This paper reviews research examining the effects of CL strategies on the academic achievement of Asian students. Fourteen studies are included in the review. Sample characteristics, measures, findings, and effects are reported in a table. Achievement outcomes are found mixed with 50 per cent of the studies reporting neutral and negative findings and 50 per cent reporting positive findings. The paper also reveals mismatches between CL's principles and Asian cultures based on what was reported in the reviewed studies. Future research needs to further investigate this issue. Also, for CL to work more effectively in the Asian context, there needs to be some further research that investigates how to change those principles of CL that may be inappropriate in the Asian context so they may be more compatible with Asian culture and conditions.

The present study examined how cooperative learning (CL) is implemented in Vietnamese classrooms, how local teachers' and students' perceived this approach to learning, and what were the local barriers that hindered its implementation. Forty teachers and forty students from twenty Vietnamese colleges completed a questionnaire about CL and follow-up interviews were conducted with ten students and ten teachers on their perceptions of this practice. The results showed that CL has become a common and preferred method of instruction in Vietnam. However, the functions of CL were often not understood correctly because the teachers and students maintained that CL mainly helped the students remember information rather than develop a deep understanding of the text they were studying. Responses also revealed that CL was hindered by a number of local cultural and institutional barriers such as class size, curriculum coverage and workload division. Future research may need to identify strategies to correct mismatches between CL principles and local barriers so that this approach to learning becomes more adaptive to the local context.

Constructing an appropriate group is important to teamwork success. Although, heterogeneous grouping is widely recommended in Western countries, this method of grouping is questioned in Asian classrooms because Asian and Western students have different cultures of learning. Unfortunately, this issue has not been addressed in any research to date. This study aims to investigate how Vietnamese students should be grouped so that they can maximize their opportunities to learn. The study is in two parts: a pilot study and an intervention. The pilot study included twenty students and was conducted for four weeks. The intervention consisted of one hundred and forty five students and lasted for eight weeks. In both studies, students answered a questionnaire survey and ten students were interviewed. The results of both studies showed that friendship grouping was more preferred. Future researchers should take these findings into consideration so that cooperative learning activities can be designed adaptively in Asian classrooms.

Peer assessment has recently been widely recommended in Vietnamese classrooms. However, there are argumentative opinions about this assessment because it has many conflicts with the learning culture of Vietnamese students. To date, there has not been any study addressing this issue. The present study investigated how Vietnamese students participate in peer assessment and how peer assessment should be designed to interest local students. In sum, 145 second-year students participated in a one-semester study. The results show that the students refused to participate in intragroup peer assessment because they were not confident in exchanging feedback directly and face-to-face. By contrast, intergroup peer assessment interested the students more because they could avoid direct conflicts with their friends and were guaranteed to save face by their group mates.

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