Managerial Factors Conditioning the Collaborative Learning Environment in the University Studies

Abstract

A competent educator builds well comprehended and prepared educational environments to promote student learning. Meanwhile, students develop their own learning environments that may or may not match the educator’s educational environment as well as the individual environments of the other learners. Collaboration among learners enhances the process of learning, creation and acquisition of new knowledge and experience. Thus, the goal of the educational system and its all components should be to concentrate on creating adequate collaborative learning environments in the university studies. Although educational environments have been analyzed in the scholarly literature, the managerial factors that condition the development of the collaborative learning environment have not been researched yet. Therefore, this article seeks to achieve the following goal and answer the question: what managerial factors and how they condition the creation and maintenance of the collaborative learning environment in the master’s level studies in the area of social sciences in university X located in Lithuania? This article identifies the theoretical model of the environment that is based on collaborative learning and explains the conditioning of the specific external and internal managerial factors. The created theoretical model is then tested in reality through the empirical research in a specific case and findings are compared.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ss.76.2.1963