Cooperative learning and social acceptance of children with mild intellectual disability

Cooperative learning and social acceptance of children

with mild intellectual disability

N. Jacques, K. Wilton & M. Townsend

Department of Education, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract

The effects of the participation of non-disabled children

in a cooperative learning programme on their social

acceptance of classmates with mild intellectual disability

was examined. A sample of 24 children with mild

intellectual disability in the 9±11-year-old age-range was

identified from educational psychologists' case records.

All of the children were receiving mainstreaming special

education programmes at the time of the study. Twelve

of the children had previously attended special education

classes, while the remainder had always attended regular

classes. Half of the children's regular classes were

randomly assigned to either receive an experimental

cooperative learning programme or to serve as control

classrooms. The non-disabled children in the

experimental classes showed significant increases in their

social acceptance (sociometric ratings) of the children

with mild intellectual disability, both immediately

following the programme and 5 weeks later, but no such

increases were evident in the children in the control

classrooms. This pattern held for both the former

special class pupils and the children with mild intellectual

disability who had never attended special classes. The

results confirm the usefulness of cooperative learning

strategies for enhancing the social acceptance of children

with mild intellectual disability in mainstreaming special

educational programmes, regardless of the nature of

their previous special educational provisions.

Keywords cooperative learning, social acceptance,mainstreaming special educational programmes,mental retardation

Introduction

Over the past 20 years, mainstreaming/inclusivespecial educational policies have been developed inmost Western countries for children with mildintellectual disability. A major assumption which hasunderpinned the development of such policies hasbeen that, for the children concerned, integratedprovisions will obviate any stigma which may beassociated with segregated provisions, and will alsoprovide more adequate social learning opportunitiesfor the children concerned, as well as for their non-disabled peers. While several studies have suggestedthat experimental mainstreaming programmes canhave benefits for children with mild intellectualdisability in terms of enhanced social adjustment andself-esteem, it is also the case that this research base isnoticeably slim and that few recently published (i.e.post-mainstreaming) studies have been made of thesocial acceptance of children with mild intellectualdisability receiving inclusive special education in(non-experimental) regular classes (Semmel et al.1994). One exception is a recent Australian study

Correspondence: Dr Keri Wilton, Department of Education,

University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1, New

# 1998 Blackwell Science Ltd

Journal of Intellectual Disability Research

VOLUME 42 PART 1 pp 29±36 FEBRUARY 199829

(Roberts & Zubrick 1993) which indicated that thesocial acceptance of children with mild intellectualdisability who had been mainstreamed wassignificantly poorer than that of their non-disabledclassmates, a finding which virtually echoes thesituation documented in a voluminous body ofprevious (i.e. pre-mainstreaming) research in thisarea (Gottlieb et al. 1991).

Such findings do not seem surprising, given thenature and extent of the social difficulties of childrenwith mild intellectual disability (Siperstein & Leffert1997). Children with mild intellectual disability whoare returned to regular classes from special classes(i.e. who are mainstreamed) are especially likely tohave low social acceptance by non-disabled peers.Most of these children would have had socialdifficulties prior to their placement in a special class,and many would have had to transfer from theirlocal school to attend a school with a special class,thus further severing associations withneighbourhood peers. A sizeable body of researchindicates that, when such children are returned toregular classes, they are likely to be very poorlyaccepted by peers, and that, if they do not receivespecial help in this area, their lack of socialacceptance is likely to intensify (Gottlieb et al. 1991).

Several strategies have been developed to facilitatechildren's social acceptance and social competenceduring the school years. Social skills training is likelyto be helpful in increasing the social acceptance ofchildren with mild intellectual disability inmainstreaming settings. However, such trainingrequires skilled teachers, as well as considerableinstructional time and resources for theindividualized teaching, and it is highly probable thatfew if any regular class teachers would have theresourcesÐor perceive that they had the requisitetime or expertise to provide specific individualizedsocial skills training for children with mildintellectual disability in mainstreaming settings(Gresham 1986).

Cooperative learning programmes would appearto offer a useful alternative strategy for enhancingthe social acceptance of children with disabilities inregular classes. A sizeable body of research hasaccumulated which indicates that such programmescan yield significant gains in the social acceptance ofchildren with sensory, physical or learningdisabilities by their non-disabled classmates (e.g.

