Designing learning activities to improve undergraduate student collaborative problem-solving skills in the multidisciplinary course in the postdigital educational landscape

Abstract

This thesis explores the approach to teaching and assessing collaborative problem-solving skills to undergraduate students in the multidisciplinary course. In the study, a large class of 59 students participated in four learning activities involving well- and ill-defined problems. The research findings indicate that students benefited more from well-structured and instructed tasks; on the other hand, ill-defined tasks exposed students to more opportunities and challenges to learn how to solve real-life problems collaboratively. The assessment was amenable to evaluating a variety of tasks focusing on capturing behaviour and the CPS skills across assignments and team members. The combination of assessment method mitigated the limitations of validity and reliability of the measures.