Cooperative learning intervention is based on the idea of creating a learning community. The principles of cooperative learning intervention are often compared to the principles of the group contingency intervention. The focus is on providing learners with the opportunity to cooperate at several levels (Wang, 2012). Thus, students not only interact with each other while completing the assignments, but they also prepare certain tasks and conduct activities while performing a role of a teacher (Kim, Kim, & Svinicki, 2012; Landrum, 2013). As a result, a particular learning community is created in which students are both interdependent and independent because they have the same goal, and they are empowered to choose a way of achieving it. Students will benefit because their motivation to demonstrate good results and support the group members will increase.
The implementation of the intervention is based on the group activity that asks students to create the class project. During the students’ work on the project, the teacher plans to use the cooperative learning approaches in order to organize students’ activities and interactions. The intervention will be implemented during an academic year, and it should be divided into three phases, during which students are expected to cooperate with each other to provide a high-quality product.
At the first stage, students collect the material for the project, and their interaction becomes grounded on the principles of cooperative learning. During the second stage, the collected material is organized in the prepared project. At the final stage, the project is prepared for completion, and a researcher collects and analyzes the materials regarding possible changes in the students’ motivation to learn and cooperate.
The ethical issues that need to be taken into account while implementing the project are the possibility of bias, the increased level of competitiveness and hostility, and the lack of respect in students to each other. The problem is in the fact that effective cooperation is based on mutual understanding among the group members. In this case, it is possible to expect increases in the students’ motivation to demonstrate higher results. Therefore, it is important for the researcher to predict situations when the cooperation can be prevented by the impact of bias and situations when members of the group can be discriminated against. It is important to create an atmosphere of respect in which all students feel comfortable and inspired to participate in the group work.
The data will be collected at the end of the first and second phases. The focus is on the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative information will be collected with the help of the test that is aimed at demonstrating changes in the students’ performance. According to these results, it will be possible to conclude about the role of the cooperative learning intervention in improving the students’ motivation and performance. The qualitative data will be gathered with the help of focus group discussions that will be helpful to demonstrate whether students notice changes in their motivation and how they can assess their results regarding the work at the project and the work as a cooperative group or learning community.
References
Kim, J., Kim, M., & Svinicki, M. D. (2012). Situating students’ motivation in cooperative learning contexts: Proposing different levels of goal orientations. The Journal of Experimental Education, 80(4), 352-365.
Landrum, R. E. (2013). Research design for educators. New York, NY: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Wang, M. (2012). Effects of cooperative learning on achievement motivation of female university students. Asian Social Science, 8(15), 108-121.