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Cooperative Learning
Article in Review of Educational Research · June 1980

DOI: 10.3102/00346543050002315
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Robert E. Slavin
REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 1980 50: 315
DOI: 10.3102/00346543050002315
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Review of Educational Research
Summer, 1980, Vol. 50, No. 2, Pp. 315-342
Robert E. Slavin
Johns Hopkins University
Research on classroom cooperative learning techniques, in which students

work in small groups and receive rewards or recognition based on their group
performance, has been increasing in the pastfew years. This review summarizes
the results of 28 primary field projects lasting at least 2 weeks, in which
cooperative learning methods were used in elementary or secondary class-
rooms. The pattern of research findings supports the utility of cooperative
learning methods in general for increasing student achievement, positive race
relations in desegregated schools, mutual concern among students, student
self-esteem, and other positive outcomes. The various cooperative learning
methods are contrasted in terms of characteristics and outcomes, and the next
steps for research in this area are outlined.
Cooperative learning is an old idea in education, which has experienced a

substantial revival in educational research and practice in the past few years. The
term refers to classroom techniques in which students work on learning activities in
small groups and receive rewards or recognition based on their group's performance.
Laboratory research on the effects of cooperation on performance and other variables
was already under way in the 1920's (see Mailer, 1929), but only recently have the
principles of cooperation been made into practical programs for use in schools and
evaluated as such. This paper presents a general theory and typology of cooperative
learning, reviews the research on practical cooperative learning programs, and draws
implications from this research for a new model of classroom instruction based on
cooperation as a dominant instructional mode.
Cooperative Learning and Classroom Technology

Classroom instructional technology can be described as a combination of three
essential elements: a task structure, a reward structure, and an authority structure. The
task structure is the mix of activities that make up the school day. Lecture, class
discussion, and seat work are different task structures in use in most classrooms.
Another dimension on which task structures may vary is the grouping system in use.
Students may be working on individually prescribed tasks, in homogeneous or
This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Education, No. NIE-6-78-
0210. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the
National Institute of Education, and no official endorsement by that office should be inferred.
The author would like to thank the following individuals for their comments on this paper:
Nancy Karweit, Nancy Madden, Stephen Hansell, Carole Ames, and David DeVries.
315

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
heterogeneous small groups in which students may or may not be permitted to help
one another with their work, with or without a teacher or aide, and so on.
The reward structure of the classroom may also vary on several dimensions.
Rewards for appropriate behavior vary in kind. Some possible rewards include
grades, teacher approval, and tangible rewards. They may vary in frequency, in
magnitude, and in sensitivity, the degree to which increases in performance are
matched with increases in reward.- The term interpersonal reward structure refers to
the consequences for an individual of his classmates' performance. In a competitive
reward structure, such as grading on the curve, one student's success necessitates
another's relative failure. Michaels (1977) calls this negative reward interdependence,
because students' rewards are linked to one another negatively. The opposite of
competition is cooperation, such as is present in sports teams. In cooperation, or
positive reward interdependence, one student's success helps another to be successful.
The third interpersonal reward structure is reward independence, or individualization,
where students' goal achievements are unrelated to each other.
The authority structure of the classroom refers to the control that students exercise
over their own activities, as opposed to that exercised by teachers and other adults.
In some classrooms students have considerable choice about what they will study,
how they will learn what they need to learn, in what order they will do a prescribed
set of tasks, and in some cases students have a say in how much they will do to earn
a certain grade. The authority structure is relatively unidimensional, varying from
high student autonomy in any of several domains of student activities to high teacher-
or school-imposed structure.
Cooperative learning may involve changes in all three of the major elements of
classroom technology, but it is primarily a change in the interpersonal reward
structure of the classroom, from a competitive reward structure to a cooperative one.
Of course, other changes are almost unavoidable, such as a change from a primarily
individual task structure with frequent whole-class instruction to a task structure
characterized by student interaction in small groups. Other changes in the reward,
task, and authority structures of the classroom always accompany the implementation
of cooperative learning techniques, and these changes are confounded with the
change in reward structure. However, cooperative learning grew out of a laboratory
tradition in social psychology that was clearly focused on the changes in reward
structures, and the research on cooperative learning involves task and authority
structure changes as secondary in interest to the changes in the interpersonal reward
structure.
A Brief Theory of Reward Structures

Although an elaborate theory of reward structures is beyond the scope of this
review, a brief statement is necessary for understanding the research. There are two
primary outcomes that are important in research on reward structures: performance
and cohesiveness. Performance refers to individual and group productivity on any of
a variety of tasks; cohesiveness includes such variables as liking of others, feeling of
being liked, group evaluation, race relations, and so on. These major categories of
outcomes have very different theoretical bases, and are thus discussed separately.
Performance. A theory of the effects of different reward structures on performance
is anything but straightforward. This is true because changes in reward structures
316

COOPERATIVE LEARNING
often lead to mediating variables that have contradictory effects on performance.

The kind of performance and its measure, the task, the particular form of the reward
structure, and other factors make these mediating variables more or less important,
and thus determine the net direction of the effect on performance.
There are several issues that need to be considered in predicting the effects of
different reward structures on performance. Some of these are listed as follows:
1. How contingent are an individual's rewards on performance? That is, what are
the chances that if an individual works hard, the extra work will be detected,
recognized, and rewarded, and that if the individual does not work up to capacity
that the rewards will be diminished. This is the probability of success given greater
or lesser effort discussed by Slavin (1977a).
2. How large are the potential rewards for performance? Note that with the
probability of success described above, this is the familiar incentive value of success—
probability of success model proposed by Atkinson (1958) and many others. This
model posits a multiplicative relationship between incentive value of success and
probability of success.
3. Are others likely to help or hinder task performance?
Consideration of the effects of changes in reward structures makes it clear why the
answer to the question "Which reward structure has the most positive effects on
performance?" must be that it depends on the task, the performance and its measure,
and many other features. First, consider cooperation, or positive reward interde-
pendence. In general, participation in a cooperative group reduces the degree to
which individual performances lead to individual outcomes. A group member can
have an off day and still be successful because his or her groupmates cover for the
individual; a group member may work especially hard and still fail because the rest
of the group does not match his or her efforts. The larger the group, the greater the
reduction in the degree to which rewards depend on an individual's performance
(see Slavin, 1977a, for a discussion of this issue).
On the other hand, the reward delivered to the group is not the only one present
in a cooperative contingency, and it may be the least important one. When individuals
in a cooperative contingency want to be rewarded, they have two primary means of
increasing their chances. First, they can work hard themselves. But, second, they can
try to influence or help their groupmates to do their best. That is, a cooperative
contingency sets up a situation in which group members administer a highly
contingent reward structure with their groupmates; if they do what helps the group
to be rewarded, they receive praise; if they do not, they receive blame. Even if praise
and blame are not directly delivered, a cooperative reward structure can create a
general group norm favoring performance (Thomas, 1957). Also, group members are
motivated to help one another to be successful, and will facilitate one another's
performance with whatever means they have.
Thus, cooperative reward structures reduce performance by reducing the connec-
tion between performance and outcome, and they increase performance by introduc-
ing interpersonal rewards for individual behavior, group norms favoring performance
that helps the group to achieve its goals, and help among group members. The net
outcome depends on how much each of these factors is made important. For example,
on some tasks, such as solving a single problem as a group, help from group members
may be very useful, so a cooperative reward structure is likely to be effective. If the
317

