Collaborative Learning in Veterinary Medical Education: An Analysis of Student Groupwork and Instructional Design

Abstract

This thesis focuses on small-group collaborative case-based learning, including how students interact with each other during group discussions and how instructional design impacts collaborative outcomes. The aim of this study was to provide foundational knowledge on how professional veterinary students interact during these case discussions, primarily to guide instructional design and facilitation of discussions to better support student learning. The purpose of this study was to examine the practices of the University of Arizona College of Veterinary Medicine (UACVM), providing local insights on a methodology that is central to our curriculum and recommendations to the broader field of veterinary medical education as educators across the United States are becoming increasingly interested in or are already implementing similar educational practices. This study relies on sociocultural perspectives on learning, first establishing the evidence on the effectiveness of collaborative learning before diving into the specific method of case-based learning and subsequently making connections that demonstrate how the ways in which students interact impact their learning. A qualitative approach is used to answer the questions of 1) how professional veterinary students collaborate during in-class case-based learning tasks and 2) which factors of instructional design impact their collaboration and how these factors influence the way student groups negotiate their consensus response. Fourteen participants formed two student groups that worked on 49 different questions across five simulated class sessions, providing 98 episodes of collaboration for analysis. The findings of this study revealed how professional veterinary students negotiate perspectives to come to consensus on in-class case-based learning tasks, including their eight primary types of statements and seven overall patterns of group collaboration. Findings highlighted specific elements of instructional design that influenced student collaboration, including allowing for multiple perspectives, sparking disagreement, perceived difficulty, learning outcome level, and the level of consensus required by the question structure. This study resulted in specific recommendations for veterinary educators to consider while designing questions for veterinary student groups. Operating under frameworks that emphasize the importance of conducting research with the local community in mind rather than creating knowledge simply to fill gaps in the literature, I discuss how these findings, initially presented to a wider veterinary medical educator audience, are specifically applicable to our local context.