Importance of e-learning in improving the performance of

students in the group work activities: a case study

Mr Habib Ullah Khan

Faculty, Department of Management, Marketing, and Information Systems,

College of Commerce and Business Administration,
Dhofar University Salalah, Oman
Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
The world has changed dramatically from earlier ages to today's highly technological
world. Similarly, learning has also adopted new distance or invisible style of classroom
learning, providing another mode for traditional face to face classroom environment
(Sutherland, 1999). Internet is very useful medium of communication for innovative
electronic style of learning. Forum on technology in Education working under U.S.
Department of Education also supported this medium of learning in their strategic
review of national educational technology plan 2000.

Teaching styles are also adopting technological tools like traditional lectures are
changing into multimedia presentations. These new trends in education are in their
infancy, online learning or E-learning, and are quickly becoming an important aspect of
education in our future around the world. Due to this reason private investors are
opening their doors of investment in this online education sector, and this investment is
increasing very rapidly [www.ed.govt/technology].

Group work activities are also main point or task in the high education. Switzer and
Shriner (2000) were of the view that students are the most obvious party who benefit
from group work among students, faculty members, and the community. According to
them there are four overlapping types of benefits for students. These are: 1) immediate
educational benefits, 2) immediate social benefits, 3) critical thinking benefits, and 4)
long-term career benefits.

Lawrance (1992) , and Yates (2001) were of the opinion that face to face
communication will not solve the gender related discriminative problems. This case
study will be a further step in addition to the previous IT & group work related
researches. In this researcher will try to explore that how e-learning can play its role to
over come the group work problems and to increase the performance of the students in
the Arab under developing countries.

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KEY WORDS
Group Work, E-learning, Computer Mediated Communication

GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

College and university professors are considering collaborative learning as one of the
most affective learning strategies to provide more meaningful learning experience for
students (Paul E. King, Ralph R Behnke, 2004). There are many definitions of
collaborative learning, according to different situations. Colbeck et al,(2000, cited in
Elizabeth, Monk, & Brian 2005) explained this concept of collaborative learning in
educational context. According to him in this type of learning, students are working
together on assignments, quizzes, and apply their knowledge collectively to answer
questions and problems.

Collaborative learning is a grown up trend in higher education, providing many useful

forms and styles of work, according to the required situation. Among these, two
commonly used forms are peer tutoring and group investigations (Kroll, Masingila, and
Mau 1992, cited in Paul & Ralph 2004). Peer tutoring is the form of collaborative
learning, in which senior or experienced students help others weak or inexperienced
students to master in certain skill and help them in solving certain problem, which
affectively they cannot solve independently. For example in university or college’s
senior or mature students help junior students to adopt the style of learning, and also
help them to cope the transformation from college to university or school to college.

Group investigation is also very commonly used form of collaborative learning in the
higher education. In this form, members of group cooperate and support each other to
work on a collective task, resolve conflicts, and provide suitable solution of the problem
(Kroll, Masingila, and Mau 1992, cited in Paul & Ralph 2004). Good coordination and
proper organization of a group can produce much better results of any task, as
compared to completion of same task by an individual. As an example, modules like
marketing and software development, where students are required to work
collaboratively in groups, to share their ideas and to finish big projects affectively. It is
difficult for an individual student to produce same level of output individually. To achieve
the same level of output by group work, individual needs to put extra efforts, resources,
and time. This style of learning in a group environment can produce better results,
therefore many specializations of higher education are getting benefits from this well
established style of collaborative work to meet learning outcomes, like: information
systems, finance, physical sciences, marketing, human resources, business
communications, software development, and social sciences (Johnson, Johnson, and
Smith 1998; Millis and Cottell 1998; Slavin 1990, cited in Paul & Ralph 2004).

Many researchers discuss different benefits of group work activities in practical life of
the students. Two prominent professors of biology, with the names of Switzer and
Shriner (2000), supported researchers' argument of the professional life benefits of
students with the use of group collaborative work. Their main work was on assessment
and implementation of the learning strategies of the big size classes and laboratories.
They suggested that students were the most obvious party who benefit from group work

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among students, faculty members, and the community. They distributed overall benefits
into four main types, and these types included: 1) immediate educational benefits, 2)
immediate social benefits, 3) critical thinking benefits, and 4) long-term career benefits.
Researchers like Stamatoplos (2000) also supported Switzer and Shriner’s study in his
integrated approach of teaching research. According to him group work activities should
be adapted in higher education, to met the objectives of the education.