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
task requires that each group member solve his or her own problem, group help
doesn't help so much, and an individualistic or competitive reward structure might
be just as good or better. On some tasks, group members can see how their groupmates
are doing and can reward them effectively; on other tasks they cannot, so it may be
unlikely that group member praise will work to increase individual performance (see
Jones & Vroom, 1964).
Note that there is very little theoretical distinction between pure group cooperation
and competition between groups, in most cases. Looking within the group, group
competition is just another form of positive reward interdependence. All of the
problems and benefits associated with cooperation as just described apply equally
well to group competition; the group competition is just one way of establishing a
criterion for group success. The one major distinction between group cooperation
and group competition is the possibility of negative affect and hindering between
groups, as documented by Sherif and Sherif (1953), but the essential motivational
dynamics within the team are the same in either reward structure. The few studies
that have compared "pure" group cooperation to group competition have found few
differences in effects (e.g. Grossack, 1954; Hammond & Goldman, 1961; Julian &
Perry, 1967).
In a competitive reward structure, the relationship between performance and
outcome depends on the competitive standard, the way rewards are distributed, and
the individual's ability (or perceived ability) compared to the performance level
needed to be successful. For example, there is no relationship between performance
and outcome, and thus very little motivation, in a competition where the competitors
are so poorly matched that some cannot win and others cannot lose, or where there
is such a large chance component that incremental performance does not result in an
increased chance of success. On the other hand, to the degree that competitors are
evenly matched and success objectively depends on effort, competition can be a
highly contingent reward structure.
The size of rewards for competition also depends on the particular task. In addition
to extrinsic rewards for competitive success, it is apparently satisfying to many just
to "best" a competitor. The degree to which "beating" itself is valued is at least in
part culturally determined; white American children, for example, will choose to
sacrifice rewards for themselves if they can make their opponents lose even to a
greater extent than will Mexican-American or black children (Madsen and Shapiro,
1970). Another variable in the achievement of competitive rewards is the perceived
difficulty of the task. As Atkinson (1958) points out, competitive success in a situation
with a high probability of success is less satisfying than with a moderate or low
probability of success.
One set of rewards works against high performance in competitive reward struc-
tures. This is the interpersonal reward system. While peer norms and sanctions favor
high performance in cooperative settings, they oppose it in competitive ones, because
one person's success necessitates another person's failure. This peer opposition to
performance is very important in places like schools, where standing out as an
academic achiever may lead to social disapproval (Coleman, 1961), and delinquent
groups (Graubard, 1969). Similarly, fellow competitors will be motivated to hinder
one another's performances. The degree to which this interferes with performance
depends on how much hindering hinders. For example, if a group of detectives are
competing for a promotion, they might refuse to share clues on a common case that
318

would help all of them solve a crime. On the other hand, if the detectives were
working on different cases, it would be harder for their competitors to hinder their
performance.
Individualization is the simplest reward structure. The connection between per-
formance and outcome depends entirely on how sensitive the reward system is to
individual performance variations, how attainable standards are, and so on. Of
course, these considerations are also important in cooperative and competitive reward
structures. Individuals in an independent reward structure are not motivated to help
or hinder one another, or to praise or discourage one another's performance.
Cohesiveness. A theory of effects of different reward structures on cohesiveness-
related variables is easier to describe than is the theory of effects on performance,
but still has its complications. Cooperation should increase group cohesiveness both
because it increases contact among group members (Lott & Lott, 1965) and because
people tend to like those who facilitate their own rewards (Johnson & Johnson,
1972). Individualization should not help group cohesiveness, because it does not
involve interpersonal contact or facilitation of reward among group members. The
case of competition is more complicated. In face-to-face competition, interpersonal
contact can be quite high and can be rewarding to the competitors, particularly if
they are balanced in ability. Operating in the opposite direction, however, is the fact
that competitors frustrate each others' goal achievement, and thus will not be viewed
positively. While cooperation should lead to greater group cohesiveness than indi-
vidualization, the relative effects of competition should depend on the particular
form of the competition, including the importance of success to each competitor.
Classroom Cooperative Learning Techniques

The bulk of the research on practical cooperative learning techniques has focused
on four major models: Teams-Games-Tournament (DeVries & Slavin, 1978b);
Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (Slavin, 1978b); Jigsaw (Aronson, 1978); and
Small-Group Teaching (Sharan & Sharan, 1976). These techniques are emphasized
in this review both because they have been well researched in field settings and
because they are well-defined teaching strategies that are in use in many classrooms.
All four have books or manuals written about them so that teachers can easily
implement them. Other classroom research involving less widely used cooperative
techniques is also reviewed.
Teams-Games-Tournament. Teams-Games-Tournament (TGT) is built around two
major components: 4- to 5-member student teams, and instructional tournaments.
The teams are the cooperative element of TGT. Students are assigned to teams
according to a procedure that maximizes heterogeneity of ability levels, sex, and race.
The primary function of the team is to prepare its members to do well in the
tournament. Following an initial class presentation by the teacher, the teams are
given worksheets covering academic material similar to that to be included in the
tournament. Teammates study together and quiz each other to be sure that all team
members are prepared.
After the team practice session, team members must demonstrate their learning in
the tournament, which is usually held once each week. For the tournament, students
are assigned to three person "tournament tables." The assignment is done so that
competition at each table will be fair—the highest three students in past performance
319

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
are assigned to Table 1, the next three to Table 2, and so on. At the tables, the
students compete at simple academic games covering content that has been presented
in class by the teacher and on the worksheets. Students at the tournament tables are
competing as representatives of their teams, and the score each student earns at his
or her tournament table is added into an overall team score. Because students are
assigned to ability-homogeneous tournament tables, each student has an equal
chance of contributing a maximum score to his or her team, as the first place scorer
at every table brings the same number of points to his or her team. Following the
tournament, the teacher prepares a newsletter which recognizes successful teams and
first place scorers. While team assignments always remain the same, tournament
table assignments are changed for every tournament according to a system that
maintains equality of past performance at each table. For a complete description of
Teams-Games-Toumament, see Slavin (1978c).
Student Teams-Achievement Divisions. Student Teams-Achievement Divisions
(STAD) uses the same 4- to 5-member heterogeneous teams used in TGT, but
replaces the games and tournaments with simple, 15-minute quizzes, which students
take after studying in their teams. The quiz scores are translated into team scores
using a system called "achievement divisions." The quiz scores of the highest six
students in past performance are compared, and the top scorer in this group (the
achievement division) earns eight points for his or her team, the second scorer earns
six points, and so forth. Then the quiz scores of the next highest six students in past
performance are compared, and so on. In this way, student scores are compared only
with those of an ability-homogeneous reference group instead of the entire class. A
"bumping" procedure changes division assignments from week to week to maintain
equality. Students know only their own division assignments; they do not interact in
any way with the other members of their division. The achievement division feature
maintains the equality of opportunity for contributions to the team score as in TGT.
A complete description of STAD appears in Slavin (1978c).
Jigsaw. In Jigsaw, students are assigned to small heterogeneous teams, as in TGT
and STAD. Academic material is broken into as many sections as there are team
members. For example, a biography might be broken into "early years," "schooling,"
"first accomplishments," and so forth. The students study their sections with members
of other teams who have the same sections. Then they return to their teams and
teach their sections to the other team members. Finally, all team members are
quizzed on the entire unit. The quiz scores contribute to individual grades, not to a
team score as in TGT and STAD. In this sense, the Jigsaw technique may be seen as
high in task interdependence but low in reward interdependence, as individual
performances do not contribute directly to a group goal. In the Jigsaw technique,
individual performances contribute to others' individual goals only; since the group
is not rewarded as a group, there is no formal group goal. However, because the
positive behavior of each team member (learning the sections) helps the other group
members to be rewarded (because they need each other's information), the essential
dynamics of the cooperative reward structure are present.
Slavin (1978a) constructed a modification of Jigsaw called Jigsaw II. In Jigsaw II,
students all read the same material but focus on separate topics. The students from
different teams who have the same topics meet to discuss their topics, and then return
to teach them to their teammates. The team members then take a quiz, and the quiz
320

scores are used to form team scores as in STAD. Thus, Jigsaw II involves less task
interdependence and more reward interdependence than Jigsaw.
Small-Group Teaching. Small-Group Teaching is a general classroom organiza-
tional plan in which learning takes place through cooperative group inquiry, discus-
sion, and data gathering by students. Students select subtopics within a general area
selected by the teacher, and then organize themselves into small groups of two to six
members. These groups further subdivide their topic into individual tasks to be
performed by group members in preparation for a group presentation to the total
class. This group presentation is then evaluated by the other students and by the
teacher. Thus, Small-Group Teaching is very high in student autonomy and involves
a high degree of task interdependence because of the assignment of students to
special tasks within the group, but it is relatively low in group reward interdependence
(group rewards are not well-defined) and individual accountability.
Other Classroom Studies

