.
Ethnocultural background and the quality of CL
Dutch and immigrant students were not evenly distributed over the different profiles. Only the
disaffected profile comprised comparable proportions of Dutch, Caribbean and Mediterranean
students. As expected, the weak communication/ school bonding profile was more typical of
immigrant students than of the Dutch. However, the difference concerned only the Caribbean
students, while we expected more language difficulties for Mediterranean students. This cluster
was characterized by negative scores on Dutch language proficiency and school and peer
identification and positive scores on school alienation. Besides, students from this cluster had no
specific goal preferences; superiority was their most outspoken goal preference. This finding
contradicts our expectations that immigrant students would value superiority goals less than
Dutch students and it contradicts an earlier finding reported by Vedder and Boekaerts (2006) that
showed that Antillean students had lower scores in the superiority goal domain than Dutch
students. These researchers measured Antillean students’ goal preferences in Antillean schools,
while our research took place in the Dutch context. Perhaps Antillean immigrant students are
more prone to prove themselves and show off their abilities in a Dutch environment than their
peers who are living in the Caribbean. The high scores on school alienation seem to confirm our
prediction that immigrant students feel less attached to their school environment than Dutch
students. This finding may have been caused by several factors, such as differences in cultural
background, or in other words, a gap between the home cultural background and the school
culture, frequently changing schools (Mulder, Roeleveld, Van der Veen, & Vierke, 2005), or
130
language difficulties. A comparison revealed that students in both the school disaffected profile
and the frustrated profile lack social resources. Students in the former cluster report low
emotional support from peers and students in the latter cluster report low social support from their
teacher. The main differences between the two clusters is having or not having clear goals and
reported language proficiency. Obviously having clear goals and language proficiency are
important in learning, particularly in CL. As such it deserves to be given special attention in
students’ curriculum and class organization. Actually, in senior vocational high schools in the
Netherlands generally, students’ Dutch language proficiency is taken for granted. Suggestions for
future intervention programs therefore concern enhancing communication competence and paying
attention to differences between Dutch and immigrants’ language proficiency in class. For
example in composing CL teams.
The frustrated profile was most representative of Mediterranean students and least of the
Dutch group, which confirms our expectation that more Mediterranean students feel alienated and
unable to identify with school and peers, compared to Dutch and Caribbean students.
131
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135
Table 1
Categories, Sample Items, Number of Items, Cronbachs’ Alpha Coefficients and Tucker Phi Coefficients
Category Sample item(s) #
items
Alpha Tucker’s Phi Coefficients of Factorial
Agreement
Students Goal Preferences Dutch vs.
Mediterranean
Dutch vs.
Caribbean
Caribbean vs.
Mediterranean
Superiority/ individuality I want to impress others 9 .93 1.00 .99 .99
Mastery I want to learn more about my profession 9 .92 1.00 .99 .99
Belongingness I want to get along with my peers 6 .86 1.00 .99 .99
Social Support I want to help others in case they need help 7 .91 1.00 1.00 1.00
Quality of Cooperative
Learning
I perceive myself as part of this group”, “When we work on
a group task, we make sure that all the team members
understand the answers”, “I know when another person
needs help” and “Together you learn better than alone”.
29 .90 1.00 1.00 1.00
Language Competence
Dutch language competence I speak (e.g. read) Dutch well 4 .87 1.00 1.00 1.00
Social Climate
136
Academic support teacher When I do not understand the lesson, I receive support
from my teacher
7 .80 .99 .99 .98
Academic support peers When I do not understand the lesson the I receive support
from my peers
7 .82 1.00 .98 .98
Emotional support teachers When I am sad my teacher supports me 6 .82 1.00 1.00 .99
Emotional support peers When I am sad my peers support me 6 .89 .97 .99 .99
School and Peer
Identification & Alienation
Identification with peers My friends give me self confidence 5 .91 1.00 1.00 1.00
Identification with school My education gives me self confidence 5 .88 1.00 .99 .99
Alienation from peers I regularly think about finding new friends 3 .93 1.00 1.00 1.00
Alienation from school I regularly think about finding another education 3 .91 1.00 1.00 1.00
137
Figure 1.1:
The school disaffected profile
-1,6
-1,4
-1,2
-1
-0,8
-0,6
-0,4
-0,2
0
0,2
0,4
0,6 social support
belongingness
mastery
superiority
Dutch language proficiency
academic support teacher
academic support peers
emotional support teachers
emotional support peers
peer identification
school identification
school alienation
Figure 1.2:
The weak communication/ weak school bonding profile
-1
-0,8
-0,6
-0,4
-0,2
0
0,2
0,4 social support
belongingness
mastery
superiority
Dutch language proficiency
academic support teacher
academic support peers
emotional support teachers
emotional support peers
peer identification
school identification
school alienation
138
-0,4
-0,2
0
0,2
0,4
0,6
0,8
1
social supportbelongingnessmasterysuperiorityDutch language proficiencyacademic support teacheracademic support peersemotional support teachersemotional support peerspeer identificationschool identificationschool alienation
Figure 1.3:
The school adjusted profile
-0,6
-0,4
-0,2
0
0,2
0,4
0,6
0,8 social support
belongingness
mastery
superiority
Dutch language proficiency
academic support teacher
academic support peers
emotional support teachers
emotional support peers
peer identification
school identification
school alienation
Figure 1.4: The frustrated profile
139
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
profile 1 profile 2 profile 3 profile 4
DutchMediterraneanCaribbean
Figure 2:
Percentages of Dutch, Mediterranean and Caribbean students by profile
140
Chapter 6
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
This final chapter has two main aims. Firstly, we will discuss the conclusions of the four
separate studies and draw general conclusions. Secondly, we will exemplify what the
implications of these conclusions are for theory and practice, illustrated by an additional
study on teacher perceptions of the quality of CL in their classrooms.