Lloyd et al. 1988; Margolis & Freund 1991).However, most studies to date have focused onrelatively `mixed groups' of children with disabilities(typically subsumed under the label `academichandicaps'), and few if any studies have beenconcerned specifically with children showing mildintellectual disability. Thus, there is a need toexamine the effects of cooperative learning strategieson the social acceptance of children with mildintellectual disability. Moreover, given the fact thatformer special class pupils are especially likely tohave limited social acceptance in mainstreamsettings, the effectiveness of cooperative learning infacilitating the social acceptance of this particulargroup of children is also of considerable researchinterest.

Traditionally, most New Zealand children withmild intellectual disability who received specialeducation would have attended a special class.However, in the late 1980s, mainstreaming(inclusive) special educational policies wereformulated for children with disabilities(Department of Education 1988), andsubsequently, a range of mainstream specialeducational provisions were developed for childrenwith intellectual disability. Many children withmild intellectual disability now receive specialeducational provisions in regular classes(functional mainstreaming), and do not attend(and have never attended) a special education classor a resource room. In addition, many childrenwith mild intellectual disability who have beenattending special classes are now being returned toregular classes on a full-time basis to receiveinclusive special educational provisions.

The present study was concerned with theeffects of a cooperative learning programme on thesocial acceptance of two groups of New Zealandchildren with mild intellectual disability who werecurrently receiving mainstream special educationalprovisions: (1) those who had formerly attendedspecial classes; and (2) those who had alwaysattended regular classes. In addition,supplementary data were also gathered on the self-esteem levels of the children with mild intellectualdisability, and on the teachers' perceptions of thechildren's social adjustment before and after thechildren's participation in the cooperative learningprogramme.

Journal of Intellectual Disability Research VOLUME 42 PART 1 FEBRUARY 1998

N. Jacques et al . Cooperative learning

# 1998 Blackwell Science Ltd, Journal of Intellectual Disability Research 42, 29±36

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Methods

Subjects

A sample of 24 children with mild intellectualdisability (21 boys and three girls) was identifiedfrom educational psychologists' case records. Eachof the children was attending one of 21 regularprimary schools (three classrooms contained twosuch children) in the Auckland, New Zealand,metropolitan area and was receiving mainstreamspecial educational provisions. Each of the schoolscontained �400±500 pupils. All of the subjects hadbeen referred for psychological assessment and hadsubsequently been classified as having a mildintellectual disability (WISC full-scale IQ range 50±70). Twelve of the children had previously attendeda special class/resource room, while the remainderhad always attended regular classes. The non-disabled classmates of the children with mildintellectual disability were all within the 9±11-year-old age-range.

Instruments

Social acceptance measure

The social acceptance of all of the children in the 21

classrooms concerned was assessed using a standardsociometric procedure. All of the pupils in eachclassroom were asked to record the names of `threechildren in your class you would like to invite toyour birthday party'. Indices of acceptance werederived for each child with intellectual disability bydetermining the total number of choices receivedfrom all pupils in her/his class (i.e. from all exceptthe child with mild intellectual disability). Thus, themaximum possible score on this measure would bethe total number of children in the class minus one(e.g. in a class of 30 children, the score would be29). This procedure has been extensively used instudies of peer-acceptance (Asher et al. 1996) andthe derived indices have been found to be reliableover substantial periods of time for children in thisage-group (Asher et al. 1979).

Self-esteem

The original school form of the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith 1967) was used toassess the self-esteem of the children with mild

intellectual disability. This 50-item scale is amongthe most widely used self-esteem measures and hasexcellent reliability/stability, as well as an impressiveamount of information supporting its constructvalidity (Petersen & Austin 1985). The scale yields amaximum total score of 100 (minimum = 0), highscores being indicative of high (perceived) self-esteem and low scores of low self-esteem.

Teacher ratings of social adjustment

A series of 10 Likert-scale items dealing witheducational progress and social adjustment wascompleted by each of the teachers of the children onthe child with mild intellectual disability and onthree other children in the class (sampled at randomfrom the class roll by the first author). Five of theitems dealt with social adjustment [e.g. `(name) getsalong well with peers' and `(name) fits in very wellsocially with the class'] and the remaining items witheducational progress. On each of the socialadjustment items, teachers were asked to indicatethe extent of their agreement/disagreement (e.g.strongly agree = 6, agree = 5, not sure but wouldprobably agree = 4, and not sure but would probablydisagree = 3) with a statement about the adequacy ofthe child's social adjustment. The scores of theseitems were totalled (maximum = 30 and minimum= 5), and thus, for each child, a high score indicateda high perceived level of social adjustment and a lowscore a low level of social adjustment. The test-retestreliability coefficient for the scale for control groupchildren was 0.94.

