This PhD thesis is concerned with the social psychology of cooperative learning and its effects in cognitive and social-emotional domains. It comprises two main studies and two exploratory studies undertaken during two 10-day, 16-hour learning intervention programmes for Maths Word Problem-Solving (MWPS), respectively for 285 and 451 Grade-5 students in Singapore. Study 1 used a quasi-experimental design to investigate the outcomes of task-structures in an Individual Learning condition and three dyadic Cooperative Learning conditions that varied in the key elements: positive interdependence, individual accountability and group goals. The results indicated that a Cooperative Learning condition with a high level of positive interdependence in combination with a low level of individual accountability resulted in significantly lower MWPS academic achievement and peer–self-concept outcomes than the other conditions; whereas the other Cooperative conditions with lower levels of positive interdependence did not differ significantly from the Individual Learning condition in MWPS academic outcomes but produced better peer–self-concept outcomes. The discussion theorises how task-structured positive interdependence in cooperative conditions can potentially be so rigid that it limits individual control in overcoming a dyadic partner’s error. In turn, this increases the likelihood that members of dyads would “sink together” (rather than “swim together”) –which appears to produce relatively worse MWPS academic outcomes as well as being detrimental to peer–self-concept outcomes. Therefore, optimal cooperative learning conditions for mathematics should allow interaction amongst student partners but not preclude individual control over any stage of the learning task. Study 2 comprised three interrelated investigations of the effects of rewarding learning behaviours and the effects of ability-structures on Individual, Equals (homogeneous) and Mixed (heterogeneous) dyads. All children were eligible to be rewarded for their own MWPS academic mastery achievements, but comparison groups in each of the ability-structures were either eligible or not eligible to be rewarded for displaying target learning behaviours (LB-Rewards or No-LB-Rewards). The academic programme was based on Polya’s problem-solving strategies of understanding the problem, devising a plan, carrying out the plan, and checking the results. Children in all learning conditions were instructed to use these problem-solving strategies and, according to their differently assigned learning conditions, to use learning behaviours (LB’s) either ‘for helping oneself’ in Individual conditions or ‘helping one’s partner’ in Equals and Mixed conditions. In “LB-Rewards” conditions, teachers rewarded the children’s displays of the assigned behaviours for learning alone or learning together, whereas in “LB-No-Rewards” conditions they did not. The investigation in Study 2a encompassed the same dependent variables as Study 1. The results indicated that for maths (MWPS), Learning Behaviour rewards were detrimental to Individual Learning conditions with significantly lower MWPS gains when the rewards were used compared to when they were not, whereas the opposite pattern was found for Equals where the effects of Learning Behaviour significantly enhanced MWPS outcomes. For peer–self-concept, effects varied across the Cooperative conditions’ Learning Behaviour rewards conditions. An exploratory analysis of High-, Low- and Medium-ability revealed patterns of the inter-relationships between ability-structures and effects of rewarding. Study 2b is exploratory and involved traversing the traditional theoretical dichotomy of individual vs social learning, to develop a measure combining them both in ‘self-efficacy for learning maths together and learning maths alone’. The effects of the various experimental conditions on factors in this measure were explored, allowing detailed insight into the complex, multi-dimensional and dynamic inter-relationships amongst all the variables. The findings have been developed into a theory of Incentive-values–Exchange in Individual- and Cooperative-learning, arguing that there are four main cooperative learning dimensions – “individual cognitive endeavour”, “companionate positive influence”, “individualistic attitudes development” and “social-emotional endeavour”. The argument is that students’ motivation to learn cooperatively is the product of perceived equalization of reward-outcomes in relation to each dyadic member’s contributions to learning-goals on these dimensions. Hence, motivation varies across ability-structures and reward-structures in a complex manner. A further proposition of the theory is that social-emotional tendencies and biases form a dynamic system that tends to maintain dyadic partners’ achievement levels relative to their ability-positioning. Study 2c is exploratory and extends Study 2b by illustrating its Incentive-values–Exchange theory. Samples of children’s written descriptive reflections of their experiences in cooperative dyads are provided to illustrate the point made about the children’s relationships and effects on each other for each of the factors on the individual- and cooperative-learning scales. As such, this section of the thesis offers a parsimonious explanation of cooperative learning and the effects of various learning conditions on the integrated cognitive, social and emotional domains. Practical implications in light of the study’s findings of optimal conditions include the possibility of practitioners more closely tailoring cooperative learning conditions to meet the academic or social-emotional needs of learners at specific ability levels. Future directions for research include testing some of the learning dimensions and proposed theoretical configurations for them using controls identified by the statistical analyses together with qualitative observations, and further developing new methodologies for investigating the social-psychological causes and consequences of learning motivation.

