Student Achievement in an Educational Technology Course as Enhanced by Cooperative Learning

Student Achievement in an Educational Technology Course as Enhanced by CooperativeLearningAuthor(s): Chi-Mei Doris Leung and Choi-Man ChungSource: Journal of Science Education and Technology, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1997), pp. 337-343Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40186441 .

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Student Achievement in an Educational Technology Course As Enhanced By Cooperative Learning

Journal of Science Education and Technology, VoL 6, No. 4, 1997

Chi-mei Doris Leung1 and Choi-man Chung1

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of cooperative learning on students' achievement in an Educational Technology course in an Initial Tfeacher Training Program. A

cooperative learning strategy was compared with the traditional whole class direct instruction

approach. Ninety-five first year full-time students at a College of Education constituted the

sample. The students' achievement included: academic achievement in the course, quantity measurement in the use of instructional media, and quality rating of utilization of instructional media during their teaching practice. Their attitude change was also assessed by an Attitude Inventory. The results indicated that cooperative learning strategy had a positive effect on academic achievement and quantity measurement in the use of instructional media

(F(l,91) = 7.06, p < 0.01; F(l,91) = 4.59, p < 0.05). Cooperative learning strategy also had a positive influence on students' attitudes towards instructional media and their learning condition (F(l,93) = 5.07, p < 0.05; F(l,93) = 6.20, p < 0.05).

KEY WORDS: Student achievement; educational technology; cooperative learning.

INTRODUCTION

Molstad (1974) found that instructional media

played a significantly positive role in the overall achievement of the learner when they were properly employed and that it was possible to shorten the

teaching time when such media were appropriately incorporated into a lesson. However, many studies have shown that teachers at all levels do not incor-

porate a great deal of media into their lessons

(Descy, 1992; Seidman, 1986; Smeltzer, 1988). The

study by Bellamy, Whitaker, and White found that the low utilization of instructional media might be due to a combination of technophobia and laziness

(Descy, 1992). Carter and Schmidt (1985) further

suggested that pre-service teacher training might be a major problem leading to this phenomenon. In order to increase teachers' usage of instructional media, cooperative learning was used to teach the

lfThe Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Education, De-

partment of Curriculum and Instruction, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong.

Educational Tfechnology course described in this

study for pre-service teachers. Hall (1992) suggested that when pre-service teachers experienced cooperative learning in their teacher education program for a particular subject area, their attitudes towards that subject area and the teaching of that subject were

promoted and became more positive. The major aim of this study was to investigate

whether achievement by students at a College of Education in an Educational Technology course could be enhanced by cooperative learning. A second

aspect of the study was to investigate whether there was a significant difference in attitude towards instructional media and their effect on learning on students studying with cooperative learning strategies as to opposed to those studying with a traditional whole-class direct instruction approach.

The significance of this study lies in its theoreti- cal and practical applications to initial teacher training programs. Cooperative learning was used for the first time in the teaching of an Educational Tfechnol-

ogy course in the pre-service teaching training program in the College of Education mentioned above.

337

l059-O145/97/120(WJ337$115O/O O 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation



338 Leung and Chung

The cooperative learning instructional strategies de- rived for the study suggested an alternative mode for the teaching of the Educational Technology course. The study also provided an investigation into the effectiveness of these new instructional strategies. In traditional teacher training programs, individualized learning and teacher-centered presentations are stressed and these affect the teaching methods cho- sen by student-teachers and the quality of their future teaching. The current study explores the impact of cooperative learning in pre-service teachers' academic achievement, their attitudes, and the quality and quantity of their usage of instructional media during their teaching practice. Therefore, the study may provide certain guidelines or information for the future design and selection of the mode of instruction in teacher education.

METHOD

Subjects

TWo hundred and forty-four first year students enrolled in a full-time two-year-course at a College of Education constituted the population for the study, with six educational technology groups consist- ing of ninety-five students (39%) randomly selected as the sample.

Design

This study was a quasi-experimental versus control group design. The experimental group consisted of 3 sub-groups totalling 48 student-teachers who, as

mentioned above, studied the course through a cooperative learning approach. The control group consisted of 3 sub-groups totalling 47 student-teachers who studied the course under the traditional whole- class direct instruction approach.

Procedure

The schedules of the procedures for this study are shown in Thble I. In order to maintain the quality of the study, two criteria for treatment were set:

• The experimental groups had to study the same subject content with the control groups.

• The study duration had to be at least four weeks, which was the lower limit suggested by Slavin (1990).

The control group learned under the traditional whole-class direct instructional approach and the experimental group learned under a cooperative learning approach. The lesson plans for the cooperative learning approach were written according to a format suggested by Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec (1987). The differences between the experimental group and the control group for this study are summarized in Thble II.