In addition to the above benefits, researchers like Nichols and Miller (1994), Oldfield
and Macalpine (1995), and Ferting (1995) concluded the benefits of educational group
work according to their research dimensions. As general they proposed benefits like
positive motivation, individual member responsibility development, and democratic style
of work and interaction.

All these benefits can be milestone in any student's social, political, and practical life,
but still group work is less applicable in many situations and environments like the
current target population. It is very important to understand nature of the problem and
obstacles, while applying group work activities in general.

Problems with Group work:

Group work has so much potential in all aspects of life, especially in the higher
education. Now the question is why college or university professors do not more
regularly utilize group work activities in many situations? The answer lies in the
obstacles that stop professors from integrating these group work strategies into their
course work. For example, some faculty members are concerned about time, and group
work activities require more time and attention from instructor. In addition to this,
instructors from some specializations are not trained enough to create, direct and
implement group work activities into their courses (Colbeck et al. 2000, cited in
Elizabeth, Monk, & Brian 2005; Michaelsen et al. 2002). In the current environment
there are lacks of staff development activities, as a result faculty do not get proper
training in group development strategies on the job. This reason makes it easier for
faculty with lesser group development skills, to rely on traditional lecture strategies in
the current and similar type of environments.

Another big problem faced by faculty members in a group work is the distribution of
grades, in which they evaluate the individual and over all group performance.
(Michaelsen et al. 2002; Millis and Cottell , 1998). For example in the current
environment, faculty cannot exceed any assignment or group related task more than 10
percent of the total course grades. If one needs to exceed, he/she has to take approval
from college academic committee with proper justification. Students are very much
concerned about the grades of a task and expected time in the completion to that task.
Sometimes a good group work efforts needs more appreciation than standard 10
percent. Even Michaelsen et al. (2002) recommended that students be involved in
developing their grading systems. This motivates them to work on certain project with
their suggested grade distribution.

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In addition to the grading, in many situations other questions arise. Who pick the
groups? How should the groups be established? Facing these kinds of minor and major
problems, sometimes make it simpler for faculty to have an alternative of using group
tasks (Millis and Cottell 1998; Michaeslsen et al, 2002).

On the students side also sometimes they present their problems to faculty in using
group work. Better students may prefer to work on their own when faced with the option
of working with students who do not contribute equally to the group. This was also
highlighted by Maranto and Gresham’s (1998) research, about using the World Series
shares to fight free riding in group projects. According to them failing to contribute to
group work is known as “free riding” or “social loafing” among social psychologist. In
many cultures and societies these complaints about free riders are the most common
criticisms and problem that students have regarding group activities (McKinney and
Graham-Buxton 1993).

Other than the discussed problems, an important factor influencing group work activities
is empowerment problem due to gender, while dealing with mixed gender groups.
Stromquist’s (1993) categorize empowerment into four useful categories. These
categories include: Cognitive empowerment, Affect empowerment, Economical
empowerment, and Political empowerment. More relevant categories of empowerment
in educational group work activities are the following:
1) Cognitive empowerment refers to knowledge, and understanding of condition, topic,
and situation. For example, feeling empower and confident after having knowledge of a
certain topic.
2) Affect empowerment relates positive or negative feeling. Further these feelings can
be a cause of women’s action, influence, motivation, attitude, and anxiety.

E-learning as a Solution of Empowerment Problems:

There are many definitions of e-learning; Derek Stockly (2003) provided a useful and
working definition of this style of learning. According to him "e-learning is the delivery of
a learning, training or education program by electronic means". These electronic means
can be any computers, mobile phones, and any electronic devices.

The world is adopting new technologies in all aspects of life. In education these
technologies are producing positive results, such as the concept of traditional classroom
changes to online learning, where students learn in invisible classrooms (Sutherland,
1999). Popularization of these technologies are not limited to online learning, rather it is
becoming essential part of all aspects of teaching, for example teaching methods have
changed communication styles from traditional style of lecturing to multimedia
presentations. Teachers and students are applying this technology in all kinds of their
lectures and presentations.

Some studies have concluded that students are feeling more comfortable when
communicating with others through the mode of computer. E-learning is a very useful

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mode of learning among students, as it changes behavior and thinking of students, by
providing powerful tools of learning (AAUW, 1999).

