IDENTIFYING EFFECTIVENESS OF ONLINE GROUP STUDY ON MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM SOLVING ATTITUDE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Designing a group study enables students to develop critical thinking, effective team work; appreciation and respect for other views, techniques and problem-solving methods by promoting active learning environment. The purpose of this quantitative study examined the effects of online collaboration on the pre-service teachers’ mathematical problem solving attitude. Specifically, the study examined the effects of group working to the mathematical word problem solving tasks alone. Forty-two pre-service teachers enrolled in the study which were divided into three groups: Synchronous online (n=12), face-to-face (n=15) and individual (n=15). Students in each group were required to solve four ill-structured problems under problem solving sessions over a six-week period. It is used a quantitative analysis of data. To measure the change in problem solving attitude, a pre and post-test problem solving attitude questionnaire administered to measure attitude change. The results indicate that, whether synchronous online or face-to-face group based problem solving processes resulted with more positive attitude than individual study. It is also revealed that students' problem solving attitudes were increased in all groups, however, F2F group students' showed positive higher difference than those SO and IND students.