What we know CL/college

What We Know About Cooperative Learning at the College Level

David Johnson & Roger Johnson

What do we know about the effectiveness of cooperative learning (CL) with

college students? In 1949 Morton Deutsch published his landmark study

comparing cooperative and competitive learning in a college psychology class at

MIT. In 1952 Haines replicated the study at the University of Michigan. In 1957

Thomas extended their work with a study on cooperation created through a

division of labor among female college students. Over one-third of all studies

comparing cooperative, competitive and individualistic efforts have been

conducted on college students. The amount and consistency of the research on

CL makes it one of the most distinguished of all instructional practices for higher

education.

We have recently completed a meta-analysis of the studies using college

students as subjects (Johnson & Johnson, 1993). In our review we have

separated the studies that use individual measures of learning from studies

that use group measures of productivity. Only studies examining individual

learning will be discussed in this article.

ACHIEVEMENT

Over 120 studies have compared the relative efficacy of cooperative,

competitive, and individualistic learning on individual achievement. While the

first was conducted in 1924, 70% have been conducted since 1970. In these

studies, CL promoted higher individual achievement than did competitive

(effect size=0.54) or individualistic (effect size=0.51) learning. When only the

methodologically high quality studies were included, CL still promoted greater

individual achievement than did competitive or individualistic efforts (effect

sizes of 0.61 and 0.35 respectively). These results held for verbal tasks (such as

reading, writing, and orally presenting), mathematical tasks, and procedural

tasks (such as swimming, golf, and tennis). The research on achievement has

also found cooperation to promote greater intrinsic motivation to learn, more

frequent use of cognitive processes such as reconceptualization, higher-level

reasoning, metacognition, cognitive elaboration, and networking, and greater

long-term maintenance of the skills learned.

OTHER OUTCOMES

There are other important outcomes at the college level besides achievement.

Retaining students until graduation, creating a learning community, and

building positive relationships among diverse students are three examples. In

the 38 studies that included interpersonal attraction as a dependent variable

(including esprit-de-corps, cohesiveness, trust, and other relationship

variables), cooperative efforts promoted greater liking among subjects than did

competing with others (effect size=0.68 or working on one's own (effect size

=0.55). In the 24 studies that focused on social support, furthermore, students

learning cooperatively felt more social support (both academically and

personally) from peers and professors than did students working competitively

(effect size=0.60) or individualistically (effect size=0.51). When students worked

cooperatively, positive and supportive relationships tended to develop, even

among students from different ethnic, cultural, language, social class, ability,

and gender groups.

PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH

Several studies conducted in a number of very different college-age

populations, have found cooperativeness highly correlated with a wide variety

of indices of psychological health, and individualistic attitudes related to a wide

variety of indices of psychological pathology. Competitiveness was related to a

complex mixture of indices of health and pathology. One important aspect of

psychological health is self-esteem. The 13 studies that have been conducted

found that cooperation promotes higher self-esteem than did competitive

(effect size=0.47) or individualistic (effect size=0.29) efforts. Members of

cooperative groups also become more socially skilled than do students working

competitively or individualistically.

WHY TAKE THIS RESEARCH SERIOUSLY?

Here are five reasons why college instructors should take this research on CL

seriously:

1. CL has a rich history of theory, research, and practice.

There are at least three general theoretical perspectives that have guided

research on CL. The most influential is social interdependence theory, whose

roots extend from Kurt Koffka in the early 1900s to Kurt Lewin and Morton

Deutsch in the mid- 1900s, to the authors of this article. Its central proposition

is that the way social interdependence is structured determines how

individuals interact with each other which, in turn, determines outcomes.

Positive interdependence (cooperation) creates promotive interaction, negative

interdependence (competition) creates oppositional interaction, and no

interdependence (individualistic efforts) results in an absence of interaction.

