Integrating group awareness into team‐based learning.

Background: Team‐based learning (TBL) is a widely recognised pedagogical strategy used in diverse fields and courses. Despite the success of TBL, certain concerns have arisen regarding social loafing within group collaboration contexts; this loafing can reduce the overall effectiveness of learning. Objectives: This study addressed the aforementioned concerns by integrating group awareness (GA) information into each stage of TBL, resulting in a TBL + GA system designed to enhance TBL instruction. During online collaborative learning, GA information provides insights into the activities completed by peers and thus the peers' preparedness and achievement; this knowledge fosters motivation, participation, and reflection. Methods: A quasiexperiment was performed with students from two freshman classes (40 and 41 students, respectively) in a Taiwanese university; the control and experimental classes used the TBL only and TBL + GA systems, respectively. Student learning effort was evaluated in terms of preclass preparation, including the use of learning materials and online test scores. Learning achievement was evaluated by assessing the quality of students' assignments. Student feedback, including peer evaluations and students' perceptions of their TBL experience, was collected and compared for the two classes. Results and Conclusions: The TBL + GA system significantly enhanced the preclass preparation efforts of the participants, mitigating social loafing. This improvement manifested as higher practice engagement and better online assessment scores. The TBL + GA system also improved assignment quality and elicited more constructive and positive peer feedback. Implications: Integrating GA information into each stage of TBL may positively affect the effectiveness of instruction. The proposed TBL + GA system can serve as a practical model for instructors seeking to enhance TBL implementation and foster a more engaging and constructive learning environment. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Team‐Based Learning (TBL) has recently drawn much attention and has been successfully applied in many fields (different courses)While TBL requires students to learn autonomously and work together as a team, it also results in social loafing during collaborative learning, thus reducing its learning effectiveness.Group awareness (GA) information, which provides visual information about peers' learning contexts (activities) in online collaborative learning, can increase the interaction and participation What this paper adds: This study adds GA information to each learning stage in the TBL process.This study further proposes the TBL + GA system for facilitating TBL teaching.This study investigates whether student engagement on each TBL stages significantly differs between the traditional TBL and the proposed TBL + GA systems. Implications for practice and/or policy: The TBL + GA system significantly enhanced the preclass preparation efforts of the participants, mitigating social loafing. This improvement manifested as an increase in practice engagement and online assessment scores.The TBL + GA system also improved assignment quality and elicited more constructive and positive peer feedback, compared with the traditional TBL.Integrating GA information into each stage of TBL may positively affect the effectiveness of instruction. The proposed TBL + GA system can serve as a practical model for instructors seeking to enhance TBL implementation, thereby fostering a more engaging and constructive learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]