The Effects on Students' Cognitive Achievement When Using the Cooperative Learning Method in Earth Science Classrooms

This study investigated the effects of cooperative learning instruction versus traditional teaching methods on students' earth science achievement in secondary schools. A total of 770 ninth-grade students enrolled in 20 sections of a required earth science course participated in this nonequivalent control group quasi-experiment. The control groups (n= 10) received a traditional approach, while the experimental groups (n= 10) used cooperative strategies. Study results include (a) no significant differences were found between the experimental groups and the control groups when overall achievement (F= 0.13, p >.05), knowledge-level (F= 0.12, p >.05), and comprehension-level (F= 0.34, p >.05) test items were considered; and (b) students who worked cooperatively performed significantly better than students who worked alone on the application-level test items (F= 4.63, p <.05). These findings suggest that cooperative-learning strategies favor students' earth science performance at higher but not lower levels of cognitive domains in the secondary schools.