In addition to the four major techniques, there have been several studies of
cooperative learning that contribute to understanding of their effects. They differ
from the four techniques just described primarily in that they have been used almost
exclusively in research, and are not in wide classroom use.
Three of these studies (Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, & Anderson, 1976; Johnson,
Johnson, & Scott, 1978; Cooper, Johnson, Johnson, & Wilderson, in press) used a
simple cooperative technique in which students were assigned to small groups and
instructed to work together on academic tasks and hand in a single assignment as a
group. The teachers praised the group as a whole, but no formal group rewards were
given. This cooperative technique resembles practical techniques presented in John-
son and Johnson's book, Learning Together and Alone (1975), but are not similar
enough for the studies of them to constitute an evaluation of the strategies outlined
in the book.
Two studies (Wheeler & Ryan, 1973; Wheeler, Note 1) used a cooperative
technique like that used by the Johnsons, but considerably more structured. Students
were assigned roles within cooperative groups and worked on social studies inquiry
activities to produce a single workbook. The group making the best workbook
received a prize.
Weigel, Wiser, and Cook (1975) used a combination of cooperative techniques
over a long period of time (in their junior high school sample an entire school year).
These techniques involved various small-group activities, with information-gathering,
discussion, and interpretation conducted by the student groups. Prizes were given to
winning groups based on the quality of the group product.
Hamblin, Hathaway, and Wodarski (1971) used a group contingency for academic
performance, in which students earned rewards based on (1) the lowest three quiz
scores in the group, (2) the highest three scores, or (3) the average group score.
Students were encouraged to work together to improve their scores.
A Typology of Cooperative Learning Techniques

Classroom cooperative learning techniques differ primarily along five dimensions:
reward interdependence, task interdependence, individual accountability, teacher-
imposed structure, and use or nonuse of group competition. High reward interde-
321

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
pendence means that there is an explicit group reward based on the group's
performance. Low reward interdependence describes a situation in which students
are asked to work with one another and are praised as a group, but group performance
does not lead to a concrete goal in any systematic way. Jigsaw represents a special
case of low reward interdependence; there is no formal group goal, but the task
interdependence is so extreme that reward interdependence is indirectly created.
Students cannot do well on their quizzes unless their teammates teach them well, as
each group member has unique information. High task interdependence refers to a
situation in which students must rely on one another to do their group tasks. In low
task interdependence, individual students could opt to work alone without disrupting
the group activity. Of course, "high" and "low" task interdependence are relative
terms among cooperative learning techniques; even a technique very low in task
interdependence would be high in comparison to a traditional, individual task
structure.
High individual accountability means that team members' contributions to their
team scores are separately quantifiable. For example, in TGT and STAD the team
scores are made up of the sum of individual, quantifiable scores. This is in contrast
to the Johnson techniques, where a single paper is handed in by the group and
individual contributions are impossible to quantify. Individual accountability is a
particularly important feature, as without it, it is possible for group members to let
others do most of the work in meeting the group goal. The opposite of individual
accountability is substitutability, the condition in which all group members have the
same task and can substitute for one another in performing the task. Teacher-
imposed structure refers to the degree to which tasks, rewards, and schedules are
imposed by the teacher (or by the technique). The opposite of teacher-imposed
structure is high student autonomy and student participation in classroom decision-
making. The use of group competition means that a prize or recognition is given to
the highest scoring groups in the class.
Table I summarizes the cooperative techniques including Jigsaw II in terms of
reward interdependence, task interdependence, individual accountability, teacher-
imposed structure, and use of group competition.
As is indicated in Table I, the techniques vary a great deal along the five
dimensions. At present there are no data to inform a prediction about the separate
effects of these dimensions on any of the dependent variables, as they have not been
systematically varied. Most effects of cooperative reward structures have been
attributed to reward interdependence (see, for example, Johnson & Johnson, 1974),
yet at least some degree of task interdependence is usually confounded with the
reward interdependence.
The typology presented in Table I gives a rough outline of the characteristics of
cooperative learning techniques that is useful in understanding the different effects
that these methods have had on major student outcomes.
The Research
The research on the various cooperative learning techniques has been conducted
in field experiments, in which the cooperative techniques were compared to control
classes and often (in the TGT and STAD studies) to modifications or components of
the techniques. This review is restricted to field studies in which practical techniques
322

were implemented by teachers in classrooms for at least two weeks to differentiate

them from shorter term laboratory studies. The studies vary widely in terms of
designs, measures, populations, and other features, which makes it difficult to
compare results from study to study or, more importantly, from technique to
technique. For example, the Johnson studies and some of the TGT studies used
random assignment of students to treatments, while in the STAD studies and the
other TGT studies, random assignment was done only at the classroom level. In the
Jigsaw and Small-Group Teaching studies, teachers who volunteered to use the
cooperative techniques were "matched" with control teachers who did not have a
chance to volunteer for the experimental groups. In most of the STAD and Jigsaw
studies the control groups did exactly what the experimental groups did, including
studying the same curriculum materials and following the same schedule of testing
and worksheet work. The control groups were given more general objectives and left
to their own devices to achieve them in most of the TGT and Small-Group Teaching
studies. There are additional differences in measures, statistical procedures (including
use or nonuse of pretests and other information as covariates), and other features
that make direct comparison of techniques by looking at presence or absence of
positive results in various studies difficult.
Table II summarizes the major features of the research on cooperative learning
techniques.
Outcomes
Three outcomes of cooperative learning are emphasized in this review: academic
achievement, race relations, and mutual concern among students. These were chosen
because they are the outcomes most common in studies of cooperative learning that
are most valued by schools. Other outcomes that have also been measured in
cooperative learning studies but are not presented in Table III include student liking
of school, self-esteem, time on-task, ability to take the perspective of another person,
and various measures of cooperativeness and competitiveness. These outcomes are
also very important, but they were not measured frequently enough in the different
studies for comparisons to be made between techniques.
TABLE I
Characteristics of Cooperative Learning Techniques
Group
Reward Task In- Teacher-
Individual Ac- Compe-
Techniques Interde- terde- Imposed
countability tition
pendence pendence Structure
Used
TGT High Low High High Yes

STAD High Low High High Yes
Jigsaw Low High High High No
Jigsaw II High High High High Yes
Small-Group Teaching Low High Low Low No
Johnson techniques Low Low Low Low No
Wheeler techniques High High Low High Yes
Weigel et al. techniques High Low Low Low Yes
Hamblin et al. techniques High Low High High No
323

R O B E R T E. SLAVIN
TABLE II
Characteristics of Cooperative Learning Studies
Number Level of
Grade Duration
Major Reports of Stu Level (Weeks) Random Kind of School
dents Assignment
TGT
1. Edwards, DeVries, & 96 1 9 Class Urban East
Snyder(l972)
2. DeVries & Edwards 110 1 4 Student Urban East
(1973)
3. Edwards & DeVries 128 Ί 12 Student Urban East
(Note 4)
4. Hulten & DeVries 299 Ί 10 Class Urban East
(Note 5)
5. DeVries, Edwards, & 191 10-12 12 Class Suburban South
Wells (Note 6)
6. DeVries & Mescon 60 3 6 Student Suburban East
(Note 7)
7. DeVries, Mescon, & 53 3 6 Student Suburban East
Shackman (Note 8)
8. DeVries, Mescon, & 53 3 5 Student Suburban East
Shackman (Note 9)
9. DeVries, Lucasse, & 1742 7-8 10 Teacher Suburban Mid
Shackman (Note 10) west
10. Slavin, (1977c) 57 7-9 10 Teacher Suburban East
(Emotionally
Disturbed Ad
olescents)
STAD
11. Slavin, (1978a) 205 Ί 10 Class Eastern Rural
Town
12. Slavin, (1977b) 62 Ί 10 Class Urban East
13. Slavin (in press) 424 4 12 Class Rural East
14. Slavin (1979) 424 7-8 12 Class Urban East
15. Slavin & Oickle (Note 230 6-8 12 Class Rural East
11)
16. Madden & Slavin (Note 175 3-6 6 Class Urban East
12)
Jigsaw
17. Blaney, Stephan, 304 5-6 6 Non-Ran Urban Southwest
Rosenfíeld, Aronson, dom
&Sikes(1977)
18. Lucker, Rosenfīeld, 303 5-6 2 Non-Ran Urban Southwest
Sikes, & Aronson dom
(1976)
19. Gonzales (Note 3) 326 9-12 10 Norn-Ran Western Rural
dom Town
Combined Program (TGT, STAD, Jigsaw II)
20. Slavin (Note 13) 559 4-5 16 Non-Ran- Rural East
dom
324

