Cooperative learning: Exploring its effectiveness in the Physics classroom

Methodology

The study is an action research involving 41 secondary four express [1] students (17 male, 24 female) in a neighbourhood school in Singapore. The students are 16 years old. The group comprised of 56.1% Chinese, 22.0% Malays, 14.6% Indians and 7.3% others. Singaporeans made up a majority of the sample (91.6%), 3.3% were permanent residents, and 5.1% non-Singaporeans.

After explaining to the class about the rationale of the research and the objective of the research, a pre-test on the topic ‘Current Electricity' was administered to the class. To ensure the tests' validity and comparability of the pre and the post-intervention tests for each topic, a table of specifications was drawn up to facilitate the crafting of test questions. The test items were crafted to include 30% of the marks on knowledge with understanding and 70% of the marks on handling information. This is in line with the Cambridge GCE ‘O' Level Science syllabus guidelines given by the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board. Based on the same guidelines, 20% out of the total marks of 25 were on multiple-choice items while the rest of the 80% marks were on structured questions. (It was stated in the GCE ‘O' Level Science syllabus that 23.5% of the marks in the written paper are based on multiple-choice items, 52.9% are based on structured questions and 23.6% are based on free-response questions.) The items selected were based on the learning objectives of the topic. A parallel set of questions was selected for the post tests. The duration of the pre- and post- intervention tests were both 30 minutes. The pre- and post-intervention tests were first crafted by the first author and then validated by the second author.

A pre-survey, developed by the researchers, to examine pupils' motivation and perceptions of their learning experiences was administered to the class before the topic was taught. Various cooperative learning structures were then used with the treatment group to teach the topic. The structures include think-pair-share, think-pair square, Jigsaw, write-pair-square, numbered heads together, pairs-check and STAD.

Students were grouped in fours (with the exception of one group which has five members) for most of the structures. The students were allowed to select their own groups based on the seating position in the laboratory. However, the teacher had earlier placed them in their seating arrangement by having a balanced mix of ethnic group and male/female students. The five key components, positive interdependence, face-to-face promotive interaction, individual accountability, social skills and group processing were structured in the cooperative learning activities whenever possible. The teacher monitored the groups closely during the lessons.

After each sub-topic, students made entries in their individual science journals, with the help of journal prompts. Some of these journals prompts were as follows: “3 things I have learnt”; “2 things I do not know”; “Your friend was absent from school when this topic was taught in class. Write a note to your friend explaining to him/her what you have learnt on series circuit. Write down any useful formulas related to series circuits and give examples to illustrate your explanation.”; and scenarios in which students have to explain how a given numerical problem is solved correctly.

At the end of the topic, the post- intervention test was administered. The same procedure (pre-test, CL lessons, journal writing and post-test) was used on the topic of ‘D.C. Circuits'.

The TT class consists of 39 students and was taught by another teacher who did not use cooperative learning. To check if the two samples were comparable, an independent t-test on the pretest mean scores of the CL class vis-à-vis the TT class was performed. The p-value obtained for ‘Current Electricity' was 0.303, while that for ‘D.C. Circuits' was 0.641. Since both p values were greater than 0.05, there was no significant difference in the pre-test scores between the CL and the TT class on both topics involved in this study.

At the end of 8 weeks, a post-motivation survey was administered to examine students' motivation to learn and perceptions of their learning experiences. Table II shows the time-line for the study.

Table II: Timeline of Study

Week	Activity
1	· Explain to CL and TT class about the research. · Administer pre-survey on motivation. · Conduct pre-test on ‘Current Electricity'.
2 – 5	· Use cooperative learning strategies in teaching ‘Current Electricity' for CL class. · Students do journal writing after each sub-topic. · Conduct post-test on ‘Current Electricity'. (Week 3 of study was disrupted as the class had to attend a school camp.)
6 – 7	· Conduct pre-test on ‘D.C. Circuits' · Use cooperative learning strategies in teaching ‘D.C. Circuits' for CL class.
8	· Students do journal writing. · Conduct post-test on ‘D.C. Circuits' · Administer post-survey on motivation.
9 - 10	· Data Analysis

[1]Students in Singapore secondary schools are streamed into special, express, normal academic and normal technical streams according to their PSLE (Primary Six Leaving Examination) results. PSLE is a national examination taken by all primary six students at the end of six years of primary education. Students from the special and express streams study four years of secondary education before taking the GCE ‘O' level examinations while, the normal academic and normal technical students may or may not continue to take the GCE ‘O' level examinations after four years of secondary education.