Cooperative learning, reading comprehension, and vocabulary learning
Sri Wachyunni (S1834460)
MA in Applied Linguistics Faculty of Arts University of Groningen
Supervisor: Dr. Marjolijn Verspoor Second Reader: Prof. Dr. Kees de Bot
March, 2011
Table of Contents
Table of Contents List of figures List of tables Acknowledgements
i iii iv v
Abstract 1
0. General Introduction 2
0.1. Rationale for the study 2
0.2. Research aims 4
0.3. Research questions 5
0.4. Outline of the thesis 5
Chapter 1: Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Acquisition in the Context of EFL through Cooperative Learning
7
1.1. Reading comprehension in an English as a foreign language 7 1.2. Inter-relation between reading and vocabulary acquisition 8
1.3. Cooperative learning method 11
1.4. The basic elements of cooperative learning 14
1.5. Cooperative learning in EFL context 17
1.6. Reading comprehension through cooperative learning 19
Chapter 2: Methodology 22
2.1. Participants 22
2.2. Research hypotheses 23
2.3. Materials 25
2.4. Procedure 26
2.4.1. Pilot study 26
2.4.2. Selection of participant 27
2.4.3. Instruction 28
2.4.4. Pre-test 28
2.4.5. The study 29
2.4.6. Post-test 31
2.5. Design 32
Chapter 3: Results 33
3.1. Research question 1 33
Chapter 4: Discussion
43
4.1. Research question 1 43
4.2. Research Question 2 52
Chapter 5: Conclusion, limitation and suggestion for further research 57
5.1. Conclusion 57
5.2. Limitations and suggestions for future research 58 References
Appendices
Appendix 1:Pre-test Appendix 2:Post-test
Appendix 3: Pre and Post- Vocabulary test Appendix 4: Worksheets
60
66
66
69
72
74
List of Figures
Figure 1: Chart of the design of the study 32
Figure 2: Means plot of reading comprehension gain of all groups 34 Figure 3: Box plot of reading comprehension gain of all groups 35 Figure 4: Means plot of vocabulary gain of all groups 39
Figure 5: Box plot of vocabulary gain of all groups 40
List of Tables
Table 1: Means of dependent variable of the 3 groups 33
Table 2: Analysis of variance for achievement scores in Reading comprehension 37
Table 3: Analysis of variance for achievement scores in vocabulary gain 38
Acknowledgements
I am blessed with good fortunes for my study at the University of Groningen. On top of all is the encounter with Prof. Dr. Bert Creemers during his visit to the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education of Jambi University in 2006. A positive response and enthusiasm from Prof. Creemers led me to obtaining admission and applying a scholarship from the Directorate General of Higher Education, Department of National Education Republic of Indonesia.
First of all, I would like to thank all the teachers of the Department of Applied Linguistics at the University of Groningen especially Dr. Marjolijn Verspoor and Prof.
Dr. Kees de Bot for their helpful comments and guidance in their roles as supervisor and second reader of this thesis respectively. Without their care and kind help, this study could not have been accomplished. In addition, I am indebted to Mik van Es and Xiaoyan Xu for having invested their time in helping me with the statistics and rich conversations with them during the process of analyzing data. Their advice was of great importance.
I am also thankful to my colleagues and their students in Faculty of Teacher
Training Education of Jambi University, Indonesia. They helped me to provide
valuable information to improve my thesis and be voluntary participants in my
experiment.
Above all, I would like to give special thanks to my parents, sister, and
brothers for their support and prayer. Hary, my beloved husband with his enormous
love had been a source of strength and a partner of discussion.
Abstract
The present study investigates the effect of a cooperative method on students’
achievements in English reading comprehension and vocabulary in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). An adaptation of the HAVO tests was used to measure reading comprehension and vocabulary achievements of 75 undergraduate students of the English Department of the Faculty of Education at Jambi University.
Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: two experimental groups and one control group. The experimental groups were taught by means of workshops, one with the cooperative method and one with an individual learning method in reading comprehension. The control group was taught by means of an individual learning method without workshops. A pre-test and post-test were administered, and the results were analyzed through a one-way ANOVA and post hoc Kruskal-Wallis Test followed by the Mann-Whitney Test.
