Students' Perceptions on Benefits Gained from Cooperative Learning Experiences in Engineering Mathematics Courses

The implementation of cooperative learning (CL) as an alternative technique is to enhance learning in Engineering Mathematics courses at University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). It can promotes and develop engineering students' generics skills and help lecturers to have a better understanding of students' perceptions of their experience gained from the learning activities. The objective of this paper is to highlight the responses of the benefits they gained from the experiences of CL activities, which are based on three areas, individual involvement, team dynamics and skills development. A Likert scale questionnaires was given to Year I and Year I students; and the data were analyzed, ranked and compared. Analysis revealed that Year I students tends to prefer working individually and less likely to work in group, meanwhile Year II students shows their interest in teamwork. Hence, this study revealed that the maturity of the students formed as a result of cooperative learning experiences, specifically, the formation of positive social skills, such as, improvement in students' behavior and interpersonal relationship. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.