System 30 (2002) 263–273

www.elsevier.com/locate/system

The relationship between cooperative learning,

perception of social support, and academic
achievement
G.M. Ghaith*
Department of Education, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon

Received 9 January 2002; received in revised form 16 March 2002; accepted 2 April 2002

Abstract
This article reports on an investigation into the relationship between cooperative learning,
perceptions of classroom social support, feelings of alienation from school, and the academic
achievement of university-bound learners of English-as-a foreign language (EFL). One hun-
dred and thirty-five participants (73 males, 61 females, and one participant with missing gen-
der data) enrolled in 10 sections of an introductory English course at a private university in
Lebanon participated in the study. The participants completed a modified version of the
Classroom Life Measure [Johnson and Johnson, Journal of Social Psychology 120 (1983), 77]
and their responses were correlated with their academic achievement. Whereas the analysis of
the data revealed that cooperative learning and the degree of academic support provided by
teachers are positively correlated with achievement, learners’ feelings of alienation from
school were found to be negatively correlated with achievement. Likewise, the analysis
revealed that cooperative learning is positively correlated with the perceived degrees of aca-
demic and personal support provided by teachers and peers, but not correlated with the feel-
ings of alienation from school. The results are discussed in light of previous research and with
reference to the cultural context of the study. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social support is one of the most important aspects of classroom climate that may
influence learners’ academic achievement, physical and psychological health, and
constructive management of stress. A basic premise in this regard is that the avail-
ability of people (teachers and peers) on whom learners can rely for assistance to

* Tel.: +961-340-460; fax: +961-744-461.

E-mail address: gghaith@aub.edu.lb (G.M. Gaith).

0346-251X/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0346-251X(02)00014-3
264 G.M. Ghaith / System 30 (2002) 263–273

achieve goals (academic support) and for liking and caring (personal support) is
critical for academic productivity and psychosocial adjustment (Johnson and John-
son, 1994). This is because classroom social support defined as the provision of
informational, appraisal, and emotional aid is most often a reciprocal process
among learners. As such, mutual benefits are maximized as learners work together
to complete common tasks in a supportive and stress-reduced classroom climate.
Because the giver of social support intends his/her aid as beneficial to the recipient
and the latter perceives it as such, relationships among learners are strengthened as
individual efforts are encouraged and braced to achieve common goals and complete
group tasks. Hence, cooperative learning may be one way to promote social support
within classrooms as learners work together to maximize each other’s learning
through positive rather than negative or neutral forms of social interdependence.
Positive social interdependence is likely to be achieved in classrooms where learners
work cooperatively in small groups according to the principles of positive goal and
resource interdependence. As such, learners divide labor and share resources among
themselves in order to achieve common goals, ensuring that all members learn
assigned material. This may decrease feelings of alienation from school. Positive
social interdependence may also promote cohesion and solidarity among learners.
Meanwhile, negative interdependence results from inappropriate competition when
students engage in a win–lose struggle to see who is best. Similarly, neutral inter-
dependence prevails in classrooms where students ‘‘work independently on their
own learning goals at their own pace and in their own space to achieve a pre-set
criterion of excellence’’ (Johnson and Johnson, 1994, p. 3).
The literature includes strong evidence regarding the relative superiority of coop-
erative learning in promoting greater social support in comparison with competitive
and individualistic forms of instruction. For instance, Johnson and Johnson (1989)
reported based on evidence from 106 studies that cooperative learning promotes
social support more than competitive instruction (effect size=0.62) and individua-
listic instruction (effect size 0.70). Furthermore, these researchers reported that
stronger effects were found for peer support than for superior (teacher) support in
promoting achievement and psychosocial adjustment.
Along similar lines, Tinto (1975, 1987) concluded that social support and bonding
with classmates are strong determinants of higher rates of successful completion of
program requirements. Likewise, Wales and Stager (1978), Astin (1985), and Noel
(1985) have all reported that student persistence and achievement depend on social
involvement in a very major way. Similarly, Sarason et al. (1983) have maintained
that social support is positively related to academic achievement and persistence on
challenging tasks.
However, almost all of the preceding empirical evidence regarding the connection
of cooperative learning to social support and academic achievement comes from
North American settings. As such, there is a need to examine the generalizability
and robustness of this evidence in other linguistic and cultural contexts. Conse-
quently, the present study set to examine the connection between cooperative
learning, learners’ perceptions of the degrees of teacher and peer academic and per-
sonal support, feelings of alienation from school, and achievement as they studied
 G.M. Ghaith / System 30 (2002) 263–273 265