The results revealed that there was no significant effect in reading
comprehension achievements among the groups (experimental or control); however, in
vocabulary gain there was a significant effect. Both in the cooperative as in the
individual groups, it can be shown that students’ vocabulary gain was significantly
affected by their reading activities in a cooperative atmosphere. Conversely, there was
no significant difference between individual groups with and without workshops.
0. General introduction
0.1. Rationale for the study
Rapid developments in information technology and an increasing intensity of international relations among countries have led each country to positioning English as the most important language that should be mastered. People all over the world have become aware of the importance of English as a tool for global communication. There is even a strong belief in the developing countries, including Indonesia that nations who do not master this international language will be left behind in globalization.
Since the 1970s, there has been awareness in Indonesia to teach English as a foreign language. English is taught as a compulsory subject matter from secondary school level to university level. At the same time, in some schools, English is taught from the primary school level, and there is even a new trend in Indonesian education to force many schools and universities with an international standard of education to use English as a medium in teaching and learning. The trend indicates that English has become more important in all levels of Indonesian education. However, the importance of English is not in line with the improvement of students’ proficiency in English. In fact, as indicated by Lengkanawati ( 2004), students’ proficiency in English from secondary to university levels is still not satisfactory.
To attain a more satisfactory result, many efforts have been taken by teachers,
researchers as well as stakeholders. Various teaching methods and learning strategies
have been tried and applied in the context of EFL. Cooperative learning is one of them. In spite of the fact that cooperative learning has not specifically been designed for foreign language teaching, it can be applied in all subjects, including a foreign language context. It can help develop skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing, team-working, and empathy by giving each member of the group an essential part to play in the learning activity. In this activity, group members work together as a team to accomplish a certain goal. This method facilitates interaction among all students in the classroom, leading them to evaluate each other as contributors to their common task (Siciliano, 2008). In addition, the cooperative learning method promotes students to have positive interdependence, communication and psychological skills in face-to-face promotive interaction, individual accountability, social skills, and good teamwork skill in group processing (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1990).
Even though many positive findings and theoretical views have been shown , only a few of them focus on the impact of cooperative learning on students’
achievements in reading comprehension in the context of English as a foreign language at university level. One of them is a study conducted by Khorshidi (1999).
His study shows that there is a significant relationship between cooperative learning and students’ performance on English reading comprehension at an Iranian university.
Another one is a study carried out by Meloth and Deering (1992), who examine the
task-related talk, reading comprehension, and metacognition of students over a 4-week
period of time. Related to their findings on the effect of cooperative learning on
reading comprehension, it can be stated that students who learn in a cooperative setting demonstrate a significantly better outcome on all comprehension subtest.
In the context of applied linguistics, it is urgent to carry out empirical studies in order to evaluate the effectiveness of cooperative learning methods measuring students’ achievements by means of reading comprehension activities in an EFL teaching-learning process. Why reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition?
Research findings from the 1970s and 1980s show a close mutual relationship between reading comprehension skills, vocabulary size, and prior knowledge. The larger the mental lexicon, the more we know, and the more we understand that knowledge and the other way around. At university level, reading skills are the main skills that need to be mastered by the students, especially in terms of text comprehension, which is comprised of getting a main idea, inferencing, predicting, and summarizing. By cooperative learning, all of these skills may rise. The extent of the impact of cooperative learning on the improvement of reading comprehension and vocabulary gain will be examined in this study.
0.2. Research aims
The purpose of this study is to examine the differences in students’ achievements in
reading comprehension and vocabulary gain among three groups with different
treatments. The first group was taught by means of cooperative learning in a reading
workshop context, the second group consisted of individual within a workshop
context, and the last group consisted of individuals without a workshop context. A
workshop context means a period of discussion or practical work on a reading passage in which students are offered guided questions to help them understand the text comprehensively.
The study is intended to find out which method is more effective and better than others in terms of giving a stronger effect on students’ reading comprehension performance and vocabulary gain. Hopefully, the findings can be used by EFL teachers to select the most appropriate methods in enhancing students’ learning processes of English reading comprehension. Moreover, the study may also give meaningful findings which can be applied in future studies.