RESULTS

Student Achievement

Tkble III shows the means and standard deviations of academic achievement scores (Practical) and

Table I. Schedule of Study

Group

Procedure* Control Experimental

Treatment Learning under traditional Learning under cooperative (five months in duration instruction approach learning approach Measurement 1. Academic Assesment 1. Academic Asessment

2. Attitude Invetory 2. Attitude Inventory 3. Instructional Media 3. Instructional Media

Rating Form during Rating Form during their Teaching Practice their Teaching Practice

4. Frequency of Media 4. Frequency of Media Use after their Teaching Use after their Teaching

Practice Practice

flN.B The Teaching Practice lasted for a period of two months.



Student Achievement in an Educational Technology 339

Table DL Differences between Experimental and Control Groups

Experimental group Control group

positive interdependence no interdependence

response for oneself and responsible only for self team members

use of social skills encouraged social skills ignored

teacher monitored and inter- teacher focused on indi- vened vidual performance

Table m. Means and Standard Deviations of Achievement Scores for Two Instructional Strategies (N = 95)

Source of Variation

Instructional Practical Frequency Strategy (SD) (SD)

Experimental 49.61 (3.25) 17.69(5.56)

Control 47.70 (3.79) 15.49 (4.55)

N.B. Number in parentheses indicates the SD.

Frequency of Media Use (Frequency) for different instructional strategies. Tkble IV reports the results of Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) utilizing the academic achievement scores (Practical) and Frequency of Media Use (Frequency), as the de-

pendent variables and instructional strategy as the in-

dependent variable. Wilks' A indicates the effects of the instructional strategies on achievement scores. The univariate test separately measured the contri- bution of different achievement scores to the multivariate results.

As shown in Tkble iy the instructional strategies indicated a significant effect on the achievement measures (Wilks' A(l,93) = 0.897, p < 0.005). The

follow-up univariate tests showed that academic achievement was found to be significantly different between the two groups of subjects (Wilks' A(l,93) = 6.923, MSsem = 12.450, p < 0.01). The frequency measure also showed significant difference between the two groups of subjects (Wilks' A(l,93) = 4.43141, MSsem - 25.893, p < 0.05). Moreover, the experimental group (Practical = 49.61, Frequency = 17.69) performed better than the control group (Practical = 47.70, Frequency = 15.49) on the two achievement scores as indicated in T&ble III.

Multivariate analysis with repeated measures was used to analyze the effect of instructional strat-

Table IV, MANOVA of Instructonal Strategy on Achievement

Score

Univariate F

df Wilks* A Practical Frequency

Instructional Strategy 1 0.89729*** 6.92349** 4.43141*

SEM Error 93 12.45017 25.89309 Total 94

*p < 0.05; **/> < 0.01; ***p < 0.005.

egy on Instructional Media Rating Form(Rating). Th- ble V presents the means and standard deviations for the two rating scores in both two groups and the entire sample. Tkble VI shows the result of the MA- NOVA. The result shows that instructional strategy did not bring about significant difference and that there was a statistically significant difference between the two rating scores (F(l,93) = 7.29, MSSEm = 1-49, p < 0.01). Tkble V consistently indicates that the second quality rating score (Mean = 3.556) was higher than the first rating score (Mean = 3.379) in the entire sample and shows that the students in both groups gained improvement during their teaching practice. Moreover, the first and second quality rating scores of the students from the experimental group were higher than those of students from the control group. This indicates that students in the experimental group performed better than students in the control group on quality rating of the utilization of instructional media although instructional strategy did not produce a significant statistical result in the multivariate repeated test statistics.

The results indicate that there was significant difference in the academic achievement scores and Frequency of Media Use between students studying

Table V. Means and Standard Deviations of Instructional Media Rating Scores for Two Instructional Strategies (N = 95)

Source of Variation

Instructional First Rating Second Rating Stratey (SD) (SD)

Experimental 3.45 (0.62) 3.67 (0.81)

Control 3.30 (0.57) 3.44 (0.66)

Entire sample 3.379 (0.597) 3.556 (0.747)

N.B. Numbers in parentheses indicate the SD.



340 Leung and Chung

Table VL MANOVA of Instructional Strategy on Instructional Media Rating

Source of Variance SS df MS F

Between-Subjects Instructional Strategy 1.78 1 1.78 2.55 Error 65.10 93 0.78

Within-Subjects

Rating 1.49 1 1.49 7.29" Instructional Media BY 0.09 1 0.09 0.45 Rating Error 19.03 93 0.20

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

with cooperative learning strategy and those studying under the traditional whole class direct instruction approach. The achievement scores for students using cooperative learning strategies were enhanced as compared with students studying under the traditional whole class direct instruction approach.