Cooperative learning programme

Each of the children in the study participated in oneof two conditions: either (1) a 6-week cooperativelearning programme; or (2) their usual classroomprogramme (control condition). The cooperativelearning programme was undertaken in 30-min dailysessions for 4 days each week. The programme wasbased largely on a cooperative learning unit devisedby Aronson et al. (1978) and on Slavin's (1983)modification of this unit (`Jigsaw I' or `Jigsaw II'),and was developed and implemented by the firstauthor (N.J.). This meant that the procedure wasidentical across classrooms/schools, thus avoidingdifferential treatment and/or teacher effects in the




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research groups. Essentially, each class was dividedinto small (four to six members) heterogeneousgroups, one or two of which contained a child withmild intellectual disability.

The group task was to have each child learn anentire unit of social studies material (six weekly unitsof geographical material, each dealing with adifferent country, formed the basis of theprogramme) and to complete successfully a test onthe material at the end of each week. Group scoreswere computed by adding up the scores of all groupmembers and the highest scoring group was awardedcoloured stickers for their group work folders. Toaccomplish the tasks in each unit, the groupmembers had to cooperate and coordinate theiractivities with each other child in their group: firstlearning their own individually assigned section ofthe unit, and subsequently, teaching it to the rest ofthe group. In other words, the group had to fittogether their individual `pieces' in order tocomplete the entire `jigsaw puzzle'. Somemodifications were made to the original programmein an attempt to adapt it to New Zealand primaryschool conditions and to provide subtle support forthe children with mild intellectual disability. First,the reading material was written (by the first author)using Elley's (1975) readability grading scale, so thatit would be suitable for the children concerned.Secondly, the final section of each unit (each unithad five such sections) was made subtly easier inreadability, and in groups containing the child withmild intellectual disability, this section was alwaysgiven to that child. Thirdly, the children weregrouped into partnerships to provide extra help foreach other and the leader was also encouraged toprovide support where necessary. Finally, specificrules detailing the daily routine were kept posted atall times.

Procedure

Initially, the principals, teachers and parents of thechildren in the schools concerned were contactedand their participation requested. All subsequentlyagreed to participate in the study. The 24 childrenwith mild intellectual disability were subdivided intotwo subgroups of 12 children: (1) former specialclass pupils; and (2) children who had neverattended special classes. Within each subgroup, the

classrooms containing the 12 children were eachassigned at random to either the experimental orcontrol groups (where there were two children withintellectual disability in a class, both were assignedto the same treatment group). This resulted in fourgroups of regular classrooms, each of whichcontained a child with mild intellectual disability; i.e.two groups of classrooms each containing a formerspecial class pupil (six experimental and six control),and two groups of classrooms each containing achild with mild intellectual disability who had neverattended a special class (six experimental and sixcontrol). Each of the 21 classrooms contained �30

pupils (including the child/children with intellectualdisability).

To guard against the possibility that pre-testingcould confound experimental effects, a Solomonfour-group design (Campbell & Stanley 1963) wasemployed in which half of the subjects in each groupwere pre-tested and the remainder were not.Immediately prior to the onset of the experimentalprogrammes, the pre-tested children wereadministered the social acceptance index and theCoopersmith scale, and teachers' ratings of thechildren's social adjustment were gathered. At thistime, two of the former special class pupils in theexperimental classrooms (one boy and one girl)transferred to other schools and were subsequentlyeliminated from the study, thus leaving a totalsample of 22 children with mild intellectualdisability. The classes of these children provided thesetting for the study.

The programme was administered in four 30-minsessions per week over a 6-week period. Immediatelyfollowing the completion of the programme, thesocial acceptance and self-esteem measures werereadministered, and teachers' ratings were gatheredof the children's social adjustment. All of thesemeasures were also administered 5 weeks after thecompletion of the programme.