0.3. Research questions
The research questions in this study are:
1. Is there any significant difference in students’ achievements in reading comprehension among the cooperative group with workshops and the individual groups with and without workshops?
2. Is there any significant difference on vocabulary gain among the cooperative group with workshops and individual groups with and without workshops?
0.4. Outline of the thesis
The present study is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 consists of a literature
review, which is used as a theoretical frame work on reading comprehension and
vocabulary acquisition in an EFL context, the inter-relation between them, the
cooperative learning in EFL context, and reading comprehension through cooperative
learning. Chapter 2 consists of the research methodology applied in this study. Chapter
3 presents the results which consist of empirical findings related to the research
questions. Chapter 4 presents the discussion of the findings, and the final chapter is the
conclusion, limitation of the study and suggestion for the further research.
Chapter 1: Reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition in an EFL context through cooperative learning
1.1 Reading comprehension in an English as a Foreign Language context
Roe, Smith, & Burns (2005) define reading as a complex act of communication in which a number of textual, contextual, and reader-based variables interact to produce comprehension (cited from Shaaban, 2006). From a cognitive view, reading is not only a receptive activity to collect information, but also an activity that points to certain different concepts as “interpreting, analyzing, or attempting to make predictions”
(Myers and Palmer, 2002). It can be said that a reading process is a productive activity to make sense of a message, to interpret, to analyze, or to predict the meaning of the text to arrive at comprehension. According to this perspective, the reader is an active participant who has a central role as an interpreter of the text. In this view, a reader is more than a passive participant who receives information from the text. There is an active interaction between reader and text. In short, reading is an active interaction, a constructive, meaning-making process to produce comprehension. To arrive at comprehension, the reader reconstructs the meaning of the text based on his or her knowledge and experiences. As a result the meaning of the text will be different from one reader to another. They construct meaning not only based on the text but also based on their knowledge, experiences, interests, and their reading goals.
In the context of English as a foreign language (EFL), reading could be seen as
background knowledge and various types of language knowledge interact with information in the text to contribute to text comprehension” (Weir, 1993: 64). In line with this definition, Snow (2002) states that reading comprehension is “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language.” The construct of reading comprehension consists of the readers’ ability to construct the meaning of the text or written language in order to understand it. Basically, the readers can be said to comprehend a text if they can denote or predict the meaning of the text. Two important indicators of comprehension are finding the main idea and inferencing. They can be indicated by the readers’ ability to get main idea and to make inference of the text passage or paragraph. The main idea consists of most of what a text is talking about. Construct of this aspect comprises the readers’ ability to get the main topic of the text and the supported idea related to the topic. In terms of inference, the readers’ ability in inferencing can be shown by their competence to make conclusions or judgments from the information available in the paragraph or passage of the text.
1.2. Inter-relation between reading and vocabulary acquisition
In the context of EFL, there is a closed inter-relationship between reading
comprehension and vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary knowledge is one of the many
basic elements of text reading comprehension. This is in line with what Min & Hsu
(2010) state that vocabulary knowledge is closely related to reading comprehension
and the other way around. In term of constructing meaning of the text, the readers need
to know most of the vocabulary and the contextual meanings used in the text. A better understanding of the vocabulary meaning will produce a better understanding on the whole meaning of the text. However, in the EFL context, knowing all meaning of words still cannot guarantee that someone will simply be able to comprehend the whole meaning of the text.
Related to what has been mentioned above, Rott (in Pulido, 2004) found positive correlations from moderate to strong levels of significance between text comprehension, vocabulary gain, and retention of the words. In addition, the finding showed that the correlation between them was enhanced over time, which is implied from the improvement of participants’ achievements over 4 weeks. Along that time, the participants who attained higher levels of text comprehension maintained more gain in acquiring new vocabulary. It implied that participants attained less vocabulary in easy texts and they will achieve more vocabulary gain when they read difficult text.
It means that level of difficulty of vocabulary used in the text is one of many essential aspects that contribute to lower or higher achievements in reading comprehension.
Moreover, as stated by Nation & Coady (1988), “vocabulary difficulty had consistently been found to be the most significant predictor of overall readability” and explicitly of the text comprehension (cited from Min & Hsu, 2010).
