Collaborative problem solving skills an investigation into the students’perspectives

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (Font size 14pt, Bold and Capital) FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES Supervisor: Nguyễn Thu Lệ Hằng Student: Hoàng Thu Uyên Course: QH2016.F1.E2 HÀ NỘI – 2020 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NĂNG LỰC HỢP TÁC GIẢI QUYẾT VẤN ĐỀ: NGHIÊN CỨU TỪ GÓC NHÌN CỦA SINH VIÊN Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thu Lệ Hằng Sinh viên: Hồng Thu Un Khóa: QH2016.F1.E2 HÀ NỘI – 2020 Signature of Approval: _ Supervisor’s Comments & Suggestions _ _ _ _ _ ACCEPTANCE I hereby state that I:Hoang Thu Uyen, class QH2016.E2, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (programme) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Signature Hoang Thu Uyen Hanoi, May 10th, 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express the deepest gratitude to my conscientious supervisor, Mrs Nguyen Thu Le Hang for her stimulating suggestions and considerable encouragement Her devoted consultancy definitely assisted me during the implementation progress of my research I am truly touched by her support, and probably my supervisor plays a very important role in keeping me on track with my graduation thesis: she is the reason why I did not give up until the last minutes Moreover, I want to send my sincere thanks towards my family, whose contribution in priceless motivation and inspiration has helped me accomplish this research Correspondingly, I also sincerely appreciate the support of schedule reminder and profound recommendations from my close friends, Ms Pham Le Phuong Mai and Ms Nguyen Quynh Chi, who are also struggling with their own thesis, in the completion of my research Furthermore, I hope to send my best regards to the lecturers and students of University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University (ULIS) for their cooperation More specifically, I would like to acknowledge with much appreciation the crucial role of 132 second year and third year students from the Fast track program of the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE) Their participation in completing the questionnaires and interviews has played an important part in my research Last but not least, I want to thank all of our beloveds for their endless support A special thank goes to other close friends of mine, Vi, Giang, Trinh, Phanh, Ha Trang, Dung Without their continual and sensible mental support, I could not have this research finished Most significantly, I am very thankful for other family members’ love and care, which provided me with motivation to fulfill the research i ABSTRACT 21st century skills has been a subject of much controversy in recent years due to the development of an integrated skills education Although a large amount of research of collaborative problem-solving skills has been conducted, there still exist spaces for further study into this concerning issue Fully perceived the significance of collaborative problem-solving skills, the researcher has arrived at the decision of carrying out a study titled “Collaborative Problem-solving Skills: An investigation into the students’ perspectives” This research aims to identify the students’ self-assessment and the factors affecting their collaborative problem-solving skills, both positively and negatively Mixed method research design was adopted to effectively generalize and further elaborate on the results that the researcher intends to obtain To be more specific, a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were utilized to collect the data The study has developed significant findings of the students’ perspectives towards collaborative problem-solving skills Based on the questionnaire and interviews, it can be concluded that the students were quite positive when assessing their own collaborative problem-solving skills because of their diverse learning environment, roles in a team and frequent practice of group work assignments The factors that facilitate them to develop their collaborative problem-solving skills are their characteristics, whose underlying reason for this situation is because of the difference between an extrovert and an introvert On the other hand, the factor inhibiting the students from developing their collaborative problem-solving skills is problem scenario, which the students require a framework that can help them become better at critical thinking Findings of this research are hoped to generate implications for the English teaching and learning styles of teachers and students respectively On the basis of these results, this research paper is expected to exert impacts on the teachers, increasing awareness of their roles and influence towards their students, or more specifically towards an integrated skills pedagogy ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii 1.1 Background of the study 1.2 Statement of research problem and questions 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview of Collaborative Problem-Solving Skills 2.1.1 Definition of Collaborative Problem-Solving 2.1.2 Collaborative Problem-Solving Processes 2.1.3 Collaborative Problem-Solving Skills 2.2 Overview of Factors Affecting Students’ Collaborative ProblemSolving Skills CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Sampling 3.2 Data collection procedure 3.2.1 Questionnaire 10 3.2.2 Semi-structured interviews 10 3.3 Data analysis procedure 11 3.3.1 Quantitative data analysis 11 3.3.2 Qualitative data analysis 11 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 12 4.1 Data analysis 12 4.1.1 Quantitative data 12 4.1.2 Qualitative data 17 4.2 Discussion 22 4.2.1 Students’ positive results towards collaborative problem-solving skills 23 iii 4.2.2 Students’ ability - A small gap among the processes 24 4.2.3 Factors affecting collaborative problem-solving skills positively 25 4.2.4 Factors affecting collaborative problem-solving skills negatively 26 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 27 5.1 Implication 27 5.1.1 Methodological contributions 27 5.1.2 Pedagogical contributions 27 5.