In relation to the preference for strong assigned roles in the group: it seems that it depends on the context. Some people might really feel nerveous when put in the shoes of a leader, maybe others do not like to be led... Perhaps members take turns to lead might be a good idea, build up personalities. But maybe looking at personalities before building the groups could be a way of improving the end productivity and dynamic of each group -

[Belbin team model - Niklas will elaborate further in this section, as part of the contribution to this question in the survey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Role_Inventories] 

In relation to the attitude towards a strong leader in the group: Maybe strong leaders would not let another leader take over. We need to be mindful when being the leader in the group.

Familiarity - online work vs face-to-face

-> Social bond with group members - majority tends to agree. It’s challenging to create bonding within an online group at the start. The bond grows over time. According to Garrison (2009), social dimension is crucial in learning in the group. 

There is mix views in terms of preference among participants : Is it possible that prefer groups vary with similar academic background or digital skills in an online learning situation vs when a particular task has been assigned and the group is trying to solve the task. 

Preference for group members with similar or different digital literacies: Perhaps it depends on the individual’s digital competencies.  Someone with no digital literacy might prefer a group with more literate people.

Most participants prefer to have a clear plan at the start. This might be related to the idea of fulfilling a task (like in ONL) rather than in groups where the learning journey is actually the goal, not the submission of the task.

We thought that it was interesting that the best way to have students learn online tools might be to actually teach them online, and not through F2F lectures on the tools. (learning through hands-on)

I can teach others a lot when it comes to using digital tools

While participants prefer to learn in groups, participants tend to prefer smaller groups, 5 to 7 persons - in the context of ‘online-group work’. Smaller group tends to enable participants to be more committed, as they need to play specific roles. The group also reflected on this area in relation to ONL191 PBL 5. We realized that our preference for smaller group might change depending whether our goal is to fulfill the task assigned for the group or to actually focus on group learning and not fulfilling a task. (path versus product situation)

Also we questioned whether the online situation makes it easier for free-floaters? Would it be more or less difficult to free-float within smaller groups?