EFL at a Middle Eastern university. This is especially so given that several

researchers and practitioners have already established the theoretical relevance of
CL in the ESL/EFL classroom (McGroarty, 1989; Kessler, 1992, Kagan, 1996,
Ghaith and Yaghi, 1998; Kluge et al., 1999). These researchers, among others, have
maintained that CL is an important factor in promoting the linguistic and para-
linguistic competencies of learners given that it provides opportunities for extended
and frequent interaction in the target language in a supportive, motivating, and
stress-reduced classroom environment. Yet, despite theoretical relevance, there is
still at present a need to conduct further research in order to ‘‘establish the cultural
nuances of how cooperative efforts are conducted’’ in various ESL/EFL contexts
(Johnson and Johnson, 1999, p. 38). Specifically, the study addressed the following
questions:

1. Is cooperative learning correlated with learners’ perceptions of social sup-

port, alienation from school, and academic achievement?
2. What is the role of cooperative learning, perception of social support, and
alienation from school in academic achievement?

1. Method

1.1. Instrument

A modified version of the Classroom Life Measure (Johnson and Johnson, 1983)
was administered to the participants in order to assess the connection of cooperative
learning to learners’ perceptions of classroom social support, feelings of alienation
from school, and academic achievement. The original Classroom Life Measure is a
widely-used instrument ‘‘with established validity and reliability’’ (Johnson and
Johnson, 1996, p. 10:16). It contains a total of 90 Likert-type questions on which
respondents indicate on a 5-point scale the truth of the statement where a rating of
‘‘1’’ indicates that the statement is very untrue of the respondent and a rating of ‘‘5’’
indicates that the statement is very true. The 90 items measure 16 factors that have
been identified both theoretically and through previous factor analysis (Johnson &
Johnson, 1983; Johnson et al., 1983).
The modified version of the Classroom Life Measure used in the present study
consisted of 38 items that measured the factors (variables) under investigation (see
Appendix). Four items (1, 2, 3, 4) measured the factor of Teacher Academic Support
defined as the belief that the teacher cares about how much learners learn and wishes
to help them learn. Similarly, items (5, 6, 7, 8) measured the factor of Teacher Per-
sonal Support defined as the belief that the teacher cares about and likes learners as
individuals. Likewise, items (9, 10, 11, 12) and (13, 14, 15, 16, 17) measured the
factors of Peer Academic Support (the belief that other students care about how
much one learns and wish to help one learn) and Peer Personal Support (the belief
that other students care about and like one as a person), respectively. In like manner,
items (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27) measured the factor of cooperative
266 G.M. Ghaith / System 30 (2002) 263–273

learning defined as sharing materials, dividing labor, working on joint outcomes,

and making sure that all group members learn assigned material. Finally, items (28,
29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38) measured the factor of learners’ feelings of
alienation from school defined as learners’ estrangement from school, peers, and
classroom activities.
The modified version of the Classroom Life Measure used to measure the afore-
mentioned factors was pre-tested with a randomly selected sample of three students
from the population of the present study in order to locate and eliminate any
ambiguous items. As such, the three respondents were asked to make comments and
identify any ambiguous items. The pre-test analysis did not indicate any significant
problems. Consequently, the modified version was administered to the participants
in the study in its original format in English. Table 1 below presents the factors,
their number of items, and their Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients based on
data from the present study.

1.2. Participants and study context

One hundred and thirty-five (n=135) students enrolled in 10 sections of an intro-

ductory English course at a Middle Eastern University participated in the study.
There were 73 males (54.2%), 61 females (45.2%), and one participant with missing
gender data (0.6%). The course is intensive in nature designed to develop the parti-
cipants’ linguistic and communicative competencies through focus on the four lan-
guage skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in an integrated manner. As
such, the course met five times a week for 3 h each time and covered a wide variety
of reading and writing activities and communicative tasks in addition to instruction
in language structures, vocabulary, and proper critical thinking and study skills.
Five instructors (four females and one male) taught the participants in the present
study. The average teaching experience of the instructors was 16.60 years
(SD=8.84) and they have all had master’s degrees in English or Education as well as
in-service training in using CL in language teaching. One teacher reported that she
used CL daily for about 90% of her instructional time, three teachers reported that
they used CL several times a week for about 45% of their instructional time, and
one teacher reported that she used CL several times a month for about 20% of
instructional time. As such, the average instructional time spent on CL is estimated

