Peer interaction and students' perceptions towards constructivist-collaborative learning environment: Motivation and affective factor

The 21st century marks the beginning of digital age with the extensive use of digital media, mobile devices, and Internet resources. Recent studies found that this digital era has expanded the landscape of student experiences, and educational technologies as well as increased the educator's awareness on embracing technologies to promote effective learning. This has redefined the meaning of effective learning and the approach in motivating students. Therefore, redesigning the learning environments plays an important role in enhancing the students' experiences in the university classrooms. This study employed the mixed methods approach to study peer interaction and student's perception in the constructivist-collaborative learning environment (CCLE) which was designed with the use of multimedia contents and web 2.0 tools. The research study includes conducting factor analysis on the questionnaire response and the qualitative analysis on students' comments. The samples were formed by 300 undergraduate degree students who studied at INTI International University, Malaysia. The discussion addresses the issues of supporting students' need in collaborative learning process that bring impact on student learning. The factor analysis has presented several significant components of student learning. However, the discussion in this paper focuses on one of the identified components, 'motivation and affective factor', and particularly from the dimensions of competence, value, relatedness. This study concluded that it is important to emphasize on the component of 'motivation and affective factor' and the consideration should include a wide range of student's perception. It is believed that this study can contribute to developing more strategies to help the educators, parents, policy makers, or even the students themselves, for fostering and sustaining student motivation and affective factors in student learning process.