From the theories of Piaget and Vigotsky comes the cognitive development

theory with the proposition that when individuals cooperate, socio-cognitive

conflict occurs that creates cognitive disequilibrium, which in turn stimulates

perspective-taking ability and cognitive development. Both the work on

structuring academic controversies and research on cognitive restructuring

are drawn from this orientation. Based on the work of Skinner, Bandura,

Homans, Thibaut and Kelly, and, more recently, Slavin, behavioral learning

theory focuses on the impact of group contingencies on learning; its main

proposition is that actions followed by extrinsic rewards will be repeated.

2. The research on CL has a validity and generalizability rarely found in the

education literature.

A wide variety of tasks, ways of structuring cooperation, and measures of the

dependent variables have been used. Subjects have varied as to age sex,

economic class, nationality, and cultural background. Demonstration studies

have been conducted in real classrooms over extended periods of time. The

research has been conducted by scholars with markedly different orientations,

working in different settings and countries, over a period of nine decades.

3. CL affects many different instructional outcomes simultaneously.

As already noted, these include achievement, positive relationships among

students, and psychological health. CL is, therefore, a very cost-effective

instructional procedure.

4. Quite a bit is known about the essential components that make it work.

Placing students in groups and telling them to work together does not in and of

itself result in cooperation. To structure lessons so students do in fact work

cooperatively requires (a) an understanding of the components that make

cooperation work (positive interdependence, individual accountability,

promotive interaction, social skills, and group processing), and (b) the

disciplined structuring of these components in every learning group and in

every lesson. Instructors must carefully structure positive interdependence to

ensure that all students are committed to each other as persons and to each

other's success. Each student must be held accountable for exerting maximum

efforts to learn by his or her peers. Students must meet and promote each

other's learning face to face. The teamwork skills required to coordinate efforts

to complete joint assignments must be directly taught and mastered. Finally,

team members must gather data on their own progress and plan how to

improve the process they are using to learn. These five essential elements are

not simply characteristics of good CL groups; they are a discipline that must be

implemented rigorously to produce the conditions for effective cooperative

action.

5. Finally, CL creates learning opportunities that do not exist when students

work competitively or individually.

The most obvious is that the use of CL groups promotes the simultaneous

learning of both academic and teamwork skills. CL groups also provide a setting

in which students can (a) construct and extend conceptual understanding of

what is being learned through explanations and discussion; (b) use the shared

mental models learned in flexible ways to solve problems jointly; (c) receive

interpersonal feedback as to how well the procedures are performed; (d)

receive social support and encouragement to take risks in increasing one's

competencies; (e) be held accountable by peers to practice and practice until the

procedures and skills being taught are over learned; (f) acquire attitudes (such

as continuous improvement) needed to refine the procedures learned; (g)

establish a shared identity with other group members; and (h) observe the

most outstanding group members as behavioral models to be emulated. While

these opportunities are not guaranteed, and do not automatically occur in

every CL group, the likelihood of their occurrence in competitive and

individualistic situations is very low.

IN CONCLUSION

For all these reasons, taking this research seriously results in the conclusion

that CL should be used the majority of time in college classes. While CL is not

perfect, and is certainly not a panacea that solves all instructional problems

experienced by college professors, it has been demonstrated to be superior

under most conditions to competitive and individualistic learning.

The use of CL, however, does not mean that no individual work should be

required. Individual practice is usually necessary, and competitive and

individualistic activities can be used to supplement and enhance CL (Johnson,

Johnson, & Holubec, 1992). Since poorly structured CL groups may be

counter-productive, furthermore, professors have to be judicious consumers

who can tell the difference between CL groups in which the essential elements

have been carefully structured and traditional learning groups in which they

have not. Thus, college professors have the difficult responsibility of increasing

he use of well-structured CL groups while decreasing the instructional use of

poorly structured groups.

References

Johnson, D., Johnson, R., & Holubec, E. (1992). Advanced Cooperative Learning.

Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.

Johnson, D. & Johnson, R. (1993). Cooperative, competitive, and Individualistic

procedures for educating adults: A comparative analysis. University of

Minnesota, Cooperative Learning Center (submitted for publication).

This article was originally published in Cooperative Learning , Vol. 13, No. 3.