This study uses a quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group design and aims to investigate the effects of the application of cooperative learning to visual arts curriculum on the creativity and drawing performance of the the lower graders. Subjects are students from two second grade classes in an elementary school in Tainan City. One class represents the experimental group, while the other one is the control group. Each of the classes is given instruction for twenty sessions of classes in ten weeks. The experimental group receives cooperative learning based on STAD. The control group receives seperate learning. This study incorporates quantitative and qualitative approaches. Two assessment tools are conducted, which include ¡§New Creativity Test for Use with Students in Taiwan¡¨ developed by Dr. Ching-Chi Wu, and the ¡§Rating Scale for the drawing performance of the the lower graders ¡¨ designed by the author. Quantitative data are analyzed by ANCOVA and MANCOVA. Qualitative data processed by content analysis are gathered from teacher's classroom anecdotes, student works of curriculum, student feedback about the instruction , and vedio records of teaching process. The results of this study indicate that in the aspect of creativity, application of cooperative learning to visual arts curriculum increases the lower grader¡¦s verbal creativity in terms of flexibility as well as the figural creativity regarding fluency, flexibility and elaboration. In the aspect of drawing performance, application of cooperative learning to visual arts curriculum significantly improved the lower grader¡¦s drawing performance on ¡§content¡¨, ¡§illustrate¡¨, ¡§image ¡¨and ¡¨ color¡¨. The possibility of applying cooperative learning to the visual arts curriculum for the lower grade in the elementary school is recognized.students in the experimental group show positive acknowledgement and feedbacks to the whole instruction. Conclusions for practical application and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Doctor Educationis / Euclidean geometry was recently re-introduced as a compulsory topic in the Mathematics Curriculum for learners in the Further Education and Training (FET) band in 2012. The diagnostic analysis reports on the National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics Paper 2 examinations since 2014 has repeatedly expressed concern of the poor performance of leaners in proof and reasoning items linked to circle geometry. Various efforts have been made to examine the composition of the curriculum to find ways of motivating learners in the study of circle geometry and enhancing their performance but not much has been realized. The use of technology or cooperative learning approaches for the teaching of geometry is beneficial for pedagogical purposes, particularly for improving learners’ performance in geometry. Hence, this study investigated the impact of using technology through cooperative learning on learners’ performance on grade circle 11 geometry. It was thus an attempt to focus on blending these two teaching methods with an emphasis on the use of technology. The research took place at a Khayelitsha school and the scope of technology was limited to using a mathematical computer programme called Heymath. This research was grounded on the cognitive level framework that is used by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in the setting of National Senior examination mathematics papers, as well as the set of social constructivist views of mathematics teaching and learning. In the case of the latter, both social constructivism and cognitive constructivism views were considered and applied for the purposes of this study. Using a positivist paradigm, this convergent parallel mixed methods study employed a quasi-empirical design, where the control group consisted of a group 26 grade 11 learners who were comparable to the group of 27 grade learners that made up the experimental group.

<p>This is a comparative study between traditional group work and cooperative learning among 9 graders at a Swedish high school. The classes did an assignment that involved translating and then both students and teachers answered a questionnaire. An example of how profitable cooperative learning is is the fact that the speech activity was more equal in the cooperative groups. All the students in the cooperative groups had to contribute to the assignment in order to fulfill the assignment. The reason for higher speech activity is the structure of cooperative learning, which involves roles suited for the assignment. The study contains observations of four classes, student reflections and teacher reflections from a compulsory school in the middle of Sweden. The results of these observations support each other and they point to the same direction, cooperative learning seems to be a successful didactic approach in the socio cultural perspective. Since the students learn important socio cultural rules, which is useful in society. The students working in cooperative learning show that students cooperate more and enjoy their work when they have their defined roles in the group.</p>

To examine the effects of cooperative learning on EFL students in Taiwan, a 12-week quasi-experimental pretest-posttest comparison group research study was designed. Two college classes (42 students each) in Taiwan participated in the study, one receiving grammar instruction through cooperative learning and the other through whole-class teaching. Three specific research questions guided the study. The first looked at effects of cooperative learning on motivation, the second on out-of-class strategy use, and the third on grammar achievement. Additional exploratory questions examined these results across subgroups within each class as well as the relationships between the dependent variables. Data were collected via learners' pretest and posttest scores on the dependent variables. The data were analyzed with MANCOVAs, one- and two-way ANCOVAs, simple effects, and Pearson correlations. Cooperative learning was found to have large positive effects on motivation and strategy use, and medium-to-large positive effects on grammar achievement. Overall, the findings indicated a consistent pattern in favor of cooperative learning over whole-class instruction in teaching the Taiwanese learners English grammar. The results of the exploratory questions indicated that cooperative learning facilitated motivation and strategy use of learners across all subgroups, but more so with those performing at higher and lower levels. Grammar achievement of learners at higher and lower levels was affected positively. Additional analyses also indicated cooperative learning positively affected learning at higher cognitive levels. Implications for future research and for curriculum and instruction are addressed.

In this case study, researchers investigated the instructional methods used to train private pilot students at Utah Valley University. Traditional one-on-one individualized learning methods were replaced with cooperative learning methods. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the cooperative learning methods used. Reduced training time, less repeated lessons and a reduced number of flight hours showed that cooperative learning methods were more efficient and a more effective way to train private pilot students at Utah Valley University.

