Individual Versus Group Learning When Writing Reflectively in Dental Students

Objectives: Self-efficacy enhances academic achievement, leading to good academic performance. Thus, learning through interaction with others represents a meaningful learning experience. Practice-orientated interactive group work may build self-efficacy in multiple ways, including students’ beliefs and persistence to complete tasks. It provides opportunities for students to seek help from one another. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of individual versus collaborative work on students’ reflective learning outcomes.
Methods: A pre-post evaluation was adopted to assess the impact of either individual or collaborative learning in dental undergraduate students. The General Self-Efficacy Scale was used to measure the impact. The scores were evaluated for internal reliability and independent-samples t tests were performed on scores appropriate to their distributions. All students in the year 1 of dental nursing and dental hygiene, and year 2 dental science course were recruited as part of their curriculum and opted in for inclusion in the study. Data were analysed using SPSS v.22.
Results: 52 participants were females (77%) and represented by dental science (55%). The Reliability analyses showed Cronbach’s alphas of pre individual group were 0.62 and for post 0.865 and the group were pre 0.762 and post 0.799. Results revealed mean GSE scale score on post-evaluation for student working individually of 29.55 (SD 4.84), and for group - 31.54 (SD 3.35). Result for independent-sample t test demonstrated significant difference with higher mean for working in groups, t(df=50)=-1.695, p= .048. Students working collaboratively also demonstrated 18.8% improvement in reflective writing performance compared to those who worked individually.
Conclusions: This study demonstrated that students who were engaged in group work improved their academic performance when compared to students who worked independently. Pedagogical strategies that foster students’ self-efficacy are important in undergraduate teaching. Further investigation is required to understand the best practices that increase students’ self-efficacy.