Answering the general questions
The main aim of this study was to investigate the role of students’ goal preferences in CL
settings and to determine factors in the classroom context that teachers can manipulate in
order to promote successful CL processes. Special attention was paid to differences between
students related to their gender, program type and ethnocultural background. By gaining
insight into these relationships we intended to uncover leads for future interventions aimed at
improving students’ motivation for CL and the quality of their learning processes as well as
preventing drop-out in the long run. Four broad, explorative questions were central to this
dissertation. Namely:
1. What is the relationship between students’ goal preferences, contextual factors in the
classroom and the quality of CL?
2. How can effective CL teams be distinguished from ineffective ones, and what
distinguishes them in terms of the students’ goal preferences and perceptions of
contextual factors in the classroom?
3. Which teacher related conditions coincide with effective CL processes and
which conditions are related to failing CL processes, in the course of a year?
4. Can we distinguish between separate profiles of person variables (Dutch language
proficiency and goal preferences) and context variables (social resources and
school belonging) that account for variations in the quality of CL and does ethnic
background play a role in explaining differences in these profiles and the quality of
CL?
These questions were dealt with in four studies, presented in Chapters two, three, four and
five of the thesis. In Chapter two we described the relationship between students’ goal
141
preferences, contextual factors and the quality of CL processes. Findings of the study
described in this chapter functioned as a framework for the other studies. In Chapter three we
presented an in depth study exploring how effective CL teams could be distinguished from
ineffective teams in terms of students’ goal preferences and their perceptions of contextual
factors. In Chapter four we presented a longitudinal study on the relationship between teacher
steered conditions for CL and the quality of CL. In Chapter five we described a study that
investigated the role of students’ ethnocultural background and the quality of CL.
What is the relationship between students’ goal preferences, contextual factors in the
classroom and the quality of CL?
As to the relationship between students’ goal preferences and the quality of CL we predicted
that belongingness, social support and mastery goals are positively and superiority/
individuality goal preferences negatively related to the quality of CL. We found that social
support goals were strongly related to the quality of CL. Also students’ belongingness and
mastery goals were related – although slightly less- to the quality of CL. This confirms
previous findings of studies by McInerney, Hinkley, Dowson, and Van Etten (1998) and
Wentzel (1993), suggesting that a combination of social and mastery goals is preferable in
social learning settings, such as CL. Unexpectedly, students’ superiority/ individuality goals
were not significantly related to the quality of CL, while we expected that students, who are
superiority minded, to be less capable of working in CL settings since they were expected to
outperform others and less cooperatively minded.
As to the relationship between the quality of CL and perceptions of contextual factors
in the classroom we found that students’ evaluation of the extent that they were taught CL
skills at their present schools was most strongly and positively related to the quality of CL.
This finding confirms previous findings (e.g., Gillies & Ashman, 1996; Hoek, Van den Eeden,
& Terwel, 1999; Webb & Farivar, 1994). Also related to the quality of CL were students’
perception of the teachers’ clarity on rules for CL, teacher monitoring behavior, perceived
availability of peer academic and emotional support, and perceived availability of teacher
support.
In line with several other studies, (e.g., Anderman, 1999; Charlesworth & Dzur, 1987;
Cosden, Pearl, & Bryan 1985; Eccles, 1987; Wentzel, 1991) which showed that female
students are more inclined to engage in behavior associated with successful CL, such as
helping others, we found that females showed overall higher scores than male students on the
142
quality of CL. They also reported higher preferences for social support and mastery goals
whereas male students reported higher preferences for superiority goals. Consequently, these
findings suggest that female students, more than their male peers, feel secure in CL settings.
Our study in secondary vocational schools dealt with students enrolled in ICT/
engineering, retail and administration, health and welfare, and food and tourism programs.
Male and female students were not equally distributed over these program types and this
uneven distribution might have led to a program type effect that masks an underlying gender
effect. Therefore, we explored program type effects for male and female students separately.
Interestingly, we found a positive relationship between students’ superiority goals and the
quality of CL in the ICT/ engineering (male) subgroup, whereas in the health and welfare male
subgroup no such relationship was found. In the food male subgroup a negative relationship
was found.
We concluded that the quality of CL was best predicted by a combination of students’
social support goals, their evaluations of the extent that they were taught cooperation skills,
teachers’ monitoring behavior, and the availability of academic and emotional peer support. A
salient predictor in the classroom context was the students’ perception of the extent that they
had been taught the necessary CL skills.
How can effective CL teams be distinguished from ineffective ones, and what
distinguishes them in terms of the students’ goal preferences and perceptions of
contextual factors in the classroom?
In the study described in Chapter three we distinguished effective CL teams that
predominantly show (social) task-relevant engagement (being concentrated and active) during
CL from ineffective teams that show task-irrelevant engagement (being distracted, and
chatting most of the time), in terms of their goal preferences and perceptions of contextual
factors in the classroom.
The goal questionnaire revealed that effective teams’ most prevalent goal preferences
were affective, social support and self-determination goals, whereas ineffective team
members’ most prevalent goal preferences were belongingness, affective and self-
determination goals. Hence, the most remarkable distinction between these teams concerned
their belongingness and social support goals. Effective team members were inclined to report
somewhat lower scores on belongingness goals than ineffective team members, while the
reversed pattern was observed for social support goals. In effective teams mastery goals were
143
more important than belongingness goals. Remarkably, only one goal domain was related to
students’ engagement scores, namely their belongingness goals. A negative relationship was
found between students’ belongingness goals and task-relevant engagement in the ineffective
teams. Inspection of students’ interview statements –where the full range of possible goal
preferences was considered- showed that mastery and social responsibility goals, together
with ‘learning for a certificate’ goal, tended to be more prevalent in effective teams, while
learning for a certificate and entertainment goals were dominant in ineffective teams. The
most substantial dissimilarity in goal preferences was the strong prevalence of entertainment
goals in ineffective CL teams. In line with Sheldon and Kasser (1995) and Sheldon and Elliot
(1999) we found that students in ineffective teams seem less conscious of their goal
preferences than students in effective teams. Their goals were very broad. Important to note is
that goal preferences were not often specifically mentioned in explaining task-relevant, task-
irrelevant, or social task related engagement during CL sessions. Groups pointed at the
context far more often to explain their CL. Task characteristics, group composition, and
teacher behavior were often mentioned as reasons for effective or ineffective CL. Ineffective
teams explained their task-irrelevant engagement as a result of the group tasks. According to
these students, many tasks were not genuine group tasks. Also they complained that the tasks
were boring, too simple and not challenging enough. This confirms findings of Webb and
Palincsar (1996) and Cohen (1994) suggesting that for effective CL students perceive the
tasks as challenging, as hands-on, and promoting interdependency. In line with Sharan and
Sharan (1992) and Chin, Salisbury, Pearson, and Stollak (1999) we found that students in
effective teams usually worked longer in the same teams and felt more at ease with each other
than team members in ineffective teams, who often had to deal with absent or highly
unmotivated team members. Ineffective team members had many complaints about their
teachers, who were often not there in case they needed help. Furthermore, they mentioned the
fact that they were just not good at working independently.
