Dynamic and collaborative learning environments: their effect on academic performance and student's motivation

Teaching students in collaborative learning environments is a well-acknowledged pedagogical practice with numerous benefits. The paper presents the impact of a blend of dynamic and collaborative environments on students' academic performance and motivation in an engineering course. While the classroom environment is made collaborative using an automated grouping tool, the dynamic environment with immense possibilities for learning is also utilised to improve learning through visual cues. The study uses a quasi-experimental design where 253 students studying engineering were divided into four different groups. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results indicate that the approach generates significant differences in learning by influencing the academic performance and motivation of students positively. The results suggest that while using the dynamic environment improved learning outcomes significantly, using the collaborative learning function alone did not create a difference in factors affecting learning. It is noteworthy that merging the dynamic and collaborative environment also leads to significant improvements in academic performance.