Student Attitudes

The Attitude Inventory included two parts: attitudes towards instructional media and attitudes towards the learning condition they have had (see Appendix I: Attitude Inventory). Both parts consisted of ten Likert-type statements, with some statements in Part I modified from Koontz (1992). The reliability coefficient of "attitude towards instructional media" produced a Cronbach's alpha of 0.7388. The reliability coefficient of "attitude towards learning condition" produced a Cronbach's alpha of 0.6682. The reliability coefficients were considered to be medium high and indicated that there was a high internal consistency in the instruments in this study. Tkble VII provides the means and standard deviations of the attitude scores, i.e., attitudes towards instructional media (AIM) and attitudes towards the learning condition they have had (ALC) in groups with different instructional strategies. T&ble VIII reports the results of the MANOVA utilizing the attitude scores, i.e., AIM and ALC, as the dependent variables and instructional strategy as the independent variable.

Thble VII shows that the experimental group had more positive attitudes towards instructional media and the learning condition they had had than the control group. As shown in Tkble VIII, instructional strategy produced statistically significant effects for attitude scores (Wilks' A(l,93) = 0.926, p < 0.05). The univariate tests show that both the two univari-

Table VII. Means and Standard Deviations of Attitude Scores

Source of Variation

Instructional Instructional Media Learning Condition Strategy (SD) (SD)

Experimental 38.08 (3.70) 36.58 (2.70)

Control 36.34 (3.85) 34.91 (3.76)

NB. Number in parentheses indicates the SD.

Table Vffl. MANOVA of Instructional Strategy on Attitude

Score Univariate F

Internation al Learning

Source of Variance df Wilks' A Media Condition

Instructional Strategy 1 0.92622* 5.066* 6.202*

SEM

Error 93 14.239 10.659

Total 94

*p < 0.05.

ates: Attitudes towards instructional media (Wilks' A(l,93) = 5.066, MSsem = 14.239, p < 0.05) and Attitudes towards learning condition they had had (Wilks' ̂ (1,93) = 6.202, MSSEm = 10.65942, p < 0.015) showed statistical significant effects and yielded significant univariate results to the multivariate findings. The results indicate that there was significant difference in the attitude scores between the students using cooperative learning strategies and those studying under the traditional whole class direct instruction approach. Students under cooperative learning demonstrated more positive attitudes towards the two aspects than students learning under the traditional condition did.

DISCUSSION

Students' Achievement Measurements From the statistical results related to achieve-

ment measurements, except for instructional media quality rating, the two other achievement measurements, i.e., academic achievement scores and frequency of media use, had significant differences between the experimental group and the control group (F(l,93) = 0.897, p < 0.005 and F(3,91) = 0.890, p < 0.005). The experimental group per-




formed better on all these three achievement measurements than the control group.

The academic achievement scores were evalu- ated directly in relation to the course contents which were taught inside the lessons and the measurement of the frequency of media use was a factual reflection of the utilization rate. If a student had learned effec- tively from the lessons then he/she was able to score highly on academic achievement measurements. In other words, a student's performance in terms of academic achievement could directly reflect the amount of effort the student had put in. The amount of the media used during his/her teaching practice similarly indicated the amount of effort the student had put in and his/her attitudes towards instructional media. As a result, if a student had more positive attitudes toward instructional media, he/she would produce or use instructional media more frequently.

However, evaluating the effectiveness of a particular teaching behavior was far more complex than solely evaluating academic achievement and counting the frequency of the behavior. The studies by Brophy and Evertson (1976) and Cronbach and Snow (1977) showed that effective teaching behaviors differed for students with different socio-economic and psycho- logical characteristics. The related studies by Gage (1979) and McDonald and Elias (1976) also showed that effective teaching behaviors also varied for students in different grade levels and subject areas. It was suggested that an effective teacher had to adjust his/her teaching to fit the demands of each student (Darling-Hammond, Wise, and Peage, 1983). Tfeach- ing was "multi-faceted" and a "highly complex activity requiring knowledge and a wide repertoire of skills, flexibility, adaptability, versatility, and commit- ment" (Darling-Hammond and Hudson, 1988). Clark (1986) also stressed the "full complexity of the teacher's task" and advocated studying the teachers1 thought processes rather than focusing on one particular teaching behavior. They all stressed the inter- active nature of each teaching behavior inside the classroom, with each teaching behavior being affected by many factors, including the knowledge of the particular content domain.

Since all the student teachers in the study were first year full time students at a College of Educa- tion, they were in the initial teacher training stage. The five stages of development identified by Berliner (1988) are a useful reference point here. These five stages are: Novice, Advanced Beginner, Competent, Proficient, and Expert. All the student teachers in the

study were, in accordance with Berliner's classifica- tion, at the Novice stage, since they were all at the initial stage in a teacher's professional development. At this stage, a teacher starts to recognize and label each element of a classroom task and acquire a set of content-free rules. His/Her classroom teaching performance is relatively inflexible.

