Positive Interdependence

Positive interdependence is the structural condition in which each participant's success depends on the others' success, so the group genuinely needs every member's contribution to reach the shared outcome. It is the single most important element of Collaborative Learning — without it, what looks like group work is actually parallel individual work in the same room. Engineering positive interdependence is the design move that separates real collaboration from "discuss in your groups." Named and formalized by David and Roger Johnson in their cooperative-learning research, the principle is the standard reference across the literature on collaborative and cooperative learning structures.