Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Australian university campuses are reflecting increased cultural diversity at a time when group work is emphasised as an effective student-centred approach to learning. This paper reports an investigation of differences in rates of verbal interaction by 72 first year male undergraduate engineering students from two ethnic cohorts (Australian-born Anglo-European and overseas-born South East Asian students) during a collaborative group activity. A quantitative methodology was employed. Verbal interactions were recorded under two conditions: mono-ethnic groups containing four students from one ethnic cohort; and bi-ethnic groups made up of two students from each ethnic cohort. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed highly significant differences for the main effects of both Ethnicity and Group Type and also their Interaction. The key finding of this study suggests that the South East Asian students were inhibited in terms of their verbal participation when with Australian students.
Wright et al. (Sat,) studied this question.