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research 28 REFERENCES 30 APPENDICES 33 iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study The 21st century comes with several significant changes, in terms of technology, economy, education and many other aspects of humankind Together with this development, the workplace has been forced to continually adapt to these major alterations In 2008, three market leaders of the technology industry, namely Cisco, Intel and Microsoft, started to raise their concern towards the fact that these changes were accelerating, while graduated students still had difficulty improving fundamental skills to enter the workforce Therefore, a necessity to adapt to new requirements of the workplace is noted (Griffin et al., 2012), in order to later develop a system of skills that can assist employees with recruitment and working process To solve this problem, for the past few years, a number of projects have been conducted to identify the 21st century skills that can be taught to the students at school These projects involve a variety of corporations and governments from developed countries such as Finland, the United States, Australia, … The similarities among the projects were that they mentioned collaboration and problem solving as important skills that need achieving (Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills & Partnership for 21st Century Skills) A large amount of research related to these two separated skills have been carried out; however, not until 2015 was collaborative problem-solving skill figured out and gone into investigation 1.2 Statement of research problem and questions Collaborative problem-solving, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2017), is considered “a critical and necessary skill used in education and in the workforce” This statement can be supported by the fact that people nowadays are expected to perform in teams and use technology to solve problems (Kanter, 1994; Salas, Cooke and Rosen, 2008); hence, students need to practice working in groups and using problem-solving skills under any circumstances concerning social situations (OECD, 2017) In Vietnam specifically, there has been a large amount of research in the field of 21st century learning, focusing on collaboration and problem solving as two separated skills However, when looking at collaborative problem-solving from students’ point of view, or to be more specific, students’ self-assessment of their collaborative problem-solving skill when learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), the researcher discovered that the number was not as many as expected In 2018, an article of Nguyen on an experimental project called Discovery for first-year students of the Fast-track Program, Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE), University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) has been conducted The project is designed and implemented based on the framework of 21st century learning model of Yamburg (2017) After the students experiencing Discovery, the researcher pointed out that all skills had been applied by the students; however, there are five skills that had been applied with difficulty, one of which is Problem-solving On the other hand, one of the skills that had been applied with less difficulty is Collaboration Therefore, a concern has been raised about the students’ perspectives about collaborative problem-solving skill, regarded as a more “complex activity”, not just “a uniform process” (Hesse, F et al., 2015) Last but not least, considering her interest in the field of 21st century learning and collaborative problem-solving skills, as well as her motivation as a pre-service teacher to develop future generations’ necessary skills for the workplace, the researcher attempts to explore the students’ perspectives about their own collaborative problem-solving skills This goal appears to be minor compared to what have already been achieved in the field of 21st century learning Nonetheless, it is still a gap which is urged to be filled when no specific investigation into collaborative problem-solving from the students’ viewpoint has been carried out in Vietnam before To be more specific, the students’ current perspectives about their collaborative problem-solving skills would be assessed Next, the researcher would identify the factors that are facilitating and inhibiting them to develop these skills In general, these objectives are predicted to address the following questions: Question 1: How students self-assess their collaborative problem-solving skills? APPENDIX Table: Monitoring and reflecting process Responses No Disagree Statement I can Agree Completely disagree (1) Disagree (2) N % N % Undecided Completely agree (5) Agree (4) N % N % N Mean Mode SD % Monitor and repair to reach shared understanding 0 6.11 29 22.14 82 62.60 12 9.16 3.75 0.70 Monitor results of actions and evaluate success in solving the problem 6.11 16 12.21 48 36.64 56 42.75 2.29 3.23 0.91 12 Monitor, provide feedback and adapt the team organization and roles 0.76 5.34 70 53.44 19 14.50 3.76 0.79 41 34 25.95 APPENDIX 10 Table: Establishing and maintaining shared understanding process Responses No Disagree Statement I can Agree Undecided Completely disagree (1) Disagree (2) N % N % N % N Completely agree (5) Agree (4) % N Mean Mode SD % Discover perspectives and abilities of team members 0 5.34 6.87 94 71.76 21 16.03 3.98 0.67 Build a shared overview and negotiating the common ground of the problem 0 3.85 19 14.62 92 70.77 14 10.77 3.88 0.63 Communicate with team members about the actions to be performed 0 3.05 3.82 88 67.18 34 25.95 4.16 0.63 Monitor and repair to reach shared understanding 0 6.11 29 22.14 82 62.60 12 9.16 3.75 0.70 42 APPENDIX 11 Table: Taking appropriate action to solve the problem process Responses No Disagree Statement Agree Completely disagree (1) Disagree (2) N % N Discover the type of collaborative interaction to solve the problem, along with goals 3.82 20 Identify and describe tasks to be completed 0 Enact plans Monitor results of actions and evaluate success in solving the problem I can % Undecided Completely agree (5) Agree (4) % SD N % N % 15.27 34 25.95 63 48.09 6.87 3.39 0.95 4.58 10 7.63 77 58.78 38 29.01 4.12 0.73 2.29 4.58 27 20.61 77 58.78 18 13.74 3.77 0.82 6.11 16 12.21 48 36.64 56 42.75 2.29 3.23 0.91 43 N Mean Mode APPENDIX 12 Table: Establishing and maintaining team organization process Responses No Disagree Statement I can Agree Completely disagree (1) Disagree (2) N % N % Undecided Completely agree (5) Agree (4) N % N % N Mean Mode SD % Understand the roles of each member 0 10 7.63 17 12.98 73 55.73 31 23.66 3.95 0.82 10 Describe the roles of each member and team organization (communication protocol/rules of engagement) 0 6.11 24 18.32 60 45.80 39 29.77 3.99 0.85 11 Follow rules of engagement 1.53 17 12.98 25 19.08 64 48.85 23 17.56 3.68 0.96 12 Monitor, provide feedback and adapt the team organization and roles 0.76 5.34 70 53.44 19 14.50 3.76 0.79 44 34 25.95 APPENDIX 13 Table: Theme - Prior knowledge Responses No How are the following factors affecting your Collaborative ProblemSolving Skills? Negative Extremely negative (1) Neutral Negative (2) Positive Extremely positive (5) Positive (4) Mean Mode SD N % N % N % N % N % 13 English Components (Grammar, Vocabulary & Pronunciation) 1.53 21 16.03 30 22.90 63 48.09 15 11.45 3.52 0.94 14 English Skills (Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing) 5.34 6.87 42 32.06 55 41.98 18 13.74 3.52 0.99 15 Knowledge of social issues 1.55 4.65 27 20.93 73 56.59 21 16.28 3.81 0.81 16 Everyday learning 3.82 42 32.06 46 35.11 31 23.66 5.34 2.95 0.96 45 APPENDIX 14 Table: Theme - Characteristics Responses No How are the following factors affecting your Collaborative ProblemSolving Skills? Negative Extremely negative (1) Neutral Negative (2) Positive Positive (4) Extremely positive (5) N % N % N % N % N % Mean Mode SD 17 Personal characteristics 4.58 13 9.92 28 21.37 48 36.64 36 27.48 3.73 1.11 18 Attitudes towards the problem 1.53 16 12.21 25 19.09 47 35.88 41 31.30 3.83 1.05 19 Experience 1.53 5.34 32 24.43 67 51.15 23 17.56 3.78 0.85 20 Motivation 1.53 6.87 35 26.72 52 39.69 33 25.19 3.80 0.94 21 Cognitive ability 3.05 3.82 44 33.59 44 33.59 34 25.95 3.76 0.98 46 APPENDIX 15 Table: Theme – Task characteristics Responses No How are the following factors affecting your Collaborative ProblemSolving Skills? Negative Extremely negative (1) Neutral Negative (2) Positive Positive (4) Extremely positive (5) Mean Mode SD N % N % N % N % N % 22 The degree to which a problem is well-defined or ill-defined 0 20 15.38 35 26.92 56 43.08 19 14.62 3.57 0.92 23 Information availability of the problem 0 21 16.15 19 14.62 55 42.31 35 26.92 3.80 1.01 24 Smaller parts in the problems that depend on each other 12 9.16 31 23.66 48 36.64 28 21.37 12 9.16 2.98 1.09 25 Goals of the problem 0.76 16 12.21 31 23.66 64 48.85 19 14.50 3.64 0.90 47 APPENDIX 16 Table: Theme – Medium Responses No How are the following factors affecting your Collaborative ProblemSolving Skills? Negative Extremely negative (1) Neutral Negative (2) Positive Extremely positive (5) Positive (4) Mean Mode SD N % N % N % N % N % 26 The degree to which the problem provides a rich, elaborated context that relates to the external world 0 11 8.40 38 29.01 75 57.25 5.34 3.60 0.72 27 The degree of references related to the problem 0.76 6.87 45 34.35 56 42.75 20 15.27 3.65 0.85 28 The space in which the actions are carried out to solve the problem (can be explicitly or implicitly visible to team members) 2.31 12 9.23 56 43.08 50 38.46 6.92 3.38 0.84 48 APPENDIX 17 Table: Theme – Problem scenario Responses No How are the following factors affecting your Collaborative ProblemSolving Skills? Negative Extremely negative (1) Neutral Negative (2) Positive Extremely positive (5) Positive (4) N % N % N % N % N % Mean Mode SD 29 Problem type 11 8.40 34 25.95 51 38.93 30 22.90 3.82 2.88 