Abstract

Cooperative learning is being used through out the world. It is gaining international popularity. On the basis of theory and practice, we test and use cooperative learning methods in our culture and classroom situation. Therefore, a study was conducted in order to examine the “effect of cooperative learning on students’ achievement at elementary level”. Students of class 6th equally divided on the basis of teacher made pre-test scores and as a treatment cooperative learning method “Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD)” was provided to experimental group, while control group was taught by using traditional method of teaching and kept under traditional classroom situation for the period of 12 weeks. At the end of the treatment, teacher made post-test was administered to measure the achievement of the students. The comparative effectiveness of cooperative learning on the academic achievement of students and effect of cooperative learning on high and low achievers was measured. Significance of difference between the mean scores of groups was measured at 0.05 Alpha level of significance by applying t-test. Findings of the study revealed that both the groups were equal in the beginning of the experiment. The experimental group showed better results on post-test scores, showing the obvious preeminence of cooperative learning method over traditional methods of teaching. High achievers of experimental group showed better results as compared to control group, and also helpful in developing creative thinking. Results of the study indicate that cooperative learning is more effective teaching method as compared to traditional methods of teaching.