Table 1
Scales included in the Classroom Life Instrument

Scale No. of items Reliability n

Cooperative Learning 10 0.78 124

Teacher Academic Support 4 0.75 132
Teacher Personal Support 4 0.68 131
Peer Academic support 4 0.74 132
Peer Personal Support 5 0.52 130
Alienation 11 0.68 130
 G.M. Ghaith / System 30 (2002) 263–273 267

to be about 48. 60% (SD=25.68). Finally, the instructors reported that they did not
adopt any specific CL model (Structural, Group Investigation, Student Investiga-
tion, Curriculum Packages, and Learning Together; see Kluge et al., 1999 for a
description of these models). Rather, the instructors drew on various parts of the
available CL models ensuring that the five elements of CL (positive interdependence,
individual accountability, face-to-face interaction, interpersonal group skills, and
group processing) are structured and implemented properly.
All the participants were native speakers of Arabic pursuing their college educa-
tion at an English-medium university in Lebanon that follows the American model
of education. The participants were all accepted into various study majors at the
University based on their high school scholastic records and SAT I, SAT II, and
TOEFL scores. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 25 years (SD=1.25).
Finally, all the participants completed the study instrument and their achievement
scores were obtained from the course coordinator and correlated with the responses
to the instrument. However, as will be seen later, the number of the participants was
reduced slightly due to the introduction of pair-wise deletion of missing cases when
applied to the statistical tests run in the study.

1.3. Data analysis

Six composite scores were computed for each participant by adding the scores on
the sub-scales in the study instrument respectively measuring the variables of teacher
academic support, teacher personal support, peer academic support, peer personal
support, cooperative learning, and alienation from school. The scores on the nega-
tively worded items were reversed in order to ensure that high scores meant agree-
ment with the truth of the statements. Descriptive statistics (means and standard
deviations) and Simple Pearson correlation coefficients were computed between
the composite scores on the scales of cooperative learning and achievement and the
composite scores on the sub-scales used in the instrument in order to determine
the degree of interrelatedness among the variables under investigation and achieve-
ment. The large sample size enabled small correlation coefficients to be statistically
significant. Consequently, correlation coefficients under 0.25 were considered insig-
nificant from a practical standpoint. In addition, a stepwise multiple regression
analysis was used in order to address the second question raised in the study. The
variables of cooperative learning, teacher academic support, teacher personal sup-
port, peer academic support, peer personal support, and alienation from school were
used as predictor factors and achievement as a dependent (predicted) variable.

2. Results

Table 2 presents the correlation coefficients for the variables in the study. The data
show positive moderate correlations between cooperative learning and teacher aca-
demic support r=0.44, P < 0.01, teacher personal support r=0.39, P < 0.01, peer
academic support r=0.36, P < 0.01, and a weak correlation with achievement
268 G.M. Ghaith / System 30 (2002) 263–273

Table 2
Pearson Product–Moment correlation coefficientsa

CL TAS TPS PAS PPS AL ACH

CL 1.00 0.44** 0.39** 0.36** 0.22* 0.02 0.26**

TAS 1.00 0.62** 0.19* 0.00 0.26** 0.26**
TPS 1.00 0.29** 0.19* 0.32** 0.18*
PAS 1.00 0.47** 1.4 0.03
PPS 1.00 0.10 0.03
AL 1.00 0.28**
ACH 1.00
n 124 132 131 133 130 130 128
Mean 37.32 16.23 14.90 11.52 16.28 29.19 68.30
SD 5.37 3.06 3.03 3.11 3.07 8.45 10.98
a
CL=Cooperative Learning, TAS=Teacher Academic Support, TPS Teacher Personal Support, PAS
Peer Academic Support, PPS=Peer Personal Support, AL=Alienation, ACH=Achievement.
* Significant at P <0.05.
** Significant at P <0.01.

r=0.26, P < 0.01. However, the data reveal that cooperative learning is unrelated to
student personal support r=0.22 and to alienation r (135)= 0.02. Furthermore,
the data indicate a moderate positive correlation between teacher academic support
and teacher personal support r=0.62, P < 0.01, a weak correlation with achievement
r=0.26. P < 0.01, and a negative weak correlation with alienation r= 0.26,
P < 0.01. Similarly, the data reveal a weak positive correlation between student per-
sonal support and student academic support r=0.29, P < 0.01, and a moderate
negative correlation with alienation r= 0.32, P < 0.01. Finally, a moderate positive
correlation between student academic support and student personal support
r=0.47, P < 0.01 and a weak negative correlation between alienation from school
and achievement r= 0.28, P< 0.01 did emerge.
The results of the investigation into the significance of the main effects of the
variables under study on academic achievement are shown in Table 3.
The results reveal no significant effects for the teacher personal support on
achievement (t=0.32, P=0.74) for peer academic support (t= 0.10, P=31), and
for peer personal support (t= 0.19, P=0.84). Conversely, the analysis shows sig-
nificant effects for the variables of teacher academic support (t=1.78, P=0.07),
alienation (t= 2.47, P=0.01) and cooperative learning (t=2.02, P=0.04) on aca-
demic achievement.