0.98 30 The context of the problem (e.g.: private vs public, technology vs nontechnology, school vs nonschool) 2.29 11 8.40 53 40.46 47 35.88 17 12.98 3.49 0.90 31 Domain content of the problem 0 12 9.30 54 41.86 52 40.31 11 8.53 3.48 0.78 49 APPENDIX 18 Table: Theme – Team composition Responses No How are the following factors affecting your Collaborative ProblemSolving Skills? Negative Neutral Positive Negative (2) N % N % N % 32 The degree to which team members are assigned similar or different roles in a problem 1.54 10 7.69 33 25.38 62 47.69 23 17.69 3.72 0.89 33 The degree to which the status of team members is the same or different (e.g peers vs supervisor-andsubordinate relationships) 3.05 10 7.63 45 34.35 46 35.11 26 19.85 3.61 0.99 34 Size of group 14 10.69 34 25.95 39 29.77 27 20.61 17 12.98 2.99 1.19 50 Positive (4) Extremely positive (5) N N Mean Mode SD Extremely negative (1) % % APPENDIX 19 QUESTIONNAIRE Dear participants, My name is Hoang Thu Uyen from class QH2016.E2 Currently, I am conducting a research entitled Collaborative Problem-Solving Skills: An investigation into the students’ perspectives This questionnaire is intended to give more insights about how students self-assess their collaborative problem-solving skills and what factors are affecting their collaborative problem-solving skills It has a total of 34 questions, and it will take less than 15 minutes for you to answer Your responses to the survey will be used for this study only and will not be given to any third party If you have any concern, please contact me via email: hoangthuuyen1210@gmail.com Thank you so much for your assistance in completing this survey! SECTION 1: Collaborative Problem-Solving Skills Self-Assessment Please read the following statements carefully and decide to what extent you agree/disagree with the statements by circling the corresponding numbers No Statement: Strongly I can … disagree Disagree Undecided Agree Strongly agree Discover perspectives and abilities of team 5 members Build a shared overview and negotiating the common ground* of the problem * Common ground: shared interests, beliefs, or opinions between two 51 people or groups of people who disagree about most other subjects Communicate with team 5 5 members about the actions to be performed Monitor and repair to reach shared understanding Discover the type of collaborative interaction to solve the problem, along with goals Identify and describe tasks to be completed Enact plans Monitor results of 5 actions and evaluate success in solving the problem Understand the roles of each member 10 Describe the roles of each member and team organization (communication protocol/rules of engagement) 52 11 Follow rules of 5 engagement 12 Monitor, provide feedback and adapt the team organization and roles SECTION 2: Factors affecting Collaborative Problem-Solving Skills Please read the following statements carefully and decide to what extent you agree/disagree with the statements by circling the corresponding numbers How are the following factors affecting your No Collaborative Extremely Extremely Negative Neutral Positive 5 16 Everyday learning 17 Personal characteristics 5 19 Experience 20 Motivation 21 Cognitive ability Problem-Solving negative positive Skills? English Components 13 (Grammar, Vocabulary & Pronunciation) English Skills 14 (Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing) 15 18 Knowledge of social issues Attitudes towards the problem 53 The degree to which a problem is welldefined or ill-defined 22 (e.g all the information is at hand or the 5 5 5 5 problem solver must discover or generate new information) Information 23 availability of the problem Smaller parts in the 24 problems that depend on each other 25 Goals of the problem The degree to which the problem provides a 26 rich, elaborated context that relates to the external world The degree of 27 references related to the problem The space in which the actions are carried out 28 to solve the problem (can be explicitly or implicitly visible to team members) 29 Problem type 54 The context of the problem (e.g.: private 30 vs public, technology 5 5 vs non-technology, school vs non-school) 31 Domain content of the problem The degree to which team members are 32 assigned similar or different roles in a problem The degree to which the status of team members is the same or 33 different (e.g peers vs supervisor-andsubordinate relationships) 34 Size of group SECTION 3: Personal Information (All of your personal information will be kept confidential and used for research purpose only.) Name: ……………………………… Class: ……………… (E.g: QH2016.E2) Email: …………………………………………… Phone number: ………………………………… Are your willing to take part in a follow-up interview? Thank you so much for your response! 55 Yes No ... perceived the significance of collaborative problem- solving skills, the researcher has arrived at the decision of carrying out a study titled ? ?Collaborative Problem- solving Skills: An investigation into. .. developing their collaborative problem- solving skills, the theme Problem scenario with three factors: Problem type, Settings and Domain content of the problem receives the lowest grand mean of 3.28... Overview of Collaborative Problem- Solving Skills 2.1.1 Definition of Collaborative Problem- Solving 2.1.2 Collaborative Problem- Solving Processes 2.1.3 Collaborative Problem- Solving Skills