Group work improves students' performance - study

Students make more progress and behave better if their teachers allow them to work in groups, research by UK professors revealed.

The research shows that group work can help raise educational standards, reduce the curriculum and assessment pressures from excessively passive classes, and help develop "soft" life skills that enable students to work as a team and make decisions together.

The findings were the result of a project entitled Social Pedagogic Research into Group Work (SPRinG), part of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme whose main goal was to address the wide gap between the potential of group work and its limited use in schools, as was indicated by previous studies.

The project involved 162 classes in British primary and secondary schools and 4,259 pupils aged five to 14. The research took place at the University of Brighton, the Institute of Education in London and the University of Cambridge.

Prof. Peter Blatchford, project director from the Institute of Education, a University of London college, said that group work deserved a much more central role in schools. "Previous research has indicated the potential of group work to improve learning and behaviour. The SPRinG classroom activities have helped pupils become more independent and communicate more effectively through listening, explaining and sharing ideas. Children have also been encouraged to trust and respect each other and plan, organise and evaluate their group work."

The key findings indicated that group work raised levels of achievement and "deeper conceptual understanding and inferential thinking". Despite some teachers' worries that group work might be disruptive, pupil behaviour was seen to improve. Group work also doubled students' levels of sustained, active engagement in learning and more than doubled the amount of high-level, thoughtful discussion between them. Teachers found they were "freed" from classroom control and were able to spend more time teaching. The SPRinG programme was based on an evaluation of pupil progress over a full academic year, which was compared to a "control group" for objectivity. The project focused on three key principles. First, it stressed the importance of supportive relationships which are developed through group-work. Secondly, the programme provided guidance on how teachers can adapt grouping practices for different purposes and learning tasks. Thirdly, teachers helped develop a well-structured classroom and groups according to size, composition and stability over time.

The project recommends that in the early stages of introducing group work, groups of not more than two or three should be formed. Once the skills and confidence have developed, the group size can be adjusted to reduce or increase the complexity of a task. A process of briefing and debriefing at the start and end of the lessons is also encouraged because this enabled pupils to evaluate their group interaction and reflect on the skills they need to improve.

With regard to the teachers' role, who tend to get over-involved in the learning process, the programme advises them not to teach directly but to act as "guides on the side".

A teacher in a London school said that at first they watched groups of children as they argued, shouted, sulked, cried or even stormed off. "We were very tempted to split them up, but the researchers said it was important that the children worked through these difficulties with adult support. But after a while we realised the noise we could hear was actually productive noise." She said the children were not arguing or chattering, but were actively engaged with their work.

The findings of this study, which are being adopted in schools in England and Scotland, are already attracting international attention in the Far East and the Caribbean.

The Teaching and Learning Research Programme is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.