Which teacher related conditions coincide with effective CL processes and which
conditions are related to failing CL processes, in the course of a year?
In the study presented in Chapter 4, we explored the conditions that teachers in secondary
vocational education created in order to promote students’ CL processes. We found that the
extent that students were taught skills and knowledge for CL and teachers’ clarity on rules for
CL were highly related to the quality of CL, during all three waves. In other words, findings
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of the study presented in Chapter 2 can be complemented by stating that -also in the long run-
it is important that teachers explicitly teach the skills, knowledge and rules for CL. The
quality of CL was at its best during the second wave when scores on all teacher related
conditions were also highest. Hence, teachers’ control behavior and the quality of CL were
also positively related at the second data point, while we expected that a decrease in teachers
control behavior would predict the quality of CL at a later stage. However, during the third
data-wave only the scales that measured students’ perceptions on the extent that they were
taught skills and knowledge for CL, and teachers’ clarity on rules for CL were highly related
to the quality of CL, whereas the scales that measured students’ perceptions of their teachers’
control behavior were indeed less related to the quality of CL.
When we distinguished between the group of ineffective and effective cooperators we
noticed that the teacher related conditions made the difference: at all stages effective
cooperators had higher scores on all the scales, in particular on the extent that they were
taught skills and knowledge for CL. Furthermore, we signaled a tendency that the weak
cooperators perceived a major decrease in teachers’ monitoring behavior after the second
data-wave. A similar trend was found in relation to teachers’ intervention behavior. The
effective cooperators perceived almost no change in teacher monitoring and intervention
behavior after the second data-wave.
Can we distinguish between separate profiles of person variables (Dutch language
proficiency and goal preferences) and context variables (social resources and school
belonging) that account for variations in the quality of CL and does ethnic background play
a role in explaining differences in these profiles and the quality of CL?
Four student profiles were identified; a school-disaffected, a weak communication/school
bonding, a school-adjusted and a frustrated profile. Not surprisingly, students who were
grouped in the school-adjusted profile showed the highest scores on CL. This profile was
characterized by goal preferences for social and mastery goals, low scores on superiority
goals, high perceived availability of social support and positive scores on school and peer
identification. The school-disaffected profile had the lowest scores on CL. This profile was
characterized by no clear goals, a lack of social resources and peer/school identification.
Students from different backgrounds were disproportionately distributed. The weak
communication profile was characteristic of Caribbean students. Students with this profile
were dissatisfied with their Dutch language proficiency. Also, they scored relatively high on
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school alienation. The scores on the availability of academic and emotional peer and teacher
support were high, meaning that students in this profile were satisfied with the amount of
support they received, but their goal preferences were diffuse. Interestingly, superiority was
the most valued goal domain in this profile. The frustrated profile was characterized by clear
goals, but dissatisfaction with the availability of academic and emotional support, especially
from teachers. Furthermore, they were slightly low on identification with peers and school
and were considering changing their school environment. Somewhat disappointing, the
highest proportion of students fell in this cluster. The lowest proportion of students fell in the
weak communication cluster. Contrary to our expectations we had to conclude that students’
ethnocultural background had neither a direct effect on the quality of CL nor on students’ goal
preferences. In summary, we were unable to confirm the hypotheses that specific ethnic
groups were better equipped for CL (Palfreyman, 2001; Wittebrood & Keuzekamp, 2000).
However, we were able to determine ethnicity-related variables (Dutch language proficiency,
school alienation) that are likely affected by educational interventions.
As was shown in Chapter two, three, and five, we concluded that with respect to students’
goal preferences, social support and mastery goals were most vital in predicting the quality of
CL. Having clear goals in the first place was also noteworthy in predicting effective and
ineffective CL processes. All studies showed that the classroom context was -even more-
crucial in predicting the quality of CL, especially the extent to which students were taught the
appropriate knowledge, skills and rules for CL was found to be a crucial -and lasting-
precondition of successful CL. The fact that some teams were able and willing to cope with
hindrances, distractions and obstacles while working in CL settings, whereas others were not,
highly depends on what goal preferences they had in the first place. A well-designed CL
setting is decisive, because it elicits, promotes, or hinders certain goal preferences.
Furthermore, as was found in Chapters two and five, background variables such as
ethnocultural background, gender and program type had no direct effect on the quality of CL.
Instead, they indirectly influenced the quality of CL.
CL may be a way to enhance students’ motivation for learning, provided that students
are aware of their goal preferences and CL is well implemented as an instructional process.
These conclusions are promising for finding leads for future intervention purposes; stable
factors, such as students’ ethnocultural background, gender and program type, as well as their
goal preferences are difficult to change. These factors have been found to be less essential in
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predicting the quality of CL than perceptions of the classroom context, which is likely to be
much more susceptible for intervention purposes.