Associated with L2 reading research, Saragi, Nation, and Meister (1978) found
that participants attain significant gain in vocabulary acquisition, although they had
not focused explicitly on learning vocabulary (cited from Hermann, 2003). According
support acquiring new vocabulary in a second language. The findings are in line with Krashen’s (1989) argument in the Interactive Hypothesis and the Input Hypothesis: in a reading activity, language learners could acquire vocabulary most efficiently by receiving comprehensible input.
Basically, in an EFL reading activity, it can be said that comprehensible input from the text has a powerful effect in improving students’ comprehension. Students cannot comprehend the text if most of the vocabulary used in the text is unknown.
However, what is comprehensible input (vocabulary, structure, or semantic) for one student may be partially or totally incomprehensible for others. By cooperative learning, students can share their comprehension and learn from each other to make incomprehensible words more understandable. This method is more effective than individual learning, considering the fact that there is no interaction between the students, since they do their reading task solely on their own. There is only a form of interaction between the teacher and the students that is very limited and formal.
Consequently, there is no feedback from other students so they cannot help each other to enhance their comprehension whenever there is incomprehensive input in the text.
In short, compared to individual learning, cooperative learning is more powerful in terms of increasing vocabulary and at the same time enhancing students’
comprehension.
1.3 Cooperative learning method
Slavin (1982) defines cooperative learning as instructional methods in which students of all levels of performance work together in small groups toward a common goal. In a cooperative learning class, students are involved in a closed interaction in a learning activity that is characterized by interdependence of all members of the group who have an individual accountability to get in touch with the common goal. In addition, Slavin (1991) states that cooperative learning has positive effects on students’ achievements if the groups have two important features: group goals and individual accountability.
These two characteristics are the most important elements underpinning the cooperative learning concept. Interdependence among students involved in groups make them responsible in their roles and individual accountability. Besides the two aspects, Shaaban (2006) points out that “the effectiveness of cooperative learning largely depends on other specific contextual variables such as time (how long does the researcher do the treatment), the effectiveness is likewise dependent on the quality and dynamics of interaction among learners during a cooperative study, and the composition of the study groups which can consist of different degrees of heterogeneity, gender, proficiency levels of L1 and L2, social skills, and motivation to work with others.”
Veenman et al (2002) studied the implementation effects of a course on
cooperative learning on teacher education colleges in the Netherlands. They conducted
their experiment research on two different teacher education colleges. Their findings
have shown that there are significant effects on four of the five basic elements of
and group processing.” Moreover, the cooperative learning carried out in the course had a positive effect on the engagement rates of the students of school teachers in the treatment group. Most of them improved their achievements both in academic and social skills and demonstrated eagerness to use cooperative learning methods in their future lessons as well. The students who had been taught by the cooperative method also indicated quite positive attitudes towards learning in groups and they preferred learning in groups to learning alone.
Veenman et al (2005) also investigated the effects of a teacher-training program on elaborations and affective-motivational resources (i.e., intentions and attitudes toward help seeking, help giving, and goal achieving) of students working on a cooperative task. According to the findings, the program moderately gives positive effects on elaborations surrounded by the treatment dyads. In addition, high-level elaborations in cooperative learning were positively associated with the student achievement. From the findings, it also can be demonstrated that “supplementary teacher-training programs” intended to increase students’ achievements by means of elaboration have a positive effect on students’ help-seeking and help-giving behaviours. In short, research findings on teachers colleges related to the cooperation learning implementation demonstrate the effectiveness of cooperative learning in promoting higher levels of students’ achievements.
Widaman, K.F. & Kagan, S. (1987) observed two issues related to the
cooperative learning methods used by teachers. Their study focuses on the different
impact of diverse cooperative learning methods, and the interaction of student
characteristics with learning methods. From their findings two conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, significant differences are present in the impact of various cooperative learning techniques such as Students Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) and Teams-Games Tournaments (TGT). Secondly, there is a close interaction between ethnic status and cooperative-competitive social orientations within the classroom structure according to the students’ achievements.
