How Educators Design Group Learning Scenarios in Higher Education?

Collaborative learning (CL) processes are not always effective and the inadequate design of CL scenarios is one of the main causes of their unsuccess. An essential problem is that designing CL scenarios is a complex task, since it involves countless requirements and constraints that affect learning process and hence learning outcomes. Consequently, CL scenarios are usually inappropriately structured. This paper is particularly interested in analyzing the complexities inherent to the process of designing CL scenarios. Its goal is to investigate and obtain information regarding how educators perform designing of CL scenarios while teaching an undergraduate course. In order to accomplish this, a set of 12 design principles was defined. Moreover, an exploratory study (semi-structured interviews with 30 educators of a university) was conducted and the principles were used to analyze the interviews' data. The results show that educators, in general, perform an inappropriate design of CL scenarios - failing to specify essential parameters and processes, mainly regarding the guidance of the students' actions and evaluation of their learning - therefore, indicating the need to provide educators with proper and useful guidance.