3. Discussion

The results of the present study suggest the following aspects of interest. First, the
results reveal that cooperative learning is positively related to the learners’ percep-
tions of the degrees of academic and personal support provided by teachers. That is,
the more the learners were involved in cooperative study in small groups in order to
achieve joint outcomes and ensure that all group members learn assigned material
 G.M. Ghaith / System 30 (2002) 263–273 269

Table 3
Stepwise multiple regression for variablesa

Multiple R 0.37
R square 0.14
Standard error 10.45

ANOVA df SS MS F P
Regression 6 1987.72 331.28 3.03 0.00
Residual 111 12137.4 109.34

Variable B Beta t P
CL 0.67 0.17 2.02 0.04
TAS 0.55 0.31 1.78 0.07
AL 0.28 0.20 0.2.47 0.01
Constant 55.40 7.08 0.00
TPS 0.03 0.32 0.74
PAS 0.08 0.10 0.31
PPS 0.01 0.19 0.84
a
CL=Cooperative Learning, TAS=Teacher Academic Support, TPS=Teacher Personal Support,
PAS Peer Academic Support, PPS=Peer Personal Support, AL Alienation, ACH=Achievement.

(positive goal interdependence), and the more they shared materials and divided
labor among themselves (resource interdependence), the more they perceived that
their teachers care about how much they learned, like to see their work, and help
them learn because the teachers want them to do their best in their school work.
Likewise, the learners perceived that the more they practised positive goal and
resource interdependence, the more the teachers care about them, desire their
friendship, and care about their feelings as individuals. The results also reveal that
cooperative learning is positively related to the degree of academic support provided
by peers and defined as a desire on the part of learners that their classmates do their
best schoolwork. Likewise, the results indicate that cooperative learning is related to
the willingness of learners to help each other, to the degree of their caring about the
learning of all learners, and to their desire to study together every day. Furthermore,
the results reveal that cooperative learning and teacher academic support are posi-
tively related to academic achievement. These findings corroborate those of previous
correctional studies (Johnson & Johnson, 1983; Johnson et al., 1983) and experi-
mental studies (Johnson et al., 1985) who reported that cooperative learning renders
the classroom climate as being both academically and personally supportive and
enhancing.
Second, the results of this study show that teacher academic and personal sup-
ports, rather than peer academic and personal supports, are negatively correlated
with learners’ feelings of alienation from school. That is, the more the learners
received academic and personal teacher support, the more they perceived that they
could better adjust socially and psychologically at school. Conversely, peer academic
and personal supports were found to be unrelated to learners’ feelings of psychoso-
cial adjustment and alienation from school. These findings are not in agreement with
270 G.M. Ghaith / System 30 (2002) 263–273

the gist of the findings of previous research reviewed by Johnson and Johnson (1989)
who reported that peer support was found to be a stronger determinant of achieve-
ment and psychosocial adjustment than superior or teacher support. This suggests
that the valence of social support may vary across cultures. The participants in the
present study are Middle Eastern learners of EFL who come from a culture that
values teachers’ academic and personal support more than the support of peers
based on the assumption that teachers’ knowledge and status are more legitimate
and higher than those of peers.
Third, the results of this study demonstrate that the variables of cooperative
learning, teacher academic support, and alienation from school are factors that sig-
nificantly impact academic achievement. This is in agreement with the findings of
previous research that demonstrate the superiority of cooperative learning in
improving the cognitive as well as non-cognitive outcomes of schooling. The peda-
gogical implications of these findings call for the use of cooperative learning as an
instructional strategy in order to promote achievement and psychosocial adjustment
in various contexts and subjects.
In conclusion, the results of the present study add to the literature on the con-
nection of cooperative learning to social support and academic achievement. The
results are generally indicative that cooperative learning promotes an academically
and personally supportive classroom climate as well as maximizes positive inter-
dependence and achievement among learners. The results, too, indicate that the
nuances of cooperation are likely to vary across cultures given that the participants
in the present study differed from their counterparts in the populations of previous
studies in their perceptions of the valence of the sources of classroom academic and
personal support. Unlike their counterparts in other cultural and linguistic contexts
participants perceived teacher support as a stronger determinant of positive class-
room climate and achievement.
 G.M. Ghaith / System 30 (2002) 263–273 271

Appendix
272 G.M. Ghaith / System 30 (2002) 263–273

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