This study aims to examine how different would be the satisfactory levels on the learning environments according
to team-organizing methods. This study, first, divided the total 62 students of the same majors in a 2 year college into two learning groups: The first group is called ‘student-selected teams’ which were organized according to the degree of friendship as the team-organizing criterion, while the other group was called 'learning style-based teams' which were organized the students with different learning types based on the result of 'Learning Style Inventory' by Kolb, which was conducted before the class began. Each group(i.e., Student-selected teams and Learning style-based teams) which was consisted of several subgroups with 4 to 5 students per group and lasted for the whole semester, was supposed to write their thoughts on the given ‘open-ended questionnaire’ with 4 questions at the end of the semester. Their answers to the questionnaire have been analyzed in order to compare their specific reasons and contents for or against the team-based learning environments by using Nvivo8, a program for qualitative research data analysis. The results were as follows: 1) The general satisfactory levels to the learning activities from the both groups were almost equally high (more than 70%), 2) yet, more specific content analysis of the questionnaire by Nvivo clarified some differences between these two groups: The student-selected teams were inclined to show the characteristics of 'social community', in which friendly relationships in relaxed, comfortable environments were highly valued and
appreciated, and which, in turn, rather became disturbing factors for then serious learning engagement; on the other hand, the learning style-based teams were, from the beginning of the class, characterized as 'learning community' where the team members worked hard with a strong sense of community, thus, responsibility for their roles as a team member in the learning community, and fully immerging into the learning activity for problem-solving as a team. In conclusion, it is clear that collaborative learning groups should be positively considered as a way of learning activities. Yet, at the same time, this study showed more meaningful and valuable results from the learning style-based teams than the student-selected teams in terms of learning engagement and effects.