T A B L E II Continued
Number Level of
Major Reports of Stu- Grade Duration Kind of School
Random
dents Level (Weeks) Assignment
Small-Group Teaching
21. Sharan, Hertz-Lazaro- 217 2-6 3 Non-Ran- Israel
witz, & Ackerman (in dom
press)
Other Studies
22. Johnson et al. (1976) 30 5 4 Student Urban Midwest
23. Johnson, Johnson, & 30 5-6 10 Student Suburban Mid-
Scott (1978) west
24. Cooper et al. (in press) 60 7 3 Student Urban Midwest
25. Wheeler & Ryan (1973) 88 5-6 4 Student Suburban Mid-
west
26. Wheeler (Note 1) 40 5-6 2 Student Southern Rural
Town
27. Weigel, Wiser, & Cook 324 7-10 30 Class Urban West
(1975) (Gr. 7)
20
(Gr. 10)
28. Hamblin, Hathaway, & 38 4 3 Student Urban Midwest
Wodarski(l97l)
The measurement of "achievement" is always difficult. Many studies used curric-

ulum-specific tests to measure achievement. This is legitimate only when the content
and rate of progress in experimental and control groups is held strictly constant;
otherwise, students could be learning things other than what they were tested on to
different degrees in the different treatments. Other studies used only standardized
tests, which have the problem of being so comprehensive that they are insensitive to
change due to treatments. Achievement tests can measure facts and low-level skills,
or they may measure high-level understanding of material. Only the Sharan studies
make a specific breakdown of treatment effects by the concept level of the test, but
lack of concrete understanding of what constitutes "achievement" may explain
contradictory outcomes in different studies.
The same may be true of race relations, mutual concern, and the other variables.
Some researchers used sociometric measures of cross-racial friendship choices with
unlimited choices, others used limited choices, others used attitude scales without
sociometric measures. Mutual concern was measured by questionnaires, by socio-
metric devices, or by interview. Again, differences in measures rather than differences
in actual program effects may account for apparent program differences.
Table III summarizes the effects of the various cooperative learning techniques on
academic achievement, race relations, and mutual concern among students. A " + "
indicates a statistically significant effect as compared to a control group; a "0"
indicates no difference, and a " - " indicates a negative effect. In many cases the
existence of a " + " is qualified in the text by the observation that positive effects were
325

TABLE III
Effects of Cooperative Learning Techniques on Learning, Race Relations, and Mutual Concern
Academic Achievement
Study Race Rela- Mutual
Subject Area Curricu-
Number Standard- tions Concern
lum-Spe-
ized Test
cific Test
TGT
1 Mathematics + + +
2 Mathematics + 0 +
3a Mathematics + + +
3b Social Studies 0
4 Mathematics +
5 Social Studies + 0 + +
6 Language Arts + + 0
7 Language Arts + + 0
8a Reading Vocabulary +
8b Verbal Analogies +
9 Language Arts + 0 +
10 Social Studies 0 0 +
STAD
11 Language Arts 0 0 +
12 Language Arts + + + 0
13 Language Arts + + +
14 Language Arts 0 0 + +
15 Language Arts 0 + + 0
16 Mathematics +
Jigsaw
17 Social Studies 0
18 Social Studies +
19 Social Studies +
Combined Program
20a Mathematics 0 +
20b Language Arts (STAD) +
20c Social Studies (Jigsaw II) 0
2Od Reading (Jigsaw II or +
STAD)
Small-group Teaching
21 Social Studies
21a (a) Grade 2 +
21b (b) Grade 3 0
21c (c) Grade 4 +
2ld (d) Grade 5 0
2le (e) Grade 6 +
Other Studies
22 Language Arts 0
23 Mathematics -
24 Science, English, Geog- + +
raphy
326

TABLE III Continued

Academic Achievement
Study Race Rela- Mutual
Subject Area Curricu-
Number Standard- tions Concern
lum-Spe-
ized Test
cific Test
25 Social Studies 0
26 Social Studies +
27 English +
28 Spelling, Mathematics, +
Reading
Note. + = statistically significant effect favoring experimental group, 0 =

no difference, - = statistically significant effect favoring control group.
found on some but not all measures, or were only marginally significant. The
standardized tests vary depending on the subject matter and the grade levels, while
the curriculum-specific tests are tests made up by the experimenters to measure the
objectives pursued by the experimental and control groups. The studies listed in
Table II and III are all those known to the author that met the criterion of at least
2 week's duration and measured one or more of the three major dependent variables:
achievement, race relations, and mutual concern.
Teams-Games-Tournament. TGT is the most widely researched of the cooperative
learning techniques. As is indicated in Table II, 10 studies varying widely in subject
area, design, populations, and other features have been conducted to evaluate TGT.
Table III shows that TGT has also been used in the largest number of studies in
which positive effects on academic achievement were found on at least one measure
(nine). Interestingly, two of the three studies in which the subject matter was social
studies failed to find significantly positive effects on the standardized test or on the
curriculum-specific test. The third study in social studies (No. 5) found only a
marginally significant result (p < .10).
Four of the TGT studies took place in integrated schools. In three of those the
TGT students named a larger number of their classmates of other races as "friends"
on a sociometric instrument than did the control students, controlling for pretest
cross-racial choices (DeVries, Edwards, & Slavin, 1978). In two of these studies, the
percentage of cross-racial choices made over all choices was within five percentage
points of the choice pattern that would have been observed if race were not a criterion
for friendship. This is a remarkable finding in consideration of the frequent finding
that integrated students decrease over time in cross-racial friendship choices (see
Gerard & Miller, 1975), but it is not at all unusual among cooperative learning
techniques of all kinds, as this review demonstrates.
Mutual concern among students was measured in seven of the TGT studies. The
measure used was a questionnaire scale adapted from Walberg and Anderson's
(1968) Learning Environment Inventory, which consists of items concerning students'
liking of their classmates and feelings of being liked by them. Positive effects on this
variable were found in five of the seven studies. The two in which these effects were
not found were studies in third grades, where the scales were less reliable than in the
higher grades and where there were problems with ceiling effects.
Several of the TGT studies found additional positive effects of this strategy. In
327

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
four of nine studies in which student liking of school was measured, positive effects
for TGT were found. The other five showed no difference; again, in most cases this
was due to initially positive attitudes toward school in both TGT and control
classrooms. In seven studies, peer norms concerning the importance of doing well
academically were measured; in five of these, TGT students exceeded control students
in the degree to which they felt others wanted them to do their best academically. In
one study (No. 9), positive TGT effects were found on the Social Self-Esteem scale
of the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith, 1975). Study No. 10
involved emotionally disturbed adolescents. In that study, positive effects of TGT
were found on increasing interpersonal attraction among students; these effects were
maintained in a follow-up 5 months after the study.
Three of the TGT studies examined variations of TGT to discover which compo-
nents accounted for the observed effects. Study No. 4 used a 2 × 2 factorial design
to determine the separate effects of the team reward and team practice components
of TGT. This study found that while the team reward was important in increasing
achievement, the team practice (peer tutoring) was not. This unexpected finding was
replicated for STAD in study No. 13, and indicates that it is possibly the use of team
recognition and the peer norms favoring achievement that result from cooperative
reward structures (see Thomas, 1957) which account for the positive effects of teams
on performance, not the opportunity for students to interact and help one another.
Two of the studies (Nos. 3 and 5) varied the systems used to compute team scores.
In study No. 3, the performance of high achievers was weighted by having scores
earned by high achievers count more than those earned by low achievers, while in
study No. 5 the scores of the low achievers were weighted. Neither of these scoring
systems had any effect on student performance or attitudes.
Although many of the TGT studies investigated interaction of the treatments with
past achievement and sex, no consistent patterns of interaction were observed for
either variable. No sex x treatment interactions were found, and while one study
(No. 16) found TGT to be more effective with low performers than high performers,
another study (No. 2) found the opposite pattern. It seems safest to say that TGT
probably has equal effects on students of both sexes and all levels of past achievement.
Possible interactions of TGT effects with student age and the subject matter
studied are difficult to determine, as the different levels of these variables are difficult
to evaluate in the same study. However, the overall pattern of results suggests that
TGT is less effective in social studies than in more objective subjects such as
mathematics, language arts, and reading vocabulary. There is no clear pattern of
results with respect to student age.
In summary, TGT has been shown to have relatively consistent positive results on
student achievement, race relations, mutual concerns, and other variables. The effects
have been obtained in widely varying settings, subject areas, and grades, which
argues strongly for the generality and strength of the technique. The research strongly
suggests that the effects on achievement appear to be due more to the use of a
cooperative reward structure than to the opportunity for peer tutoring provided by
the teams, and these effects have few interactions with subject or setting character-
istics.
Student Teams-Achievement Divisions. STAD is the simplest cooperative learning
technique of those reviewed here; in its basic form it is simply a group contingency
for academic performance, where "academic performance" is defined as better
328