GENERAL IMPLICATIONS FOR THEORY AND PRACTICE
Students’ goal preferences and the quality of CL
With respect to the relationship between students’ goal preferences and the quality of CL, this
dissertation underlined the need for promoting students’ social and mastery goals. A
significant finding of this study is that not all students devote much thinking to choosing their
goals, whereas formulating goals, can facilitate students’ intrinsic motivation (Sheldon &
Kasser, 1995; Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). Hence, our first recommendation concerns the
importance of discussing personal goals in order to make students sensitive of the role these
goals play in the learning process. The goals that students bring into the classroom are often
abstract goals, which still need to be adapted to the CL setting. Especially the study that was
described in Chapter three suggested that inviting students to talk about their goals could be
an important step towards more effective CL; perhaps the stimulated-recall setting provided a
favorable context for thinking about one’s goals; it made students more aware of their goals
and their importance in the specific context of CL. In other words, the stimulated-recall
setting might be considered as an ideal educational intervention to make students more
sensitive of their goals. Ideally, this should be a recurring element of the curriculum,
especially when we consider the high drop-out rates in secondary vocational schools.
Dropping out of school often is an outcome of underlying motivational problems that students
have experienced. Students should be invited to think about their own goals and about the
links between their personal goals and school goals. This reflection might facilitate adoption
of teacher-set learning goals and self-regulation of their own learning goals (see Boekaerts &
Corno, 2005). Moreover, since social support goals were found to be important in predicting
the quality of CL, teachers should create a classroom context where students are stimulated to
rely on each other for help.
Perceptions of contextual factors and the quality of CL
The studies reported in this thesis suggest that, more important than students’ goals, the
classroom context was crucial for the quality of CL. We would therefore like to end this
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dissertation with additional findings that underline the importance of paying attention to the
classroom setting and especially to the teachers’ role in CL.
A number of teachers completed an abridged version of the questionnaire that aimed
to measure conditions for CL and also participated in an interview about CL in their
classrooms. Comparisons of teacher and student scores yielded some interesting findings that
together point toward a call for improvement of adaptability of teacher behavior during CL.
Teachers’ scores on all teacher behavior items was (much) higher than students’ scores. This
finding indicates that -according to the teachers- they were far more involved and active
during CL than evaluated by the students. For example, teachers were more positive about the
cooperation skills that they taught their students than the students themselves. This finding is
of special importance when we consider findings of the in-depth study described in Chapter
two; students in ineffective CL teams mentioned that they were not good at cooperating and
that they missed the skills for effective CL. When we contextualize this finding in the overall
results of the study (the strong relationship between the quality of CL and the extent that
students were explicitly taught CL skills), we may conclude that students perceive their
teachers as less monitoring and intervening than the teachers themselves. Remember that the
study presented in Chapter four showed that after a one year period, ineffective cooperators
reported lower levels of teacher instruction and teacher monitoring.
These same teachers also participated in interviews about the way CL was realized in
their classes, their ideas on the usefulness and feasibility of working with CL methods and the
quality of their students CL skills. More than half of the teachers answered that students
cooperatively completed tasks in their lessons, however the way this took place was often less
organized and structured than CL settings are meant to be designed by educationalists. Some
of the statements suggested that teachers do not always set up highly structured CL settings
with real group tasks and clear notions about group compositions: “Simply make an
assignment together” or “They don’t get a real group task but they have to make assignments
together. They can complete these in couples or in larger groups, as long as they are engaged
and learn something...”.
Teachers were asked about their attitudes towards CL. Most teachers were positive
about the general usefulness of CL. Most teachers mentioned that practising CL skills is
important, because students need these skills in their future career: “Improving social skills is
very important. Being able to cooperate in the future, that is what it is all about, they learn to
solve a problem together, and in their future professions they also have to solve tasks
together”. However, only a small percentage of the teachers thought that students learn more
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in CL settings than in traditional settings. An often mentioned disadvantage of CL was the
time aspect. Coaching different teams and solving conflicts takes a lot of time. One teacher
stated “When they enter the classroom, they have to get their books and pencils and so on. I
have to check who is absent. This already takes ten minutes and then you have to start
explaining the topics, compose groups, well yes there is too little time”. Many felt to have too
little instruction time and that in the remaining time they insufficiently covered the prescribed
curriculum. They compared this to more traditional instructional settings and were of the
opinion that more instruction time and curriculum coverage would be realized using more
traditional approaches. This suggests a bad prospect for CL, because it may be an early signal
of re-lapse and may reflect their unwillingness to invest in well structured CL methods.
Many teachers were ambiguous about the quality of their students’ CL skills. A
teacher stated: “I notice that students are not really capable of CL. They don’t take any
initiative. I have to push them and even then it still goes wrong often. I think CL is very
important, but also really difficult to make it work.” Another teacher said: “On the one hand
I think it is important that students learn to cooperate, because they need the skills for their
future career. However, I think that nowadays students cooperate too often and it demotivates
them. I think that the individual student receives less attention”.
Teachers mentioned that most students are extrinsically motivated, and have difficulty
working independently in CL settings. Relevant statements were “I noticed that you have to
set up a strong extrinsic motivation, control them a lot” or “I don’t notice that students get
more independent by CL. The assignments they hand in are of a very low quality. This is
often caused by the fact that they receive a mark that does not seriously add up to their total
grade”. These findings nicely illustrate the gap between student and teacher perceptions on
conditions for CL. The teachers are of the opinion that they instruct and control CL processes
sufficiently and more or less hold their students responsible for ineffective CL process. Even
though teachers believe that they invest sufficient time in teaching CL skills and knowledge,
and that they control CL processes, it may be necessary to encourage them to invest more
time in the preparation and reflection on CL lessons and the reasons why this form of learning
is beneficial for students.