This is a comparative study between traditional group work and cooperative learning among 9 graders at a Swedish high school. The classes did an assignment that involved translating and then both students and teachers answered a questionnaire. An example of how profitable cooperative learning is is the fact that the speech activity was more equal in the cooperative groups. All the students in the cooperative groups had to contribute to the assignment in order to fulfill the assignment. The reason for higher speech activity is the structure of cooperative learning, which involves roles suited for the assignment. The study contains observations of four classes, student reflections and teacher reflections from a compulsory school in the middle of Sweden. The results of these observations support each other and they point to the same direction, cooperative learning seems to be a successful didactic approach in the socio cultural perspective. Since the students learn important socio cultural rules, which is useful in society. The students working in cooperative learning show that students cooperate more and enjoy their work when they have their defined roles in the group.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of using moral-based cooperative learning on enhancing compassion, responsibility and honesty among elementary school students. A nonequivalent pretest-posttest design is conducted on this study. The experimental group students receive 11-week of ¡§Moral-based Cooperative Learning¡¨; On the other hand, control group students receive traditional teaching method. During the course, all participants response investigator-developed instrument ¡§Elementary School Students Moral Behavior Scale¡¨ . In addition, observation, daily student behavior records and follow-up individual interview are conducted to 6 target students with the high, moderate, and the low scores of moral behavior in the pre-test. Correlation, t-test, ANOVA and ANCOVA are conducted for comparing the similarity and differences between two groups. A theme content analysis is conducted to analyze the qualitative data. The major findings are as following: 1. After the use of ¡§Moral-based Cooperative Learning ¡¨,The experimental group students¡¦ moral behaviors, compassion and honesty are significantly higher than the control group students¡¦. 2. The experimental group students make more significant improvement of their moral behaviors on ¡§compassion¡¨and ¡§honesty¡¨ than ¡§responsibility¡¨. 3. The low score group students make more significant progress of their moral behaviors than the high and moderate score group students. 4. There is no significant difference on moral behaviors among students with different gender, birth order, social-economic status or family structure. 5. There is significant positive correlation among compassion, responsibility and honesty of experimental group students. According to those significant findings, educational recommendation and suggestions provide toward teachers and researchers be discussed .

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of learning styles and cooperative learning on academic achievement of technical university students in calculus. Meanwhile, in order to understand the effectiveness of learning on calculus, we perform item analysis of calculus test conducted in terms of item difficulty and item discrimination analysis. This research is conducted on a quasi-experimental design. Participants in this study are selected from the first year students of two departments in a technical university. Two intact classes of the same department are randomly assigned to be an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group receives the cooperative learning while the other receives the traditional learning. The results show that the learning achievement of active learners is better than reflective learners in the experimental group of information management. On the contrary, the reflective learners have better learning achievement than active learners in the experimental group of computer science and information engineering. The learning achievement of the experimental group is better than the control group in department of information management. The result is opposite in department of computer science and information engineering. But the differences of the learning achievement mentioned above are not statistically significant. Furthermore, item difficulty analysis suggests teachers and students should pay more attentions to those more difficult items and the corresponding calculus sections.

The purpose of this research was to investigate, with the strategy of cooperative learning and traditional narrative teaching, the learning achievement, scientific attitude, and the diversity of different class environment for the seventh graders¡¦ learning in biological reproduction of natural science. In addition, the progress of learning and teaching were studied followed up. In the quasi-experimental design, 27 subjects of the experimental group were taught by Student¡¦s Team Achievement Division (STAD) of cooperative learning, and 27 subjects of control group were by traditional narrative teaching. They were all seventh grade students in Kaohsiung County. The instruments consist of ¡§Biological Reproduction Learning Achievement Test,¡¨ ¡§Science Attitudes Scale,¡¨ ¡§What Is Happening in This Class? Questionnaire,¡¨and ¡§Cooperation Learning Questionnaire.¡¨ The data were analyzed by applying descriptive statistics and ANCOVA. The results of the research were summarized as follows: STAD cooperative learning teaching method stimulated students to show more positive scientific attitudes and experienced more class environment encouragement. Moreover, it promoted the seventh graders¡¦ learning achievement in study the unit of reproduction and exhibited retentive effect. During the different stages of group discussion, students were in a hopeless tangle in the beginning, followed by a more cooperative manner gradually, and finally they were leading group learning. The processes of the sharing of the groups were embarrassing in the beginning and then they were gradually open-handed at the end .Objectively, students think they could complete the learning of biology with cooperative learning and subjectively, they also enjoyed this kind of learning atmosphere and hope the teacher could use the teaching strategy of cooperative teaching more often. On the other hand, the teacher was able to follow up the students¡¦ thought and progress to guide them in more details during the group discussion and group sharing. Also the teacher should listen and respect the students¡¦ opinion and will even though the teacher worried about the methodology didn¡¦t suit for the students in the beginning.