performance than that of a comparison group (the achievement division). As such,

it is of particular research interest as a relatively "pure" form of a cooperative
technique, without many of the additional components that make the origin of the
effects for the other techniques unclear.
As is shown in Table HI, STAD exceeded control techniques in increasing learning
in four of the six studies in which achievement was measured. There is no pattern to
these results in terms of subject matter (which was constant) or grade level. One
possible reason the achievement results for STAD are somewhat less consistent than
those for TGT is that the control groups for STAD were more stringent. In each
case, control students studied exactly the same academic materials on the same
schedule as the STAD students. In all of the TGT studies except No. 10, the control
groups had the same objectives and had the same material available as the TGT
groups, but the teachers were not held to the same highly structured schedule of
instruction. Of course, the use of the games in TGT could also explain the difference
in achievement effects. The findings of positive achievement effects even in contrast
to the structured control groups gives stronger support to the conclusion that STAD
does increase academic achievement.
The effects of STAD on race relations are even stronger and more consistent than
those for TGT. All three STAD studies in integrated schools showed positive effects
of teams on cross-racial friendship choices. Further, a followup of study No. 14 found
that 9 months after the conclusion of the study, students who had been in the
experimental (STAD) groups still made significantly more cross-racial friendship
choices than former control group students. A secondary analysis of study No. 14
also showed that the treatment effects on cross-racial friendships were equal for
blacks and whites, boys and girls, and high and low achievers, and that they were
stronger for close, mutual friendship choices than distant or unreciprocated ones
(Hansell & Slavin, Note 2).
Positive effects of STAD on mutual concern were found in three of six studies.
Behavioral observers were used in four studies to determine the percentage of time
that students spent on-task (focusing on learning activities). In three of these, STAD
students were on-task more than control students; in the fourth (No. 15) there was no
difference.
In one of the studies (No. 16), the students were mainstreamed, academically
handicapped as well as normal progress students. In addition to increasing achieve-
ment for all students, the STAD treatment reduced the number of mainstreamed
students rejected by their normal progress classmates on a sociometric instrument.
Positive effects for all students on self esteem were also found in this study.
Two of the STAD studies used factorial designs to separately assess important
components of the technique. In study No. 13, a 2 × 2 factorial design varied team
reward and team practice (peer tutoring), replicating the design of TGT study No. 4.
This study similarly found positive effects of the team factor on academic achieve-
ment, but not the team practice. This study also used an external, completely
untreated control group, which was simply given the study objectives but not given
the focused schedule of instruction used in all of the treatments in the factorial
design. The performance of this group was much lower than that of any of the
treatments that used the focused schedule, supporting a conclusion that the focused
schedule of teaching, worksheet work, and quiz is a major explanation for the
effectiveness of STAD and probably TGT.
329

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
In study No. 11, a 2 × 2 factorial design varied use or nonuse of student teams and
achievement divisions. No effects were found for academic achievement, but for the
percent of time on-task the team factor was much more important than the achieve-
ment divisions.
As was the case for TGT, no consistent interactions *were found between the
treatment effects and sex or past achievement. However, in studies Nos. 12 and 15,
a substantial race x treatment interaction was found on achievement, due to greater
gains relative to controls by blacks than by whites. This interaction did not replicate
in one study, No. 14. An interaction between race and treatment for race relations,
favoring greater increases in blacks being listed as friends by whites, than whites by
blacks in the experimental group, was found in study No. 15, but no such interaction
was found in study No. 14 (see Hansell & Slavin, Note 2).
In summary, the research on STAD further supports the positive effects of
structured cooperative learning techniques on academic achievement and race rela-
tions. One study supports the finding of a TGT study (No. 4) that the achievement
effects are due to the team reward rather than team practice; a second study found
further that a significant part (but not all) of the effect of STAD on learning was due
to the use of a focused schedule of instruction. The positive effects of STAD on
students' time on-task adds to a suggestion that STAD may impact achievement in
part because it is a highly structured approach to classroom instruction.
Jigsaw. There have been only two studies of Jigsaw that measured any of the three
major variables in Table II, although two additional studies involved other variables.
Jigsaw is the cooperative learning technique, which used the most structured form of
team interaction. In TGT and STAD students are given a goal of making sure they
and their teammates know a set of academic materials so that all can do well in a
quiz or game, but the way they do this is not clearly specified. Jigsaw, with its
structured cooperation on the group task but no explicit group goal, is an example of
low reward interdependence and high task interdependence.
Positive effects of Jigsaw on achievement have been found in one study, No. 18.
In that study, which lasted only two weeks, black and Chicano students in the Jigsaw
groups learned more than those in the control classes, but there were no differences
between the Anglos in each treatment. A second study (No. 17) and two pilot studies
preceding it found no differences between Jigsaw and control groups in achievement,
although these studies were not specifically designed to assess student achievement.
The effects of Jigsaw on race relations is also apparently positive, but the evidence
is indirect. In study No. 17, which took place in 13 integrated classrooms (10
experimental, 3 control), Jigsaw students gained in liking for their groupmates more
than for their nongroupmate classmates. Because assignment to groups was done to
maximize heterogeneity on ethnicity, a chooser's groupmates are more likely to be of
another ethnic group than the class as a whole; thus, a gain in liking of groupmates
could possibly be a gain in cross-ethnic attraction. However, lacking a direct measure
of cross-ethnic attraction, this effect must be considered questionable. Gonzales
(Note 3) found more positive attitudes toward Mexican-Americans by Anglos as a
consequence of a Jigsaw intervention, but found no effects on attitudes toward
Anglos or Asians.
Jigsaw effects on mutual concern are also unclear. In study No. 17, there were no
experimental-control differences in overall liking of classmates, but the control group
increased significantly more than the experimental group in feelings of being liked,
330

