Chapter 2

Review of Related Literature and Studies

Foreign Studies

 A study by Gillies and Boyle (2010) saw teachers incorporate cooperative

learning into their classrooms for 4-6 weeks for two terms. Post interviews were

conducted with teachers to identify facilitators and barriers. Teachers noted a positive

change in student interaction and a general feeling of improved results. These included

comments about children getting to know each other better, accepting group roles,

learning to interact with each other, being willing to take some risks with their learning,

and managing their time more effectively. Barriers to success included students

spending time to socialize, unstructured tasks, and poor time management. Effective

cooperative learning came from explaining and explicitly outlining tasks, assigning

specific roles to each student, and explaining an effective group dynamic. Palalvi Kaul

(2010) conducted a study on ‘The Effect of Learning Together Techniques of Co-

operative Learning Method on Students Achievement in Mathematics’. The major

objective was to find out the effect 56 of the co-operative learning method over the

traditional method in teaching Mathematics in the seventh grade. It was observed that

learning technique of co-operative learning method was more effective than the

traditional method of teaching Mathematics in the seventh grade. Sandhya, R. Badhe

(2010), conducted a study on ‘Teaching Image Formation through Co-operative

Learning Method’. The major purpose was to study the effectiveness of co-operative

learning method in terms of student's responses and to study the effectiveness of work

cards in terms of response of students. The findings indicated that the co-operative
learning method had positively affected the performance of students. The use of work

cards for experiments on the topic 'image formation’ positively affected the performance

of the students. Teaching Mathematics in the seventh grade. Rita Rani Mandal (2009)

conducted a study on ‘Co-operative learning strategies to enhance writing skill’. This

study aimed to find out the effectiveness of co-operative learning strategies to enhance

writing skill. In Co-operative learning, the students were given opportunity to write and to

revive and to rewrite what they had written. They showed high level of enthusiasm,

curiosity and involvement when being taught through cooperative learning tasks. Thus,

an incorporation of these activities would be of great benefit to the student community

and helped them to enhance their writing skill. Majoka, Khan, and Shah (2011) looked

at the impact of cooperative learning and traditional methods of teaching in social

studies. The quantitative experimental study compared achievement scores among all

the students at the elementary level in public schools of the Mansehra District in

Pakistan. Participants were students in the 7th class Social Studies which contained

100 students for the sample. The control group and the experimental group each

contained 50 students. Students were placed in each group based on the mean scores

of a pre-test. Two teachers were selected for the study, each having the same

academic qualification and teaching experience. Students in the control group were

taught using a lecture method for each of the three parts of the lesson. The

experimental group experienced one day of direct teaching followed by a worksheet and

team time. Statistical tools used in the study were standard deviation, effect size, and

percentile point gain. The pre-test and post-test scores served as the data of the study.

Majoka, Khan, and Shah concluded student learning in a cooperative classroom

enhanced the students’ ability to learn in the subject of social studies. Additionally,

cooperative learning proved to be more effective than the traditional method for

students labeled as high and average achievers. The purpose of the current study was

to find factors that enhance student collaboration. The collaboration processes (task

and team regulation, mutual support and motivation, positive interaction) used by these

students were distinctly effective. During these processes, positive interdependence

was clearly present, supporting the notion that positive interdependence is a crucial

factor affecting the effectiveness of collaboration (Johnson and Johnson, 2009)

These studies tackles about cooperative learning. Base on the studies

cooperative learning has positive effect in the level of participation in the classroom of

students. Teachers noted a positive change in student interaction and a general feeling

of improved results. And cooperative learning helps to improve the personal interaction

to each other.

Local Studies

(Altamira 2013) The results of the unit tests showed that the grade averages did

climb to a higher level than they had started at. The students were working well with

each other. Not only were the grades higher, but very little explanation was needed in

going over the test. The students had a real grasp of the concepts and basically were

able to explain to the teacher what they had missed and how they could fix the error.

(Deliquiña, De Guzman 2017) Based on the findings, the researcher concluded that the

elementary Social Studies teachers are highly qualified educators and have been in the
teaching profession for quite long. The teachers strongly agreed that pupils benefit from

cooperative learning activities in Social Studies mainly through positive

interdependence specifically on the aspects that pupils will have an opportunity to gain

greater self-knowledge and can work together on specific role and specific materials.

(Russo 2014) For achievement, the results of this study confirm the findings of previous

literature, that cooperative learning can improve achievement in the subject area of

mathematics. The present findings showed that the cooperative learning strategy,

"Send-a-Problem" produced an increase in college students' achievement in

mathematics. During the control phase of the study, the average increase in score

under direct instruction was 18.26 points. When the cooperative learning strategy was

implemented during the first experimental phase, the average increase in scores from

pre to posttest almost doubled to an average increase of 31.30 points. Almost every

student increased his or her score from pre- to post-test. (Acosta 2013) In this study

assessing the effects of cooperative learning on pupils’ academic achievement in

comparison to traditional methods showed that the effectiveness of the cooperative

learning was positive. This conclusion was based on the fact that one randomized

control study and three quasi-experimental studies showed statistically significant

positive effects of cooperative learning interventions on primary pupil’s academic

achievement while no negative effects were found.

