This research was designed to identify a balance between individual and
whole-class performance instead of pursuing extreme heterogeneity. The system was also designed with the constraint that all student needs must be addressed, with no student left out. However, industrial groups, productal groups, and special educational researchers or practitioners may work with different principles and/or with fewer constraints. Although distance-based diversity was not suitable for the present project, it could be appropriate for other cases.
Furthermore, two kinds of methods of heterogeneous grouping were designed for this research, but some scenarios require homogeneous grouping—for example, when considering interest as a grouping factor, Abrami (1995) argues that homogeneous grouping is a better approach. In addition, although researchers often use random grouping as the datum line, a large number make comparisons between homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping, obviously requiring the establishment of homogeneous groups. While the focus in this paper was on heterogeneous group composition, future efforts will look at providing various grouping methods via a common interface on demand according to user requirements. This will require searching for and/or designing algorithms with the long-term goal of constructing a comprehensive computer-supported group composition system to help teachers create various types of learning groups. We suggest that researchers work on constructing other
group-composition methods to help teachers achieve such goals as positive
interdependence, meaningful interaction, and individual accountability.
A system such as DIANA or FUTS may be considered superfluous for teachers who know their students well enough to develop their own strategies for creating successful small learning groups. On the other hand, they may be particularly useful for teachers who are only starting to understand their students’ unique skills or when they want to consider more complex factors for group composition. DIANA and FUTS may also be useful for distance learning educators who need to compose
“virtual groups” without the benefit of face-to-face meetings. In addition, business managers may find a tool such as DIANA useful for putting together teams of engineers, designers, and R&D employees—although they would have to be very specific in their use of psychological variables.
The grouping methods described in this paper do share the characteristic of being applied to whole classes. The stated goal is to divide students into groups with the full class serving as the basic unit from which grouping solutions are sought. While this is quite helpful in traditional classroom learning environments, it can also act as a restriction. For example, most web-based courses follow a term, semester, or quarter system to coincide with regular school requirements, but some courses are designed so that students can take them according to their individual schedules and needs. In these kinds of courses (which strongly emphasize individual learning), DIANA, FUTS, or other approaches may not be required or otherwise be unsuitable for cooperative learning purposes.
In this study, two contingency variables (school level and sample distribution) were selected to measure the efficiency of grouping methods. The results indicate that sample distribution exerts a strong effect on grouping method, especially in
low-density situations. It should be noted that the definition of density in this case is based on a measure of member populations within a hyperellipsoid in feature spaces corresponding to the standard deviations of cluster features. Variation for different grouping methods in other distribution models (uniform, normal and sphere, etc.) will require further analysis and discussion. It may be possible that a suitable grouping method will be identified via the automatic analysis of sampling distributions.
Finally, the point needs to be re-emphasized that while an efficient grouping technique may assist in setting up the cooperative learning process, it does not
guarantee positive group outcomes. Teachers still must focus on social skills training, group task selection, and classroom management techniques in order to promote interdependence among group members.
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