The results in Tkble V show that the rating scores of the four groups of students were all above 3, which was more than half of the fiill score. It sug- gests that the student teachers, at the Novice stage, have already accomplished a certain standard in their utilization of instructional media. Since teaching is a rather complex task and is affected by a wide range of factors and practical environment constraints, the ratings on the students' competence in using instructional media not only address the knowledge they have gained from the Educational Technology Course but also their willingness to use the media as well as the availability of the media. The students had to be flexible and be able to adapt their teaching behaviors to their actual teaching situations. This floor effect of effective teaching puts forth a force to compress the scores distribution of the four treatment groups. This might explain why the instructional media quality rating scores of the students showed no significant difference in the statistical findings between the experimental group and the control group and among the four treatment groups in the study. Based on the means of the rating scores among the four treatment groups, the experimental group performed better than the control group although the difference was not statistically significant.

From the above discussion, the results in relation to achievement scores on practical tests and individual assignments and Frequency of Media Use confirmed that cooperative learning strategies could enhance academic achievement. The results are, in fact, consistent with many research findings (Gabbert, Johnson, and Johnson, 1986; Johnson, Maruyama, Johnson, Nelson, and Skon, 1981), although the In- structional Media Rating did not indicate a statistically significant enhancement for the experiment group students.

Students' Attitudes towards Instructional Media and Learning Condition

With regard to the attitude measurements, the results revealed that students in the experimental



342 Leung and Chung

group gained more positive attitudes towards instructional media and the learning experiences which they had had. The results are consistent with many research findings (Hall, 1992; Natttiv, Winitzky, and Drickey, 1990).

From the informal observation of the re- searcher, students in the experimental groups en- joyed working together. Their learning climate was supportive and students' interactions focused on the academic tasks more frequently. Students in the experimental groups demonstrated more concern for other group members, asked more task-related ques-

tions, and had more verbal interactions with other group members during their group work than students in the control group did.

Students in the experimental group experienced the following: (1) listening to each group member, (2) following the instructions and directions; (3) in- volving everyone and distributing the workload fairly; (4) appointing a group leader; (5) planning procedures or strategies in advance; (6) being patient and polite; and (7) encouraging discussion. All these are very important social skills for genuine cooperative learning to take place.

APPENDIX I- ATTITUDE INVENTORY

This questionnaire is about your attitude towards instructional media. The data will be confidential and is for research and statistical purposes only. Please complete the following to the best of your knowledge. Your kind assistance and cooperation will be highly appreciated

Put lAttitudes towards Instructional Media. Please read the following statements carefully, and CIRCLE the number that most reflects the strength of our feelings about each statement

Attitude: 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree

1 Instructional media are effective for presenting accurate infonnation. 12 3 4 5 2 A teacher should be at ease using instructional media. 12 3 4 5 3 The use of instructional media is just another way to teach, such as using a textbook,

chalkboard, handouts, etc 12 3 4 5 4 Instructional media can create interest in learning. 12 3 4 5 5 The use of instructional media provides a vicarious learning experience in the classroom. 12 3 4 5 6 I have a lot of self-confidence in using instructional media. 12 3 4 5 7* I am not concerned about my ability to use instructional media. 12 3 4 5 8* I feel okay about teaching but I am unsure about using instructional media. 12 3 4 5 9* I really prefer not to use instructional media. 12 3 4 5 10* I do not enjoy using instructional media. 12 3 4 5

•The scale scores were reversed for asterisked items 5 4 3 2 1

Part O. Attitudes towards Learning Condition. Please read the following statements carefully, and CIRCLE the number that indicates your attitude towards the learning condition you have had in learning Educational Technology.

Attitude: 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree 1 I find myself very much more involved in the learning process I have gone through 12 3 4 5 2* I am not aware of the desirable features of the learning condition I have had. 12 3 4 5 3* I am not impressed with the learning condition I have had 12 3 4 5 4* Usually not all the members do the work for group project/presentation. 12 3 4 5 5* I seldom have a chance to share my ideas and materials with other students. 12 3 4 5 6 I can learn important things from other students. 12 3 4 5 7 The learning process which I have had is stimulating and is a pleasant experience 12 3 4 5 8 Students learn lots of important things from each other. 12 3 4 5 9 The learning condition which I have had should be used often in the Education

Technology classroom 12 3 4 5 10 The learning condition which I have had should be used often in teaching a lesson 12 3 4 5

*Thc scale scores were reversed for asterisked items 5 4 3 2 1




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Student Achievement in an Educational Technology Course as Enhanced by Cooperative Learning