Results and discussion

Three-way analyses of variance [treatment(experimental versus control) special class attendance(former special class pupil versus never attended aspecial class) � pre-testing (pre-tests versus no pre-tests)] were conducted on the immediate post-tests




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and 5-week post-tests. In each case, a Method 1

general linear model analysis, as described byOverall & Spiegel (1969), was used inaccommodating the slight non-orthogonality in thedesign. None of these analyses yielded significantmain or interaction effects involving pre-testing, andaccordingly, to simplify presentation, pre-testing wasdiscarded from the model. The data from pre-testedand non-pre-tested groups were then combined andtwo-way (treatment � special class attendance)analyses were undertaken on the immediate post-testand 5-week post-test data.

Summaries of the results of the data analyses arepresented in Table 1 (immediate post-tests) andTable 2 (5-week post-tests). It can be seen that thetreatment main effects for the analyses of socialacceptance scores were significant for both theimmediate post-tests (Table 1) and 5-week delayedpost-tests (Table 2), but that none of the remainingmain or interaction effects were significant for eithertest interval. These results indicate that the socialacceptance scores of the children with mildintellectual disability who received the cooperativelearning programme (the experimental group) weresignificantly higher than those of the controls, bothimmediately following the treatment (Mx = 13.90,Mc = 2.50) and 5 weeks later (Mx = 9.22,Mc = 3.58).

Thus, participation by non-disabled children in acooperative learning programme yielded gains in

their social acceptance of classmates with mildintellectual disability. Moreover, such gains wereevident immediately following the completion of thecooperative learning programme and also 5 weekslater, an indication of the durability of theprogramme effects on the non-disabled children'sacceptance of their classmates with mild intellectualdisability. An inspection of the individual scores ofthe pre-tested subjects revealed that all of theexperimental subjects gained substantially in socialacceptance following their participation in thecooperative learning programme. In contrast, onlytwo control subjects showed a positive gain in socialacceptance, and in both cases, the gain wasnegligible. Moreover, the post-test scores of the non-pre-tested subjects were all closely comparable tothose of the pre-tested subjects, and showed a verymarked contrast between the experimental andcontrol group subjects.

It is also interesting to note that the programmewas equally effective with children who had beenreturned from special classes to mainstreamplacement and those who had never attended aspecial class. In particular, the data provide nosupport for the idea that special class attendanceconfers durable social disadvantages on the childrenwith mild intellectual disability which result in suchchildren becoming somehow less able to establishsocial links with their non-disabled classmates upontheir return to regular classes.

Table 1 Group mean and summary of analyses of social acceptance scores, self-esteem indices and teachers' ratings of social adjustment:

immediate post-tests

Previous Treatment (A) F-ratios (d.f.=1,18)special

class Experiment Control

Dependent pupil

variable (B) Mean (SD) Mean (SD) A B A�B

Social acceptance Yes 11.75 (2.75) 3.30 (4.27) 57.16*** 0.43 3.23

No 15.33 (3.14) 1.67 (2.88)

Self-esteem Yes 59.00 (10.52) 57.00 (7.97) 0.39 0.64 0.07

No 56.00 (18.24) 51.00 (11.92)

Social adjustment Yes 20.25 (4.79) 20.17 (4.79) 2.54 0.14 2.42No 24.33 (3.67) 17.67 (5.99)

***P < 0.001.




33

The present results indicate that cooperativelearning can facilitate the social acceptance of formerspecial class pupils in mainstreaming settings, andthus, are consistent with a body of previous researchinvolving children with mild disabilities other thanmild intellectual disability (e.g. Margolis & Freund1991). Clearly, cooperative learning programmes canenhance the social acceptance of children with mildintellectual disability in mainstream settings whetheror not they have been previously educated insegregated special education settings.

Supplementary data were also gathered on theself-esteem levels of the children with mildintellectual disability and on their teachers'perceptions of the children's social adjustment. Ascan be seen from Tables 1 and 2, the analyses ofself-esteem and social adjustment scores failed toyield any significant main or interaction effects foreither immediate or 5-week post-tests. The self-esteem immediate post-test means for theexperimental group were slightly higher than thosefor the control group for both former special classpupils and for children who had always attendedregular classes (Table 1). However, 5 weeks later,this difference had attenuated in the pupils whohad remained in regular classes and in the formerspecial class pupils; indeed, for the latter subgroup,the 5-week post-test scores of the children whoreceived the experimental programme were slightlylower than those of the controls. It needs to beemphasized that none of these differences were

