Group Selection and Learning for a Lab-Based Construction Management Course

Abstract

In construction industries’ projects, working in groups is a normal practice. Group work in a classroom is defined as students working collaboratively in a group so that everyone can participate on a collective task. The results from literature review indicate that group work is more effective method of learning as compared to individual work. However, only limited studies reported influence of group selection method on the learning of groups. To fill the gap in this area, the main objective of this study was to find out which selection method is the best to use and helps students to perform better in the course. Therefore, a total of three group selection methods, namely, random-selection by instructor, performance-based-selection by instructor and individual-selection by student were utilized. The target subjects used in the proposed study were students enrolled in two different lab-based construction management courses. The learning of each group was evaluated by calculating an average of scores received by all fellow members in the corresponding lab projects. Additionally, at the end of the semester, students were asked to complete a questionnaire. Data from all the questionnaires was also used for evaluating influence of group selection method on learning of students.