Small-Group Learning in an Upper-Level University Biology Class Enhances Academic Performance and Student Attitudes Toward Group Work
Figure 4
Small-group learning benefited all students, including term high achievers.
In the Refined SGL environment, students first wrote each quiz individually, and then completed the same quiz in small groups immediately after (13 quizzes over the term). For the group quiz, group members had to consider and debate possible answers, since a single answer was submitted and graded for the entire group. When all quiz grades were considered, group quiz grades were significantly higher than individual quiz grades (left panel). Interestingly, group grades were also significantly higher than individual grades of term high achievers (middle panel). Term high achievers were those students who had the best average individual quiz grade over the term in each group (one student per group). Average group quiz grades were not significantly different from the individual grades of the daily top-performing student on each quiz (right panel). These data suggest that even term high-achieving students profit from small-group learning, that groups perform as well as their daily top-performing student on any given quiz, and that the daily top performer in groups changes from quiz to quiz. Asterisks indicate p<0.05 versus group quiz grades (paired t test); n = 39 (all students), n = 8 (group grades, term high achievers, daily top performer).