Cooperative learning in teachers teaching of Primary Education

Abstract

The university is a learning context, where the students are responsible for making their own decisions and controlling their own learning process and the interactions that intervene in it. Not only that, in degrees such as Primary Education, the progress of learning does not depend only on an individual, but on the joint effort of a peer group, whose performance is reflected in the individual learning. Thus, the objectives of this paper have been to establish how the concept of group work is developed and the strategies that are put in place to carry it out according to their satisfaction. The participants of this research have been 523 students of the Degree of Primary Education of the University of Murcia and the University of Jaen. To this end, a Likert questionnaire has been used, with the results of which a comparison has been established between the students who start the degree in Primary Education and those who already have several years of experience in the university environment. The main results and conclusions confirm that the students develop a concept of group work that remains stable over time. However, the usefulness that they believe that group work brings can change, influenced by the demands of the context. Additionally, when students are satisfied with the work of their group, they rely more on their own skills and abilities to build their knowledge.