a most unusual finding in research on cooperative groups. On the other hand, liking
among groupmates increased in the Jigsaw classes, while liking for nongroupmates
did not decrease, suggesting a positive effect on mutual concern. Again, this set of
findings is in need of replication.
One finding that is particularly characteristic of Jigsaw is a positive effect on
students' self-esteem. This was found in study No. 17 and was replicated by Geffner
(Note 14), although Gonzales (Note 3) failed to find the effect. These effects are
probably due to Jigsaw's system of giving each group member unique information
needed by the group, thus making each student a special resource for his or her
group. Study No. 17 also found positive effects for Jigsaw on liking of school for
Anglos and blacks, but not Chicanos, and found that while Jigsaw students felt less
competitive toward their classmates over time, control students felt more so. Finally,
Jigsaw students saw their classmates as learning resources more than did control
students. Bridgeman (Note 15) found that participation in Jigsaw increased children's
abilities to take the perspective of others, and Gonzales found that Jigsaw increased
students' internal locus of control.
In summary, Jigsaw has had relatively consistent positive effects on student self-
esteem. The effects are unclear for academic achievement, race relations, liking of
school, and mutual concern.
Combined program. In one study, three of the major cooperative learning methods
were combined for use with the same students at the same time. In this study (No.
20), fourth- and fifth-grade students experienced TGT in mathematics, STAD in
language arts, and a modification of Jigsaw in social studies. The modification of
Jigsaw (Jigsaw II) involved having students read all of a set of narrative material and
become "experts" on particular topics, rather than having the material cut into
mutually exclusive sections. Further, the quiz scores earned by individual students
were summed into team scores, and team scores were recognized in a class newsletter
(as in TGT and STAD). Thus, Jigsaw II encompasses both high-reward interde~
pend«nce and high-task interdependence. The experimental intervention lasted for
16 weeks and occupied more than half of the students' instructional time; thus, this
study represents a test of the duration and intensity with which these structured
cooperative learning techniques can be used.
On seven subscales of the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, the experimental
classes significantly exceeded control classes (controlling for pretests) on three:
Language Mechanics, Language Expression, and Reading Vocabulary. The language
effects were ascribed to STAD, and the reading vocabulary effects to Jigsaw II
(although they could also have been due to STAD). No differences were found for
mathematics (TGT) or social studies (Jigsaw II).
Positive effects of the cooperative learning treatments were also found on general
self-esteem, and (marginally) on academic self-esteem, two subscales of the Cooper-
smith Self-Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith; 1975). Interestingly, no differences were
found on social self-esteem or on the LEI-derived mutual concern scale, but experi-
mental students named substantially more of their classmates as friends than did
control students, a measure of mutual concern among students. Experimental students
also expressed greater liking of school than did control students. This study assessed
one issue that many critics of the use of team competition have raised. Students were
asked to list both their friends in school and the students with whom they would not
like to work in a group. It was thought that because of the team competition, students
331

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
might increase both in friends (their groupmates) and in nonfriends (members of

other teams), as occurred in Sherif and Sherif s (1953) Robber's Cave study. However,
this did not occur; in fact, the experimental students listed significantly fewer
classmates (p < .10) with whom they preferred not to work than did the control
students.
Small-Group Teaching. Only one study (No. 21) has assessed the effects of Small-
Group Teaching on any of the dependent variables catalogued in Table III, and this
study measured only achievement effects. One experimental class was compared to
one control class in each of the five grades (2 to 6) in an Israeli school. The students
studied different social studies topics in each grade, but the same material in the
experimental and control classes within grade. Results indicated no differences in
learning of low-level information (such as memory, understanding, and description)
except for a positive effect for second graders, but found positive effects for Small-
Group Teaching on high-level concepts (such as identifying concepts, analysis of
problems, judgment, and evaluation) in grades 2, 4, and 6.
One additional study (Hertz-Lazarowitz, Sharan, & Steinberg, Note 16) found that
students who had participated in classrooms using Small-Group Teaching were more
cooperative, more altruistic, less competitive, and less vengeful than control students
on a reward-allocation task.
Other classroom studies. Two of the three studies conducted by the Johnsons and
their colleagues measured academic achievement. Both measured achievement in
two ways: once by allowing the cooperatively taught students to work in their teams
on the tests used as the dependent variables, but having the individually or compet-
itively taught students work alone (the "congruent test"), and once by having all
students work alone. The congruent test gives an obvious advantage to the cooperative
group, as these students can pool their contributions and rely on the better students
to pull up the group scores. As a result, only the tests given individually to both
groups are reported here.
n study No. 22, cooperative and individualistic groups did not differ in achieve-
ment. However, in study No. 23, students in an individualized condition learned
marginally more than those in the cooperative groups (p < .10); on a retention test
2 months after the experiment, the individualized group's advantage was significant
at the .05 level. This is the only case in the literature on classroom learning groups
where the cooperative group performed less well than an individualized control
group.
One additional study assessed the effects of the Johnson cooperative techniques on
race relations. In this study (No. 25), students who had worked in cooperative groups
made cross-ethnic friendship choices more often than those in competitive groups. A
similar pattern was found when students named those with whom they would like to
party and with whom they would like to do schoolwork. Students in the cooperative
and competitive conditions also chose learning disabled and emotionally disturbed
classmates as friends more often than did students in the individualized groups. The
finding of greater cross-racial attraction for both the cooperative and the competitive
groups as compared to the individualized groups is interesting; it probably has to do
with the fact that the competitive students worked in "clusters," while the individu-
alized students worked entirely alone. The positive effect in the "clusters" of
competing students was probably due to the increased contact within the clusters,
possibly calling into question the importance of the cooperative reward structure (as
332

contrasted with simply providing for inteφersonal contact) in increasing cross-racial

choices.
In one study, not listed in the tables, the Johnson group assessed the effects of
cooperation on relations among heterogeneous peers. Armstrong, Balow, and John
son (Note 17) found that normal-progress students who had been in cooperative
groups with learning disabled children evaluated them more positively than did
students in individualized classes.
Mutual concern was measured in the Johnson studies as ratings of peers and
feelings of being liked by peers. Positive effects on mutual concern variables were
found in study No. 22 and in study No. 24. Study No. 23 also found that students
who had been in cooperative groups thought they were doing better in school than
did individualized students, and they felt they were better liked by their teachers. In
study No. 22, cooperative students were found to be more altruistic and to feel that
they were better liked by their teachers than were individualized students.
Wheeler's studies found conflicting evidence concerning social studies achieve
ment. In study No. 25 there were no differences between cooperative and competitive
conditions in achievement. In study No. 26, the cooperative group had higher
achievement than a competitive group, but students who were cooperatively predis
posed (as determined by a reward-allocation task) achieved substantially more in the
cooperative groups than in competitive ones, while students with a competitive
disposition achieved more in the competitive groups.
Weigel, Wiser, and Cook (1975) used their cooperative intervention in seventh-
and tenth-grade classrooms that were composed of black, white, and Mexican-
American students. They found that the experimental classes engaged in less cross-
ethnic conflict than did control classes, and that whites in the experimental classes
had more positive attitudes toward Mexican-Americans than did whites in control
classes. However, no effects were found on attitudes between blacks and whites or
blacks and Mexican-Americans, or on Mexican-American attitudes toward whites.
Assessment of teacher attitudes clearly indicated support for the cooperative project.
Hamblin, Hathaway, and Wodarski (1971) found greater reading, spelling, and
mathematics achievement in a simple cooperative reward structure in which groups
of fourth graders were rewarded based on the lowest three scores in their groups than
in an individual performance contingency. However, when the group contingency
was based on the scores of the highest three scorers or on the group average, there
were no differences.
What Have We Learned?

The outcomes of cooperative learning techniques fall mainly into two categories:
academic achievement and group cohesiveness. The effects of the techniques on the
group cohesiveness variables, such as mutual concern and race relations, are un
questionably positive. The achievement results, though usually positive, seem to
depend on the particular techniques, settings, measures, experimental designs, or
other characteristics. This section considers possible explanations for these different
effects in different studies.
Achievement. Why have some of the cooperative learning techniques and some of
the individual studies shown more positive effects on academic achievement than
others? One obvious possible explanation for different findings in a program of
333