statistically significant. It is interesting to note that,although no New Zealand norms have beendeveloped for the Coopersmith (1967) scale, theself-esteem scores of all of the groups, at bothtime-points, are within the twentieth to thirtiethpercentile range in terms of public school studentsof comparable age in the USA (Kimball 1973), thussuggesting that all of the subjects were showing`reasonable' if unspectacular levels of self-esteem(as perceived by the children themselves). It seemslikely that the children's self-esteem levels would beinfluenced positively following increased levels ofsocial acceptance by their classmates. At the sametime, it also seems likely that the children wouldtake considerable time to perceive any changes thatmight occur in their social acceptance by theirclassmates, and subsequently, to acquire confidencethat any changes they might perceive in theirclassmates' reactions to them were likely to persist.Accordingly, increases in self-esteem may well takerather longer to achieve than the 6-week periodemployed in the current programme, andmoreover, increases which are achieved (as aresuggested by the immediate post-test scores) mayneed to be consolidated through continuedparticipation in activities in which gains in social-acceptance/self-esteem have been specificallytargeted (as was the case in the experimentalprogramme). In the present study, all of thechildren resumed their regular classroom activitiesat the completion of the cooperative learning

Table 2 Group means and summary of analyses of social acceptance scores, self-esteem indices and teachers' ratings of social adjustment: 5

week post-tests

Previous Treatment (A) F-ratios (d.f.=1,18)

specialclass Experiment Control

Dependent pupil

variable (B) Mean (SD) Mean (SD) A B A�B

Social acceptance Yes 6.67 (3.51) 3.38 (4.40) 9.98*** 1.11 1.87

No 10.50 (2.59) 3.33 (3.14)

Self-esteem Yes 53.00 (10.82) 57.83 (8.40) 0.03 0.07 0.32

No 55.00 (19.30) 52.33 (15.25)

Social adjustment Yes 24.33 (2.08) 20.50 (6.28) 3.86 0.19 0.19

No 24.33 (4.80) 18.33 (6.15)

***P < 0.01.




34

programme and none participated in any form ofcooperative learning programme during the 5-weekpost-programme period.

It is also interesting to note that the teachers'ratings of the social adjustment of the children whoreceived the experimental programme were higher(although not significantly so) than those of thecontrols immediately following the programme(Mx = 22.70, Mc = 18.92), and that this intergroupdifference had increased somewhat after 5 weeks(Mx = 24.33, Mc = 19.42) and was then close tosignificance (P < 0.07). It is possible (indeed likely)that any effects of social learning via participation ina cooperative learning programme and of anyresultant increases in the children's social acceptancewould not be immediately discernible in thechildren's social adjustment as perceived by teachers,and indeed, may well take some time to be reflectedin the children's social behaviour.

There is a slight suggestion that the effects of thecooperative learning programme took longer tobecome apparent to the teachers of the formerspecial class pupils than to the teachers of thechildren who had always attended regular classes.The ratings for the latter group showed an increaseimmediately following the programme, but for theformer special class pupils, such an increase was notevident until 5 weeks after the completion of theprogramme. It is possible that the former specialclass pupils actually took somewhat longer to profitfrom the social learning/acceptance opportunitiesafforded by the programme or to perceive theirenhanced social acceptance by their classmates.However, it is equally possible that this group didmake gains in social adjustment during theprogramme, but that their teachers took longer toperceive their enhanced social adjustment than theteachers of the children who had always attendedregular classes. While these possibilities areinteresting, it is important to note that none of thesedifferences were statistically significant and that themean ratings of the control subjects wereconsistently close to the midpoint of the scale (anindication that any social adjustment difficulties thechildren may have been thought to have by theirteachers were not major ones).

In conclusion, the present results indicate thatthe cooperative learning programme was helpful inenhancing the social acceptance of children with

mild intellectual disability by their class-mates inmainstreaming settings and that the beneficialeffects were durable. The results also indicate thatthe programme was equally effective with childrenwho had been transferred to regular classes fromspecial classes, and with those who had alwaysreceived mainstream special educational provisions.It is important to note that, in the present study,the first author (N.J.), rather than the teachers,implemented the cooperative learning programme.This procedure was followed so that theequivalence/`reliability' of the experimentaltreatment across the different classroom settingswould be maximized. A logical next research stepwould be to examine the effects of suchprogrammes when they are implemented by theactual classroom teachers of the children concerned.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their appreciation forthe help which they received from the principals,teachers and pupils in the schools concerned whomade this study possible.

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Cooperative learning and social acceptance of children with mild intellectual disability