Relationships between Learning Styles, Perceived Advantages of Online Collaborative Learning and Practical Knowledge in Teaching among Taiwanese Student Teachers

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the three learning styles (collaborative, competitive, and individualistic) on the perceived advantage of collaborative learning (PAoCL) and practical knowledge in teaching (PKiT) among Taiwanese student teachers in an online collaborative environment. This study built a Facebook Group and developed the tasks of collaborative learning based on field-experience courses. The participants were required to share various practical experiences as the collaborative learning tasks. A total of 100 student teachers who enrolled in field-based courses between August 2016 and January 2017 participated in this study and were required to complete a validated survey in January 2017. This study determined the relationships between the three learning styles and PAoCL and PKiT and further identified predictors of online collaborative learning. The collaborative learning style of student teachers was positively associated with their PAoCL, while competitive learning style was correlated with their PKiT. Accordingly, teacher educators can encourage student teachers to share experiences about teaching practices during participating in field-experience courses through online collaboration. However, teacher educators should remind the student teachers to transfer the online information into PKiT.