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
research is differences in methods. More rigorous studies might be less likely to find
significantly positive effects than less rigorous ones. Experimental rigor does explain
some of the differences between studies (and between techniques). The TGT studies
have the largest number of positive effects on achievement of all the cooperative
techniques. Many of the studies used control groups in which the teachers were given
the experimental groups' objectives and curriculum materials, but were not held to
the same schedule of instruction as the experimental groups. STAD, which is similar
to TGT, had somewhat less strong effects on achievement, and all of the STAD
studies used the parallel schedule of activities in the control group. This might
indicate that the special, focused schedule of activities explains part of the effect of
TGT (as well as STAD when it is compared to untreated classrooms), and in fact
such an argument is made by Slavin (1978a). It is of further interest that in the
studies on Jigsaw and the Johnson techniques (but not Small-group Teaching, which
gave the teachers the same materials but did not standardize the schedule of
instruction) the curriculum was similarly standardized between the experimental and
control groups. In the research done to date, Jigsaw and the Johnson techniques
have been less successful than TGT and STAD in increasing academic achievement.
Other methodological differences between studies do not seem to be related to the
outcomes. Studies that did not use random assignment or that conducted random
assignment at the class level rather than the student level were not particularly more
or less successful than those that were able to randomly assign students to treatments.
One feature that may discriminate studies with positive achievement effects from
those without is subject matter. Within the TGT studies, effects were much less likely
to be found in social studies than in mathematics, language arts, or reading vocabu-
lary. The combined study found effects on language arts and reading vocabulary,
but not social studies. The fact that the Jigsaw studies and one of the Johnson studies
were in social studies might contribute to the weak effects of these techniques,
although one of the Wheeler studies found greater social studies achievement in the
cooperative groups than in control groups. The Small-Group Teaching Study, also
in social studies, might shed some light on why the effects of cooperative techniques
on social studies achievement might be so spotty. Sharan et al. (in press) divided
their dependent measures into "high cognitive level" and "low level" sets of items.
They found positive effects on high level items in three of the five grade levels in
which they conducted their study, but found positive effects on the low level items
only in the second grade. The dependent measures in the TGT, Jigsaw, and the
Johnson studies, as well as the social studies measures in the combined program,
were undifferentiated by conceptual level and were apparently weighted toward the
low level skills. If these studies had broken their measures into high and low level
items, the achievement effects on the high level items might have been positive. The
successful Wheeler (Note 1) study also assessed understanding of a process, not
simply factual knowledge. One problem that is particularly serious in social studies
is that unless the teaching content is very explicitly structured, it is difficult to make
certain that what is taught corresponds to what is measured. Students in cooperative
social studies classes may be learning effective ways to approach high level material
that will show up on a posttest, but their learning of the facts may not correspond
enough to the content of the posttest to show a difference.
One relatively consistent difference between the techniques, which is not com-
pletely explained by differences in methodology or subject matter, is the stronger
334

effects on achievement for TGT and STAD than for the other techniques, particularly
when low level skills are assessed. This is probably due to the use in these techniques
of a highly structured system of instruction, team tasks, and team rewards. Students
in TGT and STAD are given worksheets to study in their teams. They also receive
answers to the worksheet items, so that each team has all the resources it needs to
make sure that every team member knows the academic material. Also, each student
is individually responsible for his or her learning; teammates cannot help each other
during the games (TGT) or the quizzes (STAD). In contrast, studies in the Johnsons'
classrooms handed in a single worksheet each day that represented the team product,
and the steps that lead to that product were left up to the students, so that this
technique is low in individual responsibility for learning and low in structure. Small-
Group Teaching is somewhat more structured, and, by encouraging students to
establish a division of labor, still has an element of individual accountability for
learning (but not nearly as much as in TGT and STAD). Jigsaw is very tightly
structured in terms of learning activities, but the original Jigsaw model forces students
to rely on one another totally to learn each other's sections. If a student does a poor
job of presenting his or her section to the group, the section just does not get learned.
The difference between TGT, STAD, and the Hamblin techniques on the one
hand, and the other techniques on the other, is a conceptually interesting one. TGT,
STAD, and the Hamblin techniques explicitly use the team structure as a motivational
device—a reward system that motivates students in their teams to go over academic
material again and again until they and their teammates know it. They do not use
the team structure as a way to pool individual skills and ideas. The other techniques
use the team structure primarily as a. facilitative device, to encourage students to share
ideas, to brainstorm, to decide how to structure its own activity, and so forth. TGT,
STAD, and the Hamblin techniques have much in common with group contingencies
used in behavior modification, while the other techniques, particularly the Johnson
techniques and Small-Group Teaching, have more in common with the open school
or other humanistic educational programs. Much of the successful laboratory research
on cooperation, including that by Deutsch (1949), has involved high level skills, such
as problem solving and brainstorming. For these tasks, group membership clearly
has a facilitative effect, as the number and quality of ideas produced may be increased
by group interaction. For learning how to multiply fractions or punctuate sentences,
however, the group might have only a minimal facilitative effect; the important issue
is how to get individuals to practice these skills until they master them. The group
that is organized as a discussion group might be a poor structure for learning basic
mathematics, as Johnson, Johnson, and Scott (1978) discovered. On the other hand,
it may be an excellent structure for learning high level cognitive skills, as found by
Sharan, Hertz-Lazarowitz, and Ackerman (in press). High level skills have not been
specifically measured in the TGT and STAD studies, but it is unlikely that such
effects would be found; these techniques focus heavily on the basic skills, such as
computation, punctuation, and vocabulary.
Another factor that may be systematically related to study outcomes, even within
techniques, is the population. In general, studies in middle class white schools have
been somewhat less successful in showing achievement gains than those in integrated
and/or working class schools. This is further borne out by the findings of Lucker et
al. (1976), Slavin (Note 17), and Slavin and Oickle (Note 11) of an interaction
between ethnicity and treatment favoring gains in cooperative classes by minority
335

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
students. Wheeler's (Note 1) finding of a strong interaction between cooperative

predisposition and achievement gains emphasizes the importance of the particular
population involved in a study, particularly as many studies have shown that white,
middle class Americans are less cooperatively predisposed than other groups, includ-
ing American blacks and Mexican-Americans (Madsen & Shapira, 1970). Only one
of the 25 studies reviewed here showed greater achievement in a control group than
in a cooperatively taught group, and several studies in white middle class settings
showed positive achievement effects, so it is unlikely that these techniques would
hurt the achievement of white middle class students. If the ethnicity x treatment
interaction holds up, cooperative classroom techniques may be a means of reducing
the achievement gap between white and minority students while still increasing the
achievement of the whites more than in traditional classrooms. However, the contrary
evidence is not inconsiderable; study No. 14, one of the largest and best-controlled
of the ST AD studies, took place in working class, integrated (40 percent black) junior
high schools, and no achievement effects or race x treatment interactions were found.
The use of group competition appears to have some positive effect on achievement,
although it is confounded with other factors. What may be important is less whether
the groups are in competition or not, but whether or not there is an explicit group
reward. The Hamblin techniques did not use competition but did use tangible
rewards based on the group score, and found positive effects on achievement, while
the Johnson techniques did not use any concrete group rewards and did not find
positive effects. On the other hand, Small-Group Teaching did not use group
competition or explicit group rewards, but did find positive effects on achievement.
One additional factor that differentiates the various techniques is the use or nonuse
of training of teachers and students in group processing skills. The Jigsaw, Small-
Group Teaching, and Johnson studies in particular place a heavy emphasis on this
training, while TGT, STAD, and the Hamblin techniques do no group process
training at all. From the pattern of results in these studies, it does not appear that
group process training is a useful addition to a cooperative learning model, but this
needs further study.
Race relations. The effects of student teams on interracial friendship and related
variables may be the most important of the outcomes of cooperative techniques.
They are relatively consistent and often quite striking. Further, while there may be
many ways of increasing student achievement other than the use of student teams,
there is some evidence that fostering interracial cooperation is by far the most
effective means of improving racial attitudes and behaviors in schools. Slavin and
Madden (1979) conducted a secondary analysis of data collected in a national sample
of high schools by the Educational Testing Service (Forehand, Ragosta, & Rock,
Note 19), and found that teacher workshops, multiethnic texts, minority history,
heterogeneous groups, and classroom discussions of race relations had very few
effects on students' racial attitudes and behaviors. On the other hand, assignment of
students of different races to work with each other and participation of students on
multiracial sports teams had strong and consistent effects on race relations.
There is not yet enough evidence to differentiate among the different techniques
or studies for effects on race relations. Only two studies have failed to find positive
effects. Weiger, Wiser, and Cook (1975) found increased positive evaluations of
Mexican-Americans by whites in a study using a general cooperative technique, but
did not find changes in perceptions of or by blacks or in perceptions of whites by
336

