Virtual Learning Environment to Encourage Students' Relationships and Cooperative Competence Acquisition

Abstract

Currently, companies and society widely proclaim the importance of solid communication and cooperative skills for professionals. Similarly, in higher education, programs are redefined to allow students to gain communicative and cooperative competences to qualify them for their professional work and the role they will play in society, however, there is a lack of specific guidelines on learning strategies and tools that promote acquisition and development of these competences. An empirical study is shown to examine how an online learning environment developed from scratch throughout several years and based on web-based resources such as virtual laboratories, interactive activities, educational videos, and a game-based learning methodology combines with active learning, which might impact the student's relationships and cooperative competence development. As a result, a case study was carried out through a virtual learning environment. It was created to motivate and to facilitate students' involvement. The analysis was conducted based on the data collected from a core subject of the Computer Engineering and Information Systems degree courses. The answers of an online survey (n=289) were examined by using the structural equation modeling technique (SEM). The results obtained show that the use of this learning environment have a significant and positive impact on the two dimensions of relational coordination; communication and relationships. Furthermore, the learning environment plays a key role in the acquisition and development of cooperative competence. Additionally, the results indicate that communication and relationship positively influence on cooperative skills.