FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Research conducted at the University of Arkansas suggests that when university graduate students are assigned to work in cooperative groups, they might want to start by exchanging scores on the Hope Scale along with cell phone numbers.

“Hope is not just wishful thinking,” said UA education researcher Kathleen Collins. “When we break hope into its components and look at the senses of motivation and ability to reach goals, we can predict how well a group will perform.”

In order to better understand the role of hope in cooperative learning, Collins examined how the performance of cooperative learning groups is predicted by the group members’ levels of hope. Working with Anthony Onwuegbuzie of the University of South Florida and Qun G. Jiao of City University of New York, she studied two components of hope known as “pathways” and “agency.” The pathways component involves an individual’s appraisal of ability to meet goals and planning. Agency, also referred to as “agentic thinking,” is the sense of success-oriented determination that motivates individuals to use those pathways.

Participants in the study were graduate students in education and psychology from four sections of a research methods class. All sections were taught by the same instructor and were held at the same time in the evening, and the students were assigned to groups in a modified random manner that was not related to ability or aptitude. The groups were required to complete two major class assignments, an evaluation project and a writing project. Individual levels of hope were measured using the Hope Scale, which scores both pathways and agentic thinking. The majority of participants scored high and could be considered very hopeful.

When Collins and colleagues compared the hope scores of the graduate students to successful completion of group assignments, they found that a sense of hope played an important role in predicting performance. However, the two components of hope — pathways and agency — affected the outcome in different ways. Groups with a higher score in determination and motivation — agency — produced higher quality work. The pathways score functioned differently. When it came to motivation and determination, the larger the variation between the individual scores for motivation, the lower the group performed. In predicting a group’s success, the scores for agentic thinking were the best predictor.

The researchers considered their findings in relation to other recent research and suggested that “hope, academic procrastination, and anxiety are inextricably intertwined in determining achievement among cooperative learning groups.” They recommended that future research “investigate simultaneously the role that these and other personality variables play in the cooperative learning group process.”

Collins is an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education and Health Professions. Onwuegbuzie is a professor in the department of educational measurement and research at the University of South Florida, and Jiao is a professor and librarian with Baruch College at the City University of New York. Collins presented their research, “Hope as a Predictor of Performance of Graduate-Level Cooperative Groups in Research Methodology Courses,” at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association on April 9.