Mexican-Americans. The authors ascribe the failure to find these effects to possible
ceiling effects, but it is also possible that their intervention was not structured enough
to make the group system salient to the students. One of the four TGT studies (No.
2) failed to find an effect on cross-racial friendship, even though significant effects
were found on cross-racial helping. These effects did not appear to be due to a ceiling
effect, and are surprising given that three of the successful studies (Nos. 1, 3, and 12)
took place in the same school (but with different students and teachers). Weigel et al.
also suggest that the use of group competition may have a deleterious effect on race
relations, but the positive findings in the TGT and STAD studies do not support this
theory.
While none of the cooperative learning techniques are demonstrably more effective
than others in improving race relations, the TGT and STAD effects are by far the
best established. Of the 11 studies that measured race relations, seven evaluated TGT
and STAD; of the four remaining studies, one (No. 18) did not use an adequate
measure of race relations, and two (Nos. 19 and 27) found effects for white attitudes
toward Mexican-Americans only. On the other hand, positive effects were found in
six of the seven TGT-STAD studies. The general applicability of the findings is
enhanced by the wide variations in types of schools and percent minority in the
schools, as well as the repeated positive findings.
Mutual concern. As with race relations, the effects of cooperative learning tech-
niques on mutual concern have been generally quite positive, and there are no
obvious methodological or technique differences in the effects. The two TGT studies
that fail to find effects on mutual concern (Nos. 6 and 7) both took place in third-
grade classrooms, where students were initially high on the measure, suggesting a
possible ceiling effect, but this was not true in studies Nos. 12 and 15, and 16, which
also found no effects on this variable.
Implications
Presently, the research on cooperative learning in classrooms justifies the following
conclusions:
1. For academic achievement, cooperative learning techniques are no worse than
traditional techniques, and in most cases they are significantly better.
2. For low level learning outcomes, such as knowledge, calculation, and application
of principles, cooperative learning techniques appear to be more effective than
traditional techniques to the degree that they use:
(a) A structured, focused, schedule of instruction;
(b) Individual accountability for performance among team members;
(c) A well-defined group reward system, including rewards or recognition
for successful groups.
3. For high level cognitive learning outcomes, such as identifying concepts, analysis
of problems, judgment, and evaluation, less structured cooperative techniques that
involve high student autonomy and participation in decision-making may be more
effective than traditional individualistic techniques.
4. Cooperative learning techniques have strong and consistent effects on relation-
ships between black, white, and Mexican-American students.
5. Cooperative learning techniques have fairly consistent positive effects on mutual
concern among students regardless of the specific structure used.
337

ROBERT E. SLAVIN
6. There is some indication that cooperative learning techniques can improve

students' self-esteem.
7. Students in classes using cooperative learning generally report greater liking of
school than do traditionally taught students.
What these results indicate is that cooperative learning techniques can achieve
both cognitive and affective goals, but that there is still much to be discovered about
when they do so—for which kinds of students, under what conditions, in which
subjects, and for which techniques or components of techniques are positive effects
likely to be observed?
There is already enough evidence from field research to support the use of
cooperative learning techniques in schools, particularly desegregated schools. Many
of the techniques are not difficult to learn—for example, teacher training for the
STAD studies has taken no more than 3 hours, and often less. All of the techniques
can be used by individual teachers in traditionally structured classes without outside
help, additional expense, or radical changes in schedules or other external features of
school organization. The combined program, as well as work by Johnson and by
Sharan outside of research studies, have indicated that cooperative learning tech-
niques can be used in classrooms as the dominant instructional mode. That is,
cooperation need not be a supplement to the traditional competitive classroom, but
can be used to largely supplant it (although both the combined program and
Johnson's programs still contain individualistic and competitive elements).
Next Steps
The next steps in research on cooperative learning should be directed at explicating

the conditions under which these techniques can maximally influence student out-
comes. The comparison of techniques presented in this paper is no substitute for a
program of research in which important factors are systematically varied in the same
design. Some of the factors that might lead to improved understanding of cooperative
learning are listed below:
1. What are the effects of group competition as opposed to non-competition,
especially on race relations and mutual concern?
2. What are the effects of teacher and student training in group processing skills?
3. How important are explicit group rewards in improving performance and
cohesiveness outcomes?
4. How important are racial and ethnic differences in determining the effectiveness
of cooperative learning techniques?
5. For which kinds of learning are cooperative techniques most likely to represent
an improvement over traditional techniques, and which techniques are most appro-
priate for which kinds of learning?
6. How important is individual accountability in increasing the effects of cooper-
ative learning on achievement?
7. What are the effects of high student autonomy on outcomes of cooperative
learning?
8. What are the long-term effects of cooperative learning on achievement and
positive race relations?
9. What are the important components of cooperative learning for increasing
students' self-esteem?
338

10. What are the effects of cooperative learning on teachers' role perceptions,
attitudes toward children, and other attitudes?
11. How can cooperative learning be adapted for such specialized uses as:
(a) mainstreaming,
(b) individualization of instruction,
(c) bilingual education,
(d) remedial education.
Of course, there are many other issues, both theoretical and applied, that should
be addressed. Cooperative learning represents a substantial change in the technology
of classroom instruction. It usually involves simultaneous changes in the reward,
task, and authority structures of the classroom. Explicating the consequences of these
changes, as well as interactions of the changes with participant and setting charac-
teristics, will be an enormous job, but the results that have been obtained to date
indicate that it is a job worth doing.
Research on cooperative learning techniques represents an unusual event in the
history of educational research. The techniques arose out of social psychological
theory; they have been evaluated in numerous field experiments that were generally
high in both internal and external validity; and they are in use in hundreds of
classrooms across the country and in Israel. As in any program of research there is
a need for further investigations of interactions, limitations, and extensions of
findings, but the basic model has been validated in classroom settings.
Reference Notes
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classroom effects. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological
Association, San Francisco, 1977.
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the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, New York, 1979.
3. Gonzales, A. Classroom cooperation and ethnic balance. Paper presented at the Annual
Convention of the American Psychological Association, New York, 1979.
4. Edwards, K. J., & Devries, D. L. The effects of Teams-Games-Tournament and two structural
variations on classroom process, student attitudes, and student achievement (Report No. 172).
Center for Social Organization of Schools, The Johns Hopkins University, 1974.
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achievement and attitudes (Report No. 212). Center for Social Organization of Schools, The
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6. DeVries, D. L., Edwards, K. J., & Wells, E. H. Team competition effects on classroom group
process (Report No. 174). Center for Social Organization of Schools, The Johns Hopkins
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7. DeVries, D. L., & Mescon, I. T. Teams-Games-Tournament: An effective task and reward
structure in the elementary grades (Report No. 189). Center for Social Organisation of
Schools, The Johns Hopkins University, 1975.
8. DeVries, D. L., Mescon, I. T., & Shackman, S. L. Teams-Games-Tournament in the
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9. DeVries, D. L., Mescon, I. T., & Shackman, S. L. Teams-Games-Tournament (TGT) effects
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10. DeVries, D. L., Lucasse, P. R., & Shackman, S. L. Small group versus individualized
339

instruction: Afield test of their relative effectiveness. Paper presented at the annual convention
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Educational Research Association, Boston, 1980.
12. Madden, N., & Slavin, R. Cooperative learning and social acceptance of mainstreamed
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Princeton, New Jersey: Educational Testing Service, 1976.
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COOPERSMITH, S. Coopersmith self-esteem inventory. San Francisco: Self-Esteem Institute, 1975.
DEUTSCH, M. An experimental study of the effects of cooperation and competition upon group
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340

EDWARDS, K. J., DEVRIES, D. L., & SNYDER, J. P. Games and teams: A winning combination.
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AUTHOR
R O B E R T E. SLAVIN, Research Scientist, Center for Social Organization of Schools,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 21218. Specialization: Social psychology
of education; motivation; field research methodologies.
342
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Research on classroom cooperative learning techniques, in which students

Cooperative learning is an old idea in education, which has experienced a

Cooperative Learning and Classroom Technology

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A Brief Theory of Reward Structures

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often lead to mediating variables that have contradictory effects on performance.

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Classroom Cooperative Learning Techniques

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Other Classroom Studies

A Typology of Cooperative Learning Techniques

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were implemented by teachers in classrooms for at least two weeks to differentiate

TGT High Low High High Yes

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The measurement of "achievement" is always difficult. Many studies used curric-

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TABLE III Continued

Note. + = statistically significant effect favoring experimental group, 0 =

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performance than that of a comparison group (the achievement division). As such,

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might increase both in friends (their groupmates) and in nonfriends (members of

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contrasted with simply providing for inteφersonal contact) in increasing cross-racial

What Have We Learned?

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students. Wheeler's (Note 1) finding of a strong interaction between cooperative

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6. There is some indication that cooperative learning techniques can improve

The next steps in research on cooperative learning should be directed at explicating

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1. Wheeler, R. Predisposition toward cooperation and competition: Cooperative and competitive

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