These studies said that the collaborative learning helps to increase the academic

performance of a students, and students can easily to solve the problem because of the

groupings. And it helps to increase the personal interaction.

Foreign Literature

(Holubec 2016) This book provides specific strategies for the classroom teacher

beginning to use cooperative learning or improving the use of cooperative learning. It

explains conceptually what cooperative learning is and what makes it work. Cooperative

learning is presented as a technique that helps raise the achievement of all students;

helps build positive relationships among students; and gives students experiences

necessary for healthy social, psychological, and cognitive development. Cooperative

learning replaces the mass-production, competitive organizational structure of most

classrooms and schools with a team-based, high-performance organizational structure.

In most classrooms, it is recommended that cooperative learning be used 60 to 80

percent of the time. (Rutherford 2014) There is strong evidence that collaborative

learning is beneficial to educational development. By engaging in collaborative activity,

learners utilize each other's perspectives and experiences to solve problems and

develop a shared understanding of meanings. Through dialogue and social interaction,

learners are empowered to perform outside of their own individual capabilities.

Collaborative learning has the potential to benefit learners of all levels of experience

and in a variety of situations. This edited volume showcases a series of studies of

theory and case-studies of practice. The book highlights the benefits and challenges of

collaborative inquiry, and how these are best managed in practice. (Dillenbourg 2012)

Research on collaborative learning is currently a very popular topic in education,

psychology and computer science. In recent years, educational research has attempted
to determine under what circumstances collaborative learning is more effective than

learning alone, and more recently, numerous studies have focused on computer-

mediated collaborative learning. In psychology, interest in collaborative learning is

related to the emergence of new theories such as 'shared cognition' and 'distributed

cognition'. (Gillies 2015) The emphasis in this volume is on chapters that have a strong

evidence-base for the work that is presented. This includes chapters that present

empirical studies, research reviews, case studies and theoretical reviews because there

is much to be gained by sharing and learning about what happens and how different

pedagogical practices have been implemented. These chapters include pedagogical

practices in mathematics learning, classroom-based talk, literacy, learning processes,

group work, pre-service teacher education, teacher professional development, web-

based technologies, and affective education and development. (Laal

2012) Collaborative learning (CL) is an educational approach to teaching and learning

that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task,

or create a product. This article seeks to present the basic concept of CL, enabling one

to understand it while ensuring important elements are taking into account. The term CL

refers to an instruction method in which learners at various performance levels work

together in small groups toward a common goal. Five fundamental elements involved in

CL, are: Positive interdependence, Individual and group accountability, Interpersonal

and small group skills, Face to face primitive interaction, and Group processing.

(Lane 2016) Collaborative learning develops oral communication skills in face-to face

learning, written communication skills in online learning, leadership skills, self-

management skills, assists in student retention, and is a preparation for real-life social
and employment situations]. Collaborative learning enables students to develop

teamwork skills, which is an employability skill. The collaborative learning process

enables passive learners under traditional methods to become active learners. ‘Working

in groups allows students to reflect on their learning and the effectiveness of the

strategies employed.

(Colorado 2016) Cooperative Learning has been proven to be effective for all

types of students, including academically gifted, mainstream students and English

language learners (ELLs) because it promotes learning and fosters respect and

friendships among diverse groups of students. In fact, the more diversity in a team, the

higher the benefits for each student. Peers learn to depend on each other in a positive

way for a variety of learning tasks

Local Literature

(Laguador 2014)Collaboration among the group members improves the skills of

the students to communicate in social discussion and participate in the accomplishment

of their common goal. Low performing students may tend to give up on performing his

activity alone but with the help of high performing students. The exercise would be

significant for both of them where strong students can still enhance his capability to

explain the procedure to the weak students and the process would keep them socially

matured with concern for one another. (Dela Cruz 2010) By using cooperative learning

groups for one quarter, the students did better in the fourth quarter than they had done

the previous three quarters not using the groups. The students, for the most part,

seemed to enjoy the opportunity to work with each other to try to solve some of the

more complicated problems. But what about independent thinking skills? With the
cooperative groups, some of the students relied on the other students in their group to

think of solutions and they never had to think of, or come up with, a solution on their

own. (Torres 2016) The researchers implemented the cooperative learning CIRC

strategy activities over two teaching sessions over three weeks. Utilizing a mixed-

approach research design, the researchers discovered that participants exhibited

favorable attitudes towards the CL approach with certain reservations, which tends to

affirm the effectiveness of CL. The students favored CL due to the small group size,

ability of the activity to grab their attention and make them participate, and the potential

of the activity to help them better understand the lesson. Not only did CL appeal to the

learners because of the high-level participation and interaction, it also encouraged the

learners to be more sensitive to one another, make more effective decisions, and

achieve more as a group. The researchers, however, identified a very weak relationship

between attitudes towards CL and reading comprehension, which suggests that a better

attitude towards CL does not equate to, or rather necessitate, and better reading

comprehension performance of ESL learners.

Synthesis

In those studies and literatures said that collaborative learning is effective

engaging in collaborative activity, learners utilize each other's perspectives and

experiences to solve problems and develop a shared understanding of meanings. It also

helps to improve the socialization of a students to other students because they have

communication while giving ideas or information. It also helps in the level of participation
in classroom because all students give their ideas about the topic so that the students

confidently participate in the class because he/she knows some ideas.