Hence, our most central recommendation concerns the teachers’ role during CL. They
should carefully think about how to organize the CL setting in terms of group composition,
task characteristics and rewards. Teachers should pay ample attention to and explicitly teach
the necessary skills for learning in CL teams. More specifically, as mentioned in Chapters
two, three, and four, it is crucial that teachers teach their students how to listen to each other,
149
to evaluate the group process, to discuss, to support group members, to give an opinion, or to
solve group conflicts. Secondly, it is important that teachers monitor the CL process carefully,
which means that they need to walk around in the classroom, frequently check with the
groups and ask them how they are doing. Thirdly, teachers need to be aware that availability
of peer support is essential for effective CL, emotional as well as instrumental support.
Teachers should encourage students to provide this type of support, and create conditions to
facilitate this support.
Finally, although the study in Chapter five showed that ethnocultural background had
no direct relationship with the quality of CL, students’ communication skills are very
important in CL setting. Therefore we think that improving students’ communication skills
should be given special attention in the curriculum and in class organization. Actually, in
senior vocational high schools in the Netherlands generally, students’ Dutch language
proficiency is taken for granted, as something that was given sufficient attention in students’
preceding school career. Suggestions for future intervention programs therefore concern
enhancing communication competence and paying attention to differences between Dutch and
immigrants’ language proficiency in class.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
This thesis concludes with some suggestions for future research related to particular
limitations of the present study. The most important limitations of this study concern a
sampling bias favoring girls and the significant loss of subjects in the course of data-
collection. Boys are underrepresented at all data-waves. This was due to the fact that
relatively many programs of health and well-being participated. These programs are
traditionally favored by girls. Furthermore, students enrolled in cognitively less demanding
programs were underrepresented, while students enrolled in cognitively more demanding
programs were overrepresented. Last but not least, only 260 students completed the
questionnaires at three data-waves. With this high attrition rate we cannot exclude the
possibility that our findings are only generalizable to students that attend class frequently and
persistently and do not drop out. Perhaps our findings paint a more positive picture in terms of
students’ motivation and the quality of cooperative learning than warranted for the whole
population of senior vocational high schools. It would be interesting to find out more about
the non-participating students. Did they drop out and if so were their reasons for drop-out
related to a mismatch between their personal goal preferences and the school imposed goals?
150
Were they dissatisfied with particular aspects of the classroom context. Perhaps we ended up
with a selection of the highly motivated students, while actually having more insight in the
behavior and reasons of the less motivated students would be particularly interesting for this
type of research. After all, we wanted to find out more about the role of students’ motivation,
as represented by students’ goal preferences for students’ learning and school adjustment.
More in general it would be interesting to replicate the study with a larger and more evenly
distributed group of subjects at all data-waves.
151
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Summary
The research presented in this thesis is an exploration of the relationship between students’
motivation, represented by students’ personal goals and the quality of cooperative learning
(henceforth CL) processes of first and second year students enrolled in secondary vocational
schools. Special attention has been paid to contextual factors and their influence on the
quality of CL, and to differences between students that are related to their ethnocultural
background. Cooperative learning refers to all those learning methods, where students work
on assignments cooperatively in situations that allow or stimulate cooperation.
Four questions were central to this thesis, namely. 1) What is the relationship
between students’ goal preferences, contextual factors in the classroom and the quality of CL?
2) How can effective CL teams be distinguished from ineffective ones, and what distinguishes
them in terms of the students’ goal preferences and perceptions of contextual factors in the
classroom? 3) Which teacher related conditions coincide with effective CL processes and
which conditions are related to failing CL processes, in the course of a year? 4) Can we
distinguish between separate profiles of person variables (Dutch language proficiency and
goal preferences) and context variables (social resources and school belonging) that account
for variations in the quality of CL and does ethnic background play a role in explaining
differences in these profiles and the quality of CL?
The Netherlands has 42 regional educational centers for secondary vocational education. They
all received a letter in which we explained the purpose and relevance of the study and invited
them to participate. Eleven schools evenly spread over the Netherlands participated. The
study had a longitudinal design with three data-waves. Data were gathered at three data
points, between December 2001 and May 2003. During the first data-wave students were
halfway in their first year. The second data-wave took place halfway in their second year, and
the third data-wave at the end of the second year. During our study we had to deal with a large
decline of participating students; during the first data-wave 1920 completed our
questionnaires, at data wave two 897 and at data wave three only 639 students. Senior
vocational school delivers educational programs for four broad competency levels. The first
competency level is the lowest level and level four is the highest. Students enrolled at all four
levels participated. Students in secondary vocational schools can choose for different program
types. We distinguished engineering and ICT, retail and administration, food and tourism, and
health and welfare programs.
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Students’ perceptions on the quality of their CL processes were measured in this study
as well as contextual factors (the extent that they were taught knowledge, skills and rules for
CL, teacher monitoring, intervention and evaluation behavior), students attitudes towards CL
and their Dutch and general language proficiency. Furthermore, students completed
questionnaires on their goal preferences and the social climate in school.
With respect to the relationship between students’ goal preferences and the quality of CL we
concluded that social support goals had the strongest relationship with the quality of CL,
followed by mastery and belongingness goals. Regarding the relationship between contextual
factors and the quality of CL we can conclude that students’ perceptions on the extent that
they were taught skills, knowledge and rules for CL and teachers monitoring the learning
process, were related to the quality of CL. Also, the availability of peer and teacher support
were related to the quality of CL. The quality of CL was best predicted by a combination of
students’ social support goals, their evaluations of the extent that they were taught
cooperation skills, teachers’ monitoring behavior and the availability of academic and
emotional peer support. An interesting finding was that students’ goal preferences only added
a little to the explanation of the quality of CL. Context appraisals were much more important
in explaining the quality of CL. Furthermore, we were able to confirm previous findings
suggesting that female students had higher scores on the quality of CL. They also valued
social support and mastery goals more than male students who often had higher scores on
superiority goals.
