Cooperative Learning in Hong Kong Universities

Dean Tjosvold

Hong Kong deserves its reputation as a dynamic city, but lately we have had to adapt to shrinking budgets and deflation. The Education Minister has proposed mergers to form one or two “world-class” universities. As a result, faculty members feel threatened. As the government has become more accountable, it has strengthened its teaching and research surveys and administrative audits. Universities are encouraging “autonomous learning” outside the classroom and reducing the number of credits to graduate to 90 credits to conform to the government’s budget. 

Nevertheless, cooperative learning continues to be an important, viable approach at Hong Kong universities. Universities cannot be “world-class” unless their graduates have the conceptual, language, and teamwork skills that CL fosters. Indeed, CL is a cost-effective way of making universities more accountable and effective, and helps instructors feel more rewarded and fulfilled in their teaching. Our recent studies document that cooperative relationships among students very much contributes to their learning autonomously outside of the classroom as well as inside.

The Hong Kong Cooperative Learning Center (HKCL) has promoted activities and workshops to help instructors experiment in their classrooms. It sponsored the publication in Chinese of David and Roger Johnson’s Active Learning by Machine Press in Beijing. David has led an annual 3-day workshop the past four years as well as a weeklong workshop at Chinese University’s medical and management schools. He, Karl Smith, and others have conducted workshops at most universities in HK.

The Center also promotes CL in the mainland. David and George Jacobs from Singapore have conducted workshops for teachers from schools and universities through the Center’s agreement with the Shanghai Management Association. David also conducted workshops in Beijing, Chendu, Kunming, Shandong, and Guangzhou. Dean Tjosvold led a series of workshops in Hangzhou for management academics from all over China on how they could use CL.

The content of these workshops is not so different from what the workshop leaders offer in the West, in that Chinese participants are asked to consider similar teaching strategies. Participants’ concerns are similar too, in that they want to know how to change students' passive role to one where they are motivated and skilled to take advantage of cooperative groups. Hong Kong instructors typically have less latitude than their Western colleagues in terms of curriculum and grading distribution requirements that require “grading on the curve” and making grades at least in part dependent on out-performing other students.

Many researchers have questioned whether Western-developed theories and methods are culturally appropriate and relevant for the collectivist, group-oriented culture of China. In particular, Chinese students may react differently and negatively to the demands of cooperative learning to hold individuals accountable, discuss opposing views open-mindedly, and manage conflict directly. The HKCL has developed the CL’s empirical base in the region by developing and publishing studies on the theory of cooperation and competition learning in the classroom and in organizations more generally. Findings directly confirm that CL learning is very viable in the Chinese classroom.

Results also indicate that the appropriate, skilled application of Chinese values very much contributes to making CL effective. Both in field and experimental studies in China, collectivist values have been found to reinforce cooperative goals. However, contrary to the common theorizing that collectivist values lead to avoiding conflict to maintain relationships, studies indicate that collectivist values result in open discussion and integrated decision-making. Although "social face" typically leads to conflict avoidance, giving social face to others has been found to increase open dialogue and group productivity. Conflict has been thought to be contrary to Chinese values, yet debates and disagreements are part of the Confucian tradition. Our studies document that within a cooperative context Chinese students develop new solutions and strengthen their relationships through discussions about controversy.

Chinese educators themselves seldom argue that cooperative learning is Western and therefore irrelevant to China. More often they argue that Chinese students and people are too individualistic, making developing cooperative learning in the classroom a difficult challenge! We are impressed with the openness of Chinese educators who want to take advantage of the knowledge base of cooperative learning and make it applicable for their students.

In Hong Kong, as in most places, the need for CL outstrips its use. The current demands on universities make CL potentially more valuable but also distract instructors from learning and experimenting. We need to join forces with those in primary and secondary schools to strengthen CL in Hong Kong. Our work is not done.

Contact us at http://www.ln.edu.hk/hkclc/,  hkclc@ln.edu.hk, and tjosvold@ln.edu.hk.