Student Resistance to Collaborative Learning

The advancing complexity of today’s corporate environment requires that employees are able to collaborate in the workplace. This mixed methods research study follows a nursing faculty’s efforts to incorporate collaborative learning (CL) into an introductory nursing class. The mixed-methods research study found that while students’ final grades improved in the initial CL flipped classroom design (p < .0005), their levels of student resistance deepened which resulted in significantly lower levels of community of inquiry (p = .004), lower levels of satisfaction, and many negative open-ended comments (83%). Using Tolman and Kreming’s (2017) integrated model of student resistance (IMSR) as a guideline, the instructor was successful in redesigning the CL class to overcome students’ resistance as measured by significantly higher levels of community of inquiry (p < .0005), higher levels of satisfaction (p < .0005), and many less negative open-ended comments (54% vs 83%).