An important question in the study was how to distinguish between effective CL teams
and ineffective teams. The in-depth study with a stimulated-recall method showed that a
remarkable difference between these groups was related to students’ belongingness and social
support goals. Students in ineffective CL teams preferred belongingness goals over their
social support goals, whereas the reversed pattern was found in effective CL teams. Important
to note is that only one relationship was found between students goal preferences and their
engagement levels, which was precisely between students’ belongingness goals and task
related engagement. This was a negative relationship in the ineffective CL teams. Also we
found that mastery and social responsibility goals – together with ‘learning for a certificate’
goal - tended to be more prevalent in effective teams, while learning for a certificate and
entertainment goals were dominant in ineffective teams. The most substantial dissimilarity in
goal preferences pertained to the strong prevalence of entertainment goals in ineffective CL
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teams. A last interesting difference between the CL teams was that students in ineffective
teams seemed less conscious of their goal preferences than students in effective teams. Both
groups pointed at the context far more often to explain their CL, than to their goal
preferences. Task characteristics, group composition, and teacher behavior were often
mentioned as reasons for effective or ineffective CL.
Results of the longitudinal study showed that the extent that students were taught skills
and knowledge for CL and teachers’ clarity on rules for CL was highly related to the quality
of CL, during all three waves. Effective cooperators had higher scores on all scales at all three
data-waves (teacher’ monitoring, intervention and evaluation behavior, rules and skills for
CL), in particular as regards the extent that they were taught skills and knowledge for CL.
Wave 2 showed the highest scores on the quality of CL and the scores on all teacher related
conditions were highest at that same time. Furthermore, we signaled a tendency that the weak
cooperators perceived a major decrease in teachers’ monitoring and intervention behavior
after the second data-wave. In contrast, the effective cooperators perceived almost no change
in teachers’ monitoring and intervention behavior.
Four student profiles were identified; a school-disaffected, a weak
communication/school bonding, a school-adjusted and a frustrated profile. Students that were
grouped in the school-adjusted profile showed the highest scores on CL. This profile was
characterized by clear goal preferences for social and mastery goals, low scores on superiority
goals, high perceived availability of social support and high scores on school and peer
identification. Students in the school-disaffected profile had the lowest scores on CL. This
profile was characterized by no clear goal preferences, a lack of social resources and
peer/school identification. Students from different backgrounds were disproportionately
distributed. The weak communication profile was characteristic of Caribbean students, their
scores on Dutch language proficiency were extremely low. Students with this profile scored
relatively high (and positive) on school alienation. Superiority was the most valued goal
domain in this profile. The frustrated profile was characterized by clear goals, but
dissatisfaction with the availability of academic and emotional support, especially from
teachers. Furthermore, they were slightly negative on identification with peers and school and
were considering changing schools. Somewhat disturbingly, the highest proportion of all
students fell in this cluster. Interestingly, the school-adjusted profile was characteristic of the
Dutch students.
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Concluding, students’ goal preferences contribute just weakly to the explanation of the quality
of CL, whereas students’ perceptions on contextual factors were important predictors. Social
support and mastery goals were most vital in predicting the quality of CL. Especially the
extent that students were taught the appropriate knowledge, skills and rules for CL was found
to be a crucial -and lasting- precondition of successful CL. Also the social climate in the
classroom was important for effective CL. Moreover, gender, program type, and ethnocultural
background had no direct effect on the quality of CL.
In our view these results are promising. Whereas students’ goal preferences are
difficult to change and gender and ethnocultural background are stable characteristics,
changes in the classroom context are much easier to bring about. Cooperative learning can
be a means to motivate students and prevent drop-out to a certain extent, when teachers pay
more attention to stimulating students’ reflections on their goal preferences, stimulating
students’ social and mastery goals, stimulating students to reflect on the link between their
personal goals and school goals. Furthermore this research underlined the importance of
teaching students the appropriate skills and knowledge and rules for CL explicitly and paying
attention to stimulating language proficiency. The teacher should better monitor the CL
process and intervene when necessary. Finally, the teacher should create a social climate
where students are invited to provide and receive support.
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Samenvatting
Het onderzoek dat in dit proefschrift wordt gepresenteerd is een verkenning van de
samenhang tussen de motivatie, gerepresenteerd door persoonlijke doelen, en de kwaliteit van
het samenwerkend leren (KSL) van eerstejaars en tweedejaars leerlingen die het Middelbaar
Beroepsonderwijs volgen. Speciale aandacht wordt geschonken aan contextuele factoren die
de KSL beïnvloeden en aan verschillen tussen leerlingen die samenhangen met hun culturele
achtergrond, geslacht en studierichting. Onder samenwerkend leren worden al die vormen van
leren verstaan, waarbij leerlingen gezamenlijk aan een opdracht werken.
Vier vragen stonden centraal in deze dissertatie. 1) Wat is de relatie tussen
persoonlijke doelen, contextuele factoren en de kwaliteit van het samenwerkend leren? 2) Hoe
kunnen effectieve van niet effectieve samenwerkingsgroepen onderscheiden worden, en wat
onderscheidt deze groepen in termen van hun persoonlijke doelen en hun percepties ten
aanzien van contextuele factoren in de klas? 3) Welke docent-gerelateerde factoren gaan
samen met effectieve samenwerkprocessen en welke gaan samen met ineffectieve
samenwerkprocessen, in de loop van een jaar? 4) Kunnen we profielen onderscheiden van
persoonlijke doelen (bijv. Nederlandse taalvaardigheid) en contextuele factoren (bijv. sociale
bronnen en schoolidentificatie) die verschillen verklaren in de KSL en speelt de culturele
achtergrond van leerlingen een rol bij de verklaring van verschillen tussen deze profielen en
de kwaliteit van het samenwerkend leren?
Alle Regionale Opleiding Centra in Nederland (42) ontvingen een brief met daarin een uitleg
over het onderzoek en een verzoek tot medewerking. Elf scholen, verspreid over Nederland
namen uiteindelijk deel aan het onderzoek. Het design van de studie was longitudinaal met
drie meetmomenten. Het eerste meetmoment vond plaats in de tweede helft van het eerste
leerjaar van de leerlingen, het tweede moment vond plaats in januari en februari van het
tweede jaar en het laatste meetmoment vond plaats aan het eind van het tweede leerjaar
(mei/juni). Data werden verzameld in de periode van december 2001 tot mei 2003. Een
aanzienlijk gedeelte van de leerlingen viel uit; tijdens het eerste meetmoment vulden 1920
leerlingen de vragenlijsten voor dit onderzoek in, tijdens het tweede meetmoment waren dat
er nog 897 en tijdens het derde meetmoment 639.
Het MBO kent vier niveaus, waarbij niveau 1 het laagste niveau is en niveau 4 het
hoogste niveau. Leerlingen van alle niveaus participeerden in het onderzoek. Leerlingen op
het MBO kunnen verschillende studierichtingen volgen, we onderscheiden leerlingen van
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Zorg en Welzijn, Horeca en Toerisme, Handel en Administratie, en ICT en Techniek
opleidingen.
In dit onderzoek werden percepties (beoordelingen) van leerlingen ten aanzien van de
kwaliteit van het samenwerken (mate van groepscohesie, mate van onderlinge
afhankelijkheid, vaardigheden voor samenwerkend leren en de attitude ten opzichte van het
samenwerkend leren), percepties van leerlingen ten aanzien van contextuele factoren (de
organisatie van het samenwerken, mate van aanleren van regels en kennis voor samenwerken
en docentgedrag), attitudes van leerlingen ten aanzien van samenwerken, en de
communicatievaardigheid van leerlingen gemeten. Daarnaast vulden leerlingen een vragenlijst
in over de mate waarin zij verschillende doelen wilden bereiken en hun percepties ten aanzien
van het sociale klimaat op school.
Met betrekking tot de relatie tussen persoonlijke doelen van leerlingen en de KSL, konden we
concluderen dat sociale hulp doelen de sterkste relatie met de KSL hebben, gevolgd door
leerdoelen en “ergens bij willen horen” doelen. Wat betreft de relatie tussen de percepties van
leerlingen van de leercontext en de KSL concludeerden we dat de sterkst gerelateerde
variabelen zijn de mate waarin leerlingen vaardigheden, kennis en regels voor samenwerkend
leren hebben aangeleerd, en de mate waarin docenten het leerproces in de gaten houden.
Tevens bleken percepties van leerlingen ten aanzien van de mogelijkheid tot het krijgen van
hulp van medeleerlingen en de docent samen te hangen met de KSL. Een combinatie van
sociale hulp doelen, de mate waarin leerlingen vaardigheden en kennis voor het samenwerken
krijgen aangeleerd, de mate waarin de docenten leerprocessen in de gaten houden, en de
mogelijkheid tot het krijgen van academische en emotionele hulp van medeleerlingen,
voorspelden de KSL het best. Een interessante bevinding is dat doelvoorkeuren van leerlingen
maar voor een klein gedeelte bijdragen aan de voorspelling van de KSL. De context bleek
belangrijker te zijn om de KSL te voorspellen. Verder vonden we bevestiging voor een
eerdere onderzoeksbevinding dat vrouwelijke studenten hoger scoren op de kwaliteit van het
samenwerken. Daarnaast scoorden zij hoger op sociale hulpdoelen en leerdoelen dan mannen,
terwijl mannen hoger scoorden op superioriteitsdoelen.
Een belangrijke vraag binnen dit onderzoek was hoe we het samenwerken van
effectieve van niet-effectieve groepen kunnen onderscheiden. Uit een dieptestudie waarbij een
‘stimulated-recall’ methode werd gebruikt, konden we concluderen dat een belangrijk verschil
tussen deze groepen te maken heeft met de ‘ergens bij willen horen’ doelen en sociale
ondersteuningsdoelen. In de groep effectieve samenwerkende leerlingen vonden leerlingen
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het minder belangrijk om ergens bij te horen en belangrijker om elkaar te helpen en hulp te
ontvangen, terwijl het omgekeerde patroon gevonden werd bij de groep die gekenmerkt werd
door ineffectief samenwerken. Belangrijk op te merken is dat er maar één relatie werd
gevonden met de KSL en deze betrof precies deze ‘ergens bij willen horen’ doelen. Deze
doelen hingen negatief samen met taakgerelateerde betrokkenheid tijdens het samenwerken,
in de groepen die ineffectief samenwerkten. Uit interviews bleek dat leerlingen in effectieve
groepen leerdoelen, sociale doelen en het behalen van een diploma het belangrijkst vonden.
In de ineffectieve groepen waren leren voor een diploma en ‘ontspanning’ doelen het meest
populair. Deze sterke voorkeur voor ontspanningsdoelen, dus het lol hebben op school, is een
zeer opvallend verschil tussen de groepen. Een ander opmerkelijk verschil tussen de groepen
lag in het feit dat leerlingen in ineffectieve teams zich minder bewust waren van hun doelen
dan leerlingen in effectieve teams. Opgemerkt moet worden dat de leerlingen frequenter
refereerden aan de manier waarop docenten het samenwerken organiseerden, als een
belangrijke reden voor effectief of niet effectief samenwerken, dan aan hun doelvoorkeuren.
Beide groepen noemden het type taak, de groepssamenstelling en het gedrag van de docent als
belangrijke redenen voor het al dan niet slagen van het samenwerken. Een ander opvallend
verschil is dat leerlingen in ineffectieve groepen aangaven dat ze gewoon niet goed konden
samenwerken, met andere woorden deze leerlingen misten de kennis en vaardigheden om
goed te kunnen samenwerken.
Uit resultaten van een longitudinale studie naar de relatie tussen docentgerelateerde
condities voor het samenwerken en de KSL, konden we concluderen dat ook op de lange
termijn de mate waarin leerlingen kennis, vaardigheden en regels voor effectief samenwerken
kregen aangeleerd, het sterkst gerelateerd was aan de KSL. Leerlingen die effectief
samenwerkten scoorden te allen tijde hoger op de mate waarin zij deze aangeleerd kregen,
maar ook beoordeelden zij de mate waarin de docent hun leerprocessen in de gaten hield,
ingreep in het leerproces en evalueerde hoger dan leerlingen die niet goed samenwerkten. De
KSL was voor alle leerlingen het hoogst ten tijde van het tweede meetmoment, toen zij ook
alle docentgerelateerde condities het hoogst waardeerden. Verder constateerden we een trend
waarbij de leerlingen die niet goed samenwerkten een sterke daling waarnamen in de mate
waarin docenten hun leerproces in de gaten hielden en de mate waarin zij ingrepen, terwijl
leerlingen die goed samenwerkten deze daling niet rapporteerden.
We konden vier profielen met betrekking tot persoongerelateerde variabelen
(communicatievaardigheid en doelen) en context gerelateerde variabelen (de mate van de
aanwezigheid van hulp van docenten en leerlingen, de mate van identificatie met school en
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met medeleerlingen en de mate van het voornemen van school te willen veranderen)
onderscheiden. Een eerste profiel werd gekarakteriseerd door een gebrek aan doelvoorkeuren,
een gebrek aan sociale bronnen en een gebrek aan identificatie met school en met
medeleerlingen. Leerlingen met dit profiel hadden de laagste scores op de KSL. Een tweede
(schoolaangepast) profiel werd gekarakteriseerd door duidelijke doelvoorkeuren voor sociale
en leerdoelen, hoge scores op de aanwezigheid van sociale hulp en hoge scores op
identificatie met school en medeleerlingen. Leerlingen met dit profiel scoorden het hoogst op
de KSL. Een derde profiel was het “gefrustreerde profiel” dat kan gekarakteriseerd worden
door duidelijke doelvoorkeuren, maar juist lage scores op de aanwezigheid van sociale
bronnen en lage scores op de mate van peer en schoolidentificatie. Ook overwogen deze
leerlingen van school te veranderen. Alarmerend is dat de meeste leerlingen in dit profiel
vielen. Een vierde profiel kan omschreven worden als een ‘zwak communicatieprofiel”.
Leerlingen met dit profiel scoorden erg laag op Nederlandse taalvaardigheid, hun doelen
waren onduidelijk, hun scores op de aanwezigheid van sociale ondersteuning waren redelijk
hoog, maar scores op hun voornemen om eventueel van school te veranderen waren redelijk
hoog. Tevens was het opmerkelijk dat deze leerlingen vrij hoog scoorden op
superioriteitdoelen. We concludeerden dat etniciteit geen directe invloed heeft op de kwaliteit
van het samenwerkend leren, ook vonden we geen verschillen tussen Nederlandse en
allochtone leerlingen die te maken hadden met hun doelvoorkeuren. Wel vonden we dat de
verdeling van Nederlandse en allochtone leerlingen over de profielen niet gelijk was. De
meeste Caribische leerlingen vielen binnen het zwakke communicatieprofiel en de meeste
Nederlandse leerlingen vielen binnen het schoolaangepaste profiel, het profiel met de hoogste
scores op de KSL.
Concluderend kunnen we constateren dat de doelen van leerlingen slechts voor een klein
gedeelte bijdroegen aan de voorspelling van de KSL, terwijl percepties van contextuele
factoren belangrijke voorspellers bleken te zijn. Sociale ondersteuning- en leerdoelen waren
het meest belangrijk voor de kwaliteit van het samenwerkend leren. Daarnaast bepaalde de
mate waarin leerlingen kennis, vaardigheden en regels voor het samenwerkend leren
aangeleerd kregen voor een groot deel de KSL. Geslacht, studierichting en etnische
achtergrond hadden als zodanig geen directe invloed op de KSL. De bevindingen zijn in onze
optiek hoopgevend omdat doelvoorkeuren moeilijk zijn te beïnvloeden, geslacht en etnische
achtergrond zijn geheel onbeïnvloedbaar. Veranderingen in de context van de klas
daarentegen zijn veel gemakkelijker te bewerkstelligen.
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Samenwerkend leren kan een manier zijn om de motivatie van leerlingen te verhogen
en drop-out tot op zeker hoogte te voorkomen, mits docenten meer aandacht besteden aan het
stimuleren van het reflecteren op doelen, het stimuleren van sociale en leerdoelen en de link
tussen persoonlijke doelen en schooldoelen verduidelijken. Daarnaast laat dit onderzoek zien
dat het van belang is dat er meer aandacht wordt besteed aan het aanleren van
samenwerkingsvaardigheden, de regels voor het samenwerken en de
communicatievaardigheid van studenten. De docent moet daarbij het leerproces beter in de
gaten houden en ingrijpen wanneer dit nodig is. Voorts zullen docenten een sociaal klimaat in
de klas moeten creëren waarbij leerlingen aangemoedigd worden elkaar hulp te bieden en het
normaal is hulp te ontvangen. Tevens zullen docenten meer aandacht moeten schenken aan
het verbeteren van de communicatievaardigheid van studenten in het MBO.
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Curriculum vitae
Daphne Minette Hijzen werd geboren op 3 november 1975 te ’s Gravenhage. Het Voortgezet
Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs genoot zij op het Haags Montessori Lyceum te ’s Gravenhage.
Zij behaalde haar diploma in 1995. Vervolgens studeerde zij Pedagogiek aan de Universiteit
Leiden. In 2000 legde zij haar doctoraal examen af met de specialisatie Leerproblemen. Haar
aio-periode liep van februari 2001 tot en met juni 2005. Vanaf oktober 2005 is zij aangesteld
als onderzoeker bij het Nederlands Onderzoekscentrum Arbeidsmarkt & Allochtonen te
Amsterdam. Haar belangrijkste taak is de ontwikkeling van een instrument om
probleemgedrag op het VMBO in kaart te brengen en de ontwikkeling van een
onderwijsmethode om dit gedrag te verminderen.