However, by comparing the competitive, individualistic, and cooperative methods, Johnson and Johnson (1974; 2000) noted that goal structures and interpersonal processes in the competitive method raised many negative impacts on students’ achievements and affective outcomes of learning such as a low level of interaction, low trust, mutual dislike, and high comparison of self versus others among the students. The similar findings also can be found in Watson (1928) and Shaw (1932) who have shown that students in groups think and work more efficiently than the best member of the individual group (cited from Gillies, R.M. & Ashman, A.
2003). They are also more productive when they are working together in groups than
working individually. In more details, Johnson & Johnson (2004) reported that
students in the cooperative learning situation involved more effectively in group work,
more intensively in learning, more responsible in managing their role in groups
individually. In addition, they were also more helpful to what others needs, more
frequently practicing their communication skills, more motivated to attain group goals,
and more productive in their achievements than their peers in individual groups.
In short, a positive effect cannot be found in the individualistic method in which the students have no opportunities to interact with each other, whereas in the cooperative method, many positive impacts can be found such as a high level of interaction among students, mutual liking, effective communication, a high level of acceptance and support, a high level of sharing and helping, a high level of emotional involvement, and no comparison between self and others. In line with the findings, Sharan (1980) and Slavin (1989) noted that co-operative learning can be applied in improving students’ achievement and social skill and enhancing their attitudes towards learning and working cooperatively.
1.4. The basic elements of cooperative learning
Johnson & Johnson (1989) propose five basic elements of cooperative learning that make cooperative activities more productive than competitive and individual learning, i.e. positive interdependency, face to face promotive interaction, individual accountability, interpersonal and small group skill, and group processing (Johnson &
Johnson and Holubec, 2004). In a cooperative learning situation, learners have to be responsible to master learning material and make sure that the entire group members are able to master the task as well. The technical term for the second kinds of accountability is positive interdependency.
The Positive interdependency can be classified into positive interdependency
of objectives, rewards, resources, and roles. Related to the objectives, students have
the same view that they are able to attain their goal if the entire group members are
able to reach it. Moreover, the principle of interdependency is that each group members will accept the same reward if the group is able to achieve the group’s goals.
In addition, the interdependency of resources means that each group members has to share their information, knowledge, and relevant resources that are useful in completing group work.
Furthermore, interdependency of roles means that each group members are given complementary roles and interrelation in responsibilities so they can complete their group work (Johnson & Johnson and Holubec, 2004). In this context, teacher has responsibility to build interdependency roles among students by giving them complementary roles such as role as a reader, a writer, a checker, a speaker, a leader, a developer, etc. These roles are important in achieving high quality of learning by applying cooperative learning strategy. The positive interdependency results in promotive interaction as individuals that encourage and facilitate each other's efforts to learn (Johnson & Johnson and Smith, 1998). It means that the successfulness of the group in learning activity is determined by individual efforts of each member of the group. In addition, each individual in the group has specific contribution to work together according to their ability, role, and accountability.
Promotive interaction refers to a situation in which students have
interdependency in facilitating each other in mutually effort to reach successfulness in
the group. For instance, the students help each other by sharing information and
material exchange, processing information efficiently and effectively, giving feedback
to improve their performance, giving support and effort to attain their share goals, completing their tasks, and working together.
Individual accountability can be given by teacher to each of students according to their roles in the group (Johnson & Johnson and Holubec, 2004). Additionally, to make individuals responsible on their roles teachers need to: (1) compose small cooperative groups with maximum 5 members; (2) do individual testing to each of students, (3) observe and make a note of each contribution of the member of groups, (4) and ask students to explain what they know (information) to other students.
Related to the individual accountability, the basic principle can be drawn as follows:
students learn and work together, and at the end they do task individually. They learn knowledge, skills, strategies, and procedures inside the group, and finally they have to apply them individually to show their personal/individual mastery.
Small group and interpersonal skill are the fourth basic element of cooperative
learning. In the cooperative learning group, students are not only required to master
their learning material which related to academic skill, but also small group and
interpersonal skill. Furthermore, group processing is the fifth element of cooperative
learning. The group processing can be defined as a reflection of group’s performance
to evaluate successfulness and failures of the group and a contribution of each group
member to make decision about which performance need to be followed up. In this
context, there are two levels of group processing, i.e. small group and the whole class
group. The main objective of the group processing is to clarify and to increase the
effectiveness of group members in light of their contribution in the group work effort to achieve group’s goals.