McGuire, Kiesler, and Siegel (1987) worked on the ability of problem solving in mixed
gender educational environment. Results of their research showed an interesting
outcome; according to them during face to face mixed group discussions averagely
males gave five times more first suggestions for a solution. But when the same type of
problem solving communication were repeated on same type of groups, using computer
mediated mode of communication, averagely females gave same proportion of first
suggestions as of males. According to McGuire, Kiesler, and Siegel's argument this
improvement in feedback was due to replacement of traditional communication methods
with the use of electronic learning in the educational environment.

On the other side, Hightower and Sayeed (1995) were against the use of e-learning in
group work activities of higher education. According to them, groups using e-learning
were less efficient in sharing information and tended to focus only on a portion of the
information available as compared to face to face groups. Reid, Malinek, Stott, and
Evans (1996) rejected the claim of Hightower and Sayeed; they supported the use of e-
learning through their research conclusions. In their research argument they said that e-
learning can produce much better results as compared to face to face interaction, for a
complex communication such as problem solving and decision making.

Context:
The Omani society and as part of the Arab society in general lies under a patriarchal
system which at occasions fails to overcome problems in relation to female / male
interactions in educational contexts. This is due to cultural barriers that exist in the
society but are very frequently transferred to the inside of the classroom. Higher
education stands today as a very good opportunity for students’ empowerment,
especially when we think about the benefits drawn from the use of new IT techniques.
How can IT empower students? As situations like the current environment, face gender
related problems in conducting group work activities. To answer this question, this
paper targets the Omani male and female population within the context of higher
education as subjects and e-learning as a tool of measurement, a sample of students
from Dhofar University (in south part of Oman) were selected. Results of this sample
tried to shed light on some aspects in relation to Affect and Cognition in FTF versus e-
learning situations.

Research Questions:
On the basis of the background data provided, current case study has following
research questions:
• Do e-learning tools help students to generate affect empowerment during group work
activities?
• Do e-learning tools help students to generate cognitive empowerment during group
work activities?

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Method:
This study was carried out in Dhofar University (Oman) involving undergraduate
students. It divided the students into balanced mixed groups (male & female); all the
groups were treated equally and they communicated with the help of e-learning tools
during their group work activities. It was not suggested to make any control group of
face to face communication due to the cultural and religious issues (open face to face
communication of different genders is forbidden culturally in this community) these
students had with face to face communication in collaborative group work.

The current case study tried to explore the relationship between e-learning technology
use and empowerment process. From the start of the semester each group was given a
task. Each group had to work collaboratively on their group assignment. This was the
first time in the University when mix gender groups worked together to perform their
tasks, to overcome their cultural barriers, and to solve their empowerment problem due
to face to face communication in the group work activities. Yahoo online groups were
selected as the base to online communication for group work activities. Students were
given training sessions in the beginning of the course to use the Yahoo online groups
more efficiently for their group work communication. This training helped them to
understand the components, and characteristics of this mode of communication.

This research made use of online working groups; each group member (male or female)
communicated with other group members to discuss his/her group assignment
task/activities. In each group there was a group leader from the students (male or
female), who led the group in the entire group task. The group leader was responsible
to break down the work of the assignment among the group members. All these
communications between the group members were through the online message board
and there was no face to face communication. Every group member was bound to
submit his work report at the end of each week or within the time frame given by the
group leader.

Group members were sending messages about their progress, collecting information
about their tasks, sharing the files, sharing the calendar, sharing the databases, and
sharing their on- line group communication statistics through yahoo online groups'
website. All the communication was related to course work, and any personal
communication was prohibited. Only authorized group members and the course
instructor could view their group communication. The students of one group could not
see the communications of other online groups due to password protection.

Questionnaires were developed as a tool to collect pre and post data. In order to have
more reliable data from these tools of data collection, Arabic translation of these
questionnaires were also attached with the English questionnaires. To check the validity
of the questionnaire CRONBACH'S ALPHA TEST [David, Petrick 2005] were applied.

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Results:

Do e-learning tools help students to generate Affect Empowerment during group

work activities?

