Collaborative Work Competency in Online Postgraduate Students and Its Prevalence on Academic Achievement

The purpose of this research was aimed to establish a relationship between the level of collaborative work competency and the academic performance of students in an online master's degree program. An ex-post-facto investigation was conducted through a quantitative methodology and descriptive analysis. A collaborative competency checklist was designed to evaluate 46 teams in order to estimate their collaborative work competency level. This competency was assessed through interactions and performance, registered in discussion forums. Results confirmed a positive correlation between high level of collaborative work competency and academic achievement. Didactic recommendations of this study included collaborative learning activities as one way to promote useful academic and personal skills development. For future research, experimental approaches could be applied to get higher level of certainty about collaborative competency benefits.