1.5. Cooperative learning in EFL context
Related to the context of English as a foreign language teaching, Zhang (2010) confirms that compared to traditional teaching and learning, cooperative learning tends to increase students activity and productivity, to give more opportunities and times to use language in practice communication, and to promote higher achievement.
Corresponding to the findings, Meng (2010) shows similar results that cooperative learning is more effective than traditional approaches. The findings are quite appropriate with the principles of communicative approach in foreign language teaching, which emphasizes not only on knowledge of language, but also how to use language in a suitable context.
In the same vein, Shaaban (2006) proposes that in a second or foreign language teaching, cooperative learning is theoretically relevant and empirically effective.
Cheng and Warren (2000) also demonstrate that learning in groups increase
communication and social skills such as presentation, leadership, organization and
problem solving. This is because cooperative learning gives more opportunities to the
students to get involved in a meaningful interaction in an active-learning circumstance,
promote higher achievement for students, enhance motivation, and in general improve
social and psychological skills.
Another study of cooperative learning took place in the EFL setting of a heterogeneous Israeli classroom having a broad variety of ethnic and cultural multiplicities among students. That study has been done by Shachar & Sharan (1995). They found that cooperative learning methods applied by teachers have a positive effect on improving peer interaction in small groups and increasing students' motivation to learn and to show more flexibility and multiplicity in the subject matter and to increase the speed of learning and teaching. The finding is in accordance with many positive impacts shown by Veenman, et al (2002); Johnson & Johnson (1989);
Johnson & Johnson, and Holubec (2004), who have demonstrated that the cooperative learning contributes to promote higher achievement in academic, cognitive, affective, and social skills. In the circumstance of collaborative learning with computer supported groups, group learning also gives significant effect in improving critical thinking skills and transfer of learning among students (Brandon and Hollingshead, 1999).
Related to this context, it can be implied that there are many positive impacts
of cooperative learning when it comes to improve thinking skills, creativity,
particularly in generating new ideas, and problem solving skills, compared to
competitive or individualistic learning. In his sense, the cooperative learning can
contribute to promote productivity, higher levels of achievement, and give more
opportunities for students to practice language for communication. These contributions
are very appropriate, and correspond to the main objective of foreign language
teaching, which is focusing on language in use for communication.
1.6. Reading comprehension through cooperative learning
In terms of foreign language learning, there are basically two methods: one method that promotes the effectiveness of learning and there is a method that promotes learning as an activity to enhance learners’ comprehension. The former is related to learning strategies in the context of second language learning, and the later is associated with the way of learning in terms of reading strategies focusing on how readers elaborate a task, how they make sense of what they read, and what they should do when they do not understand what they read. It means that this method can be applied by readers for improving their understanding and solving the problems in comprehension. Teachers of EFL have opportunities and the pedagogical considerations in selecting which method would be more effective for promoting higher levels of achievements in the reading comprehension process.
Commonly, there are at least two options that can be selected by teachers to
make students learn and interact in terms of a reading comprehension class. Firstly,
they can manage their reading class in an individual learning situation, so that the
students will be involved in the reading activity individually in their own pace and
way. Secondly, they can set up the class in a cooperative learning situation by
assigning the students to work together in small groups regardless of the diversity in
terms of ability and background. Which options are more effective than others in terms
of reading comprehension achievements, still need to be examined more deeply.
In this term, reading comprehension through cooperative learning denotes a reading activity for which students need to work together in small groups to support each other to comprehend the text individually. Each member of the group has a different role and responsibilities in order to achieve the common goal in understanding the text. Using the cooperative learning method means that teachers compose their teaching using specific methods in which students at diverse ability levels work together in small groups to achieve one main purpose. In the group, students are individually responsible to assist each member of the group and to support each other in learning (Johnson and Johnson, 1989).