To explore the effect of e-learning in generating affect empowerment of the students

during group work activities, pre and post questionnaires were used to collect the data;
this reflected the attitude before applying the tool of e-learning and after applying the
tool of e-learning. As this data was representing the pre and post attitude of the same
sample, so paired t-test was the most suitable test to check any significant difference
between pre and post test attitudes, towards group work activities. Following are the
results of the paired t-test in table 1:

T Test Significance(Affect Empowerment)

Gender Significance Analysis

Male+ Female P < 0.01 Highly Significant
Male P < 0.01 Highly Significant
Female P < 0.01 Highly Significant
*Confidence level 99% (Table1)

In the table1 it is clear that when analyzing affect empowerment level on the basis of
male and female (all students) together, there was highly significant difference at the
level of 0.01 (P < 0.01). It means there was significant difference and there was 99%
confidence that significant change could be due to e-learning tool. A highly significant
difference (P < 0.01) between pre and post affect empowerment level of the male
students, when they were considered separately. Same trend of high significance
change (P < 0.01) in affect empowerment level was observed in the female segment
during paired t-test analysis.

Results of our research showed that there is significant change in the affect
empowerment level of students after using e-learning tools in group work activities. And
research rejected Null hypothesis that there is no pre and post test significant change in
the empowerment level of the students.

Do e-learning help students to generate Cognitive Empowerment during group

work activities?

To explore the effect of e-learning in generating students’ cognitive empowerment

during group work activities, pre and post questionnaires were used to collect the data;
this reflected the attitude before applying the tool of e-learning and also after applying
the tool. As this data was representing the pre and post attitude of the same sample of
population, so paired t-test was the most suitable test to check any significant different

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between pre and post test attitudes towards group work activities, and level of cognitive
empowerment. Following were the results of the paired t-test in table 2:

T Test Significance(Cognitive Empowerment)

Gender Significance Analysis

Male+ Female P < 0.01 Highly Significant
Male P < 0.01 Highly Significant
Female P < 0.01 Highly Significant
*Confidence level 99% (Table 2)

In Table 2 it is clear that when analyzing cognitive empowerment level on the basis of
male and female together there was highly significant difference at the level of 0.01 (P <
0.01). It means there was significant difference, and there was 99% confidence that
significant change might be due to use of e-learning tool. A highly significance
difference (P < 0.01) between pre and post cognitive empowerment level was observed
for the male students. Same trend of high significance change (P < 0.01) in cognitive
empowerment level was observed in the female segment during paired t-test analysis.

Results of our research showed that there is significant change in the cognitive
empowerment level of students after using e-learning tools in the group work activities.
And research rejected Null hypothesis that there is no pre and post test significant
change in the empowerment level of the students.

Discussion:
Results showed that there significant change in the empowerment level of students after
using e-learning tools in group work. Now it is also important to know that that change
was positive or negative. For this purpose average percentage was calculated.

Table 3 shows percentage change in affect empowerment level of students after

applying the tool of e-learning in group work activities. Overall students were feeling
9.9070 percent changes (improvement) in their affect empowerment, after using e-
learning. By focusing on only male students this averages percentage decreased to 5.6
percent (lesser than overall average 9.9). On the other side female students’ average
percentage change was positive and 14.28 percent (higher than overall average 9.9).

Average Percentage Change

Gender in Affect Empowerment
Male+ Female 9.9070
Male 5.6000
Female 14.2813
Percentage change in affect empowerment level (Table 3)

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In order to have idea of the change of cognitive empowerment level, also average
change in cognitive empowerment level was calculated. Table 4 showed average
percentage change in cognitive empowerment level of students after using e-learning.
Overall students felt 6.1240 percent changes in their cognitive empowerment level after
using e-learning in their group work activities. By focusing on male students this
average percentage decreased to 2 percent (lesser than overall average 6.12). On the
other side female students’ percentage change was positive and 10.3125 percent
(higher than overall average 6.12).

Average Percentage Change

Gender in Cognitive Empowerment
Male+ Female 6.1240
Male 2.0000
Female 10.3125
Percentage Change in cognitive empowerment level (Table 4)

Conclusion

Students can work and learn affectively through affective and cognitive positive
situations. In this study, research departed from the assumption that the educational
context is a good opportunity for males and females to challenge their present position
since knowledge and knowledge acquisition are always outlets towards change. The
research has explored the theoretical background of what constitutes group work
problems, mainly empowerment in the close cultural situations like current target
population. Research suggested e-learning as a tool of change exploring in terms of
empowerment. At a later stage, research adopted the hypotheses which stated that
there is no change in empowerment level of students after using e-learning in their
group work, focusing on the target population of Oman. Analysis of the results showed
the rejection of this claim and acceptance of claim that there is significant affect on
affect and cognitive empowerment level of students with the use of e-learning tools.
These results are meant to be a contribution to the idea that states that students'
personality can grow, and they can overcome their problems by applying suitable
technological tools like e-learning in their educational activities.

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