Perceived Advantages of Group Work

10 the presence of members who do not really take part in the task, who are called as „free riders‟ Boud, 2001, „passengers‟ Bourner et al., 2001, „freeloaders‟ Daly Worrel, 1993, or „hitchhikers‟ Oakley et al., 2004, but still gain the benefits of the mark Mello, 1993; different schedules among members Oakley et al., 2004; diverse orientation of the final grades Oakley et al., 2004, lack of leadership skills Bolton, 1999; and also lack of guidance from the tutors which causes ineffective working performance from the group Bolton, 1999. In a set of similar studies in Asia for instance, while studies conducted by Iqbal 2004 and Keramati 2010 in Iran as well as Zakaria et al. 2013 in Indonesia could prove that group work was effective in promoting higher grades for the senior high school students, a study led by Thanh et al. 2008 showed differently. In the study, Thanh et al. tried to challenge the Western common assumption of the effectiveness of group work by revealing some studies with various school levels in Asian context which did not work. The findings showed that from 14 studies that had been selected and reviewed carefully, 7 studies – 50 of them indicated that group work was not significant to enhance grades, or even ineffective to promote a better learning for the primary, secondary, and tertiary students. Even, Thanh et al. argued that the finding was enough to infer that group work principles “do [did] not suit the local [Asian] context in terms of both cultural values and infrastructure conditions, leading to rejections from different levels” p. 82. This finding points out that the benefits of group work, which 11 have long been claimed to exist in Western countries may not be effective for students in Asia. Another study conducted by Topping et al. 2007 in Scotland has also supported the view that group work does not always result in positive outcomes. While in one project they could show that group work was effective for the primary students, in another project, they failed to prove the effectiveness of group work in improving the grades of the secondary students. This result indicates further that the benefits of group work may be uncertain and inconsistent to appear as the effective way to enhance students‟ attainment.

5. Conditions for Successful Group Work

The factors which might play important roles in determining whether group work is successful or not are basically related to group formation, grading policies, and also task complexity Fiechtner Davis as cited in Falchikov, 2001; Oakley et al., 2004.

a. Group Formation

According to Oakley et al. 2004, group formation usually covers aspects such as who becomes the decision maker for the group choice – teacher or student, the number of students involved in a group, and the proficiency level of the students. They view that an ideal group formation covers three up to five students with varied competence levels who are carefully selected by the teacher. If students are allowed to choose their own group, Oakley et al. believe that more-competent students will form their own groups, whereas