By focusing on studies of the effectiveness of cooperative learning techniques
related to EFL reading comprehension achievements, Jalilifar (2009) ascertained
contradictory findings on this issue. On the one hand, there was sufficient evidence
that students’ achievements were higher in the cooperative group compared to the
traditional class taught by means of classical method. On the other hand, research
findings from Bejarano (1987), Miritz, (1989), Rapp (1991) and Tan et al. (2007)
(cited from Jalilifar, 2009) implied that cooperative learning methods had no
significant or positive effect on the achievements in reading comprehension skills. The
similar finding can be found in Shaaban (2006). In his experiment, which focuses on
an EFL vocabulary and reading class using a cooperative learning method, he did not
find that cooperative learning (in general and particularly in jigsaw) is more effective
in increasing vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension than whole class
instruction with the conventional method.
There are some possible reasons to explain why cooperation among the students did not have a significant impact on the students’ reading comprehension. The main reasons are related to a lack of knowledge of cooperative procedures, low levels of students’ motivation, learning materials, background knowledge, learning strategy and or meta-cognition strategy (Cubukcu, 2008). Related to cooperative reading comprehension, teachers also need to give students explicit explanations about text comprehension strategies before they carry out a cooperative reading activity to obtain a more significant effect. The strategies of identifying main ideas, summarizing, guessing meaning, and inferencing have been found to be helpful to enhance students’
reading skills.
The next chapter will deal with our own study in which we test the effect of
cooperative learning on a group of Indonesian students at university level.
Chapter 2: Methodology
2.1. Participants
The participants for this study are undergraduate students of English Education, at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Jambi State University in Indonesia. The students have been studying English as a subject at Junior and Senior High School for six years with a minimum of four times forty-five minutes per week. English is only used in the English class. Most of them are native speakers of various indigenous languages (local language with numerous dialects), whereas the Indonesian language is regarded as their L2 and lingua franca. Language of instruction in class is English combined with Indonesian when the students do not understand some passages in English.
They are students of the English study program who are trained to be Junior or Senior High School teachers of English. 75 students (60 females and 15 males) of three classes ranging in age from 19 to 21 years old are involved in the study. They enrolled in the “Reading II” course at the academic year of 2009/2010. They had already taken and passed for the “Reading I” course at the previous semester. Thus, it can be assumed that they were more or less at the same reading level. Actually, they have to take 5 Reading courses; Reading I, Reading II, Reading III, Reading IV, and Extensive reading.
Each of the courses has its own goal and objective. Competences to be
developed in the Reading I course include: the competencies that are necessary to read
reading texts and themes, to guess meaning from the context, to recognize the reading structure, to understand details, to have scanning and skimming skills, to build vocabulary and to learn grammar at an elementary level. Competencies to be developed in the Reading II course include the competencies that are necessary to read reading texts and themes, to guess meaning from the context, to recognize the reading structure, to understand details, to have scanning and skimming skills, to build vocabulary and to learn grammar in the low intermediate level. In Reading III course the students are trained in competencies that are necessary to analyze paragraph reading and context clues, use grammar to guess word meanings, to identify synonyms and antonyms in context, to practice the use of restatement and inference and patterns of organization in paragraphs. And in Reading IV and Extensive Reading courses the students are trained in competencies that are necessary to build the strategies for facing an international standard test such as TOEFL.
The present study is in line with the Reading II course’s objectives, which focus on reading competencies related to the competencies that are necessary to read reading texts and themes, to guess meaning from the context, to recognize the reading structure, to understand details, to have scanning and skimming skills, to build vocabulary and to learn grammar in the low intermediate level.
2.2. Research hypotheses
The main goal of this study is to examine the differences among three groups in light
of students’ achievements in reading comprehension and vocabulary gain. The first
individual with workshop, and the last one was individual group without workshop. In this term, a cooperative workshop means a practical work on a reading passage in which students share their knowledge or experience in small groups in order to attain a certain goal, especially to comprehend and understand the text. On the other hand, individual workshop means a practical work on a reading passage in which students work individually to comprehend the text.
According to the main goal, the present study is aimed at finding the effectiveness of the two methods in term of which method has a stronger effect on students’ reading comprehension performances and vocabulary gain. In short, the study emphasizes on seeking answers for the research questions: (1) is there any significant difference in students’ achievements in reading comprehension among the cooperative group with workshops and the individual groups with and without workshops? And (2) is there any significant difference in vocabulary gain among cooperative group with workshops and individual group with workshops and without workshops?
Related to those research questions, the following hypotheses are proposed for this study of the cooperative learning on sophomore university students:
1. Ