What is it?
Cooperative learning and collaborative learning are instructional strategies designed to make the most of positive peer social interactions by grouping learners together to complete an assignment or task. As the definitions for both cooperative and collaborative learning are largely interchangeable, we address them together here.
Distinguishing features of these approaches are that they include meaningful tasks, active participation of learners, and learners working together and helping each other. Effective groups can be comprised of mixed or homogenous ability or age of participants, depending on the task requirements or the learning context. In addition, groups can work individually on tasks that contribute to a shared goal, or together on a shared task.
What is most important about cooperative and collaborative learning approaches is that certain essential strategies underpin their effectiveness. Using these strategies provides greater assurance that intended learning goals, and associated skills and knowledge, can be achieved, irrespective of group composition (Cheng, Lam & Chan, 2008).
The purpose of cooperative learning groups is to make each member a stronger individual. (Johnson & Johnson, 1991, p. 58)
The five essential strategies
- Positive interdependence. This condition exists when learners know that they are linked with their group members in such a way that they cannot succeed unless their group members do. Positively interdependent groups see their work as benefiting each other; they share resources, provide mutual support and share in joint success. There are no ‘free riders’ as each group member makes unique contributions.
- Face-to-face promotive action. When learners help, support, praise, and encourage each other in groups, they promote the above condition of positive interdependence, foster verbal and interpersonal skills, motivate, and get to know each other. The teacher is responsible for describing, modelling, and reinforcing this condition throughout the group work activity.
- Individual accountability and personal responsibility. Group work activities need to be structured to ensure that individual performance can be easily identified, assessed, and fed back to the group and individual, for example, via individual quizzes or random selection of individual work to present.
- Interpersonal and small group skills. The ability to interact effectively is a learned skill fostered through explicit teaching. Teachers must intentionally teach social skills for effective group work.
- Group processing. When group members reflect on and discuss how well they achieved their goals and maintained effective working relationships, they deepen cognitive and metacognitive learning and establish the groundwork for improved future performance.
Summarised from Johnson & Johnson, 1991, pp. 54–59.
Evidence of impact
Professor John Hattie (2008) acknowledges that peers are powerful to learning. There are numerous strong examples of the positive impact of cooperative and collaborative learning regarding the following learning areas:
Reading comprehension. Using a quasi-experimental design, Fitch and Hulgin (2008) measured the effectiveness of Collaborative Learning Assessment through Dialogue (CLAD) on reading achievement in inclusive third grade classrooms in the US. CLAD involves learners reading a passage of text, forming small groups, and then taking two multiple choice tests; first individually, then as a group, discussing possible choices and seeking consensus. The CLAD approach employed all five cooperative learning strategies described above. Fitch and Hulgin (2008) found the intervention group, which used CLAD, showed significantly greater growth in reading achievement than the control group. Furthermore, they implemented their study in a historically low performing school. Their findings suggest CLAD could be a preferable method to raise learner performance over more targeted one-on-one deficit-based methods (for example, removing children from class to participate in remedial coaching).
Mathematical problem solving. Asha and Hawi (2016) found that sixth grade learners in Jordan made better decisions to solve mathematical problems when working cooperatively based on the feedback they received from learners within and outside their group.
Self-efficacy and growth mindsets. Burke and Williams’ (2012) study found that primary school learners in Scotland aged 11–12 years, who participated in a collaborative learning intervention, demonstrated greater improvement in their understanding of concepts related to intelligence than learners who worked individually.
Classroom ethos. Using cooperative learning strategies can catalyse a shift from teacher-directed to learner-centred learning. Davison, Galbraith and McQueen (2008) reported that using cooperative learning structures had enabled teachers to transition to the role of facilitator, rather than a director of learning, in year two classrooms in the UK.
Enabling factors
Research suggests that successful implementation of cooperative or collaborative learning depends on the following factors:
- Small group sizes (two to six members) leads to greater individual accountability, and less redundant effort (Johnson & Johnson, 1991).
- Use of specific cooperative learning strategies is essential. It is not enough to group learners together and tell them to cooperate; the conditions for effective group work need to be explicitly created and reinforced by teachers. Group work which is not thoughtfully structured is described as one of the least effective approaches in teaching and learning (Bennett, 2001, in Christensen, Wallace & Arnott, 2008). However, structure does not imply total teacher control.
- Matching the strategy to the task. Cooperative and collaborative learning are superior to individualistic or competitive learning for conceptual or complex tasks, for example, to foster problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, high level reasoning, and higher order thinking skills. Competitive learning is appropriate for skill practice, knowledge recall and review; individualistic learning is well suited to simple skills development and knowledge acquisition (Johnson & Johnson, 1991). Teachers must select the most appropriate strategy for the skills and knowledge learning gains they wish to foster.
- Understanding the benefits and possessing the ability to deliver cooperative or collaborative learning is important to realise its potential positive outcomes. Both factors must be considered for teacher training to be effective.
- Gender dynamics will influence collaborative or cooperative learning. One US study investigated playful talk in collaborative group learning among sixth grade students. The study found that girls generally exhibited greater concern for interpersonal relationships and more frequently engaged in high affinity talk (Strough & Meehan, 2001, as cited in Sullivan & Wilson, 2015). Teachers should consider how social conditioning will influence the ability of group members to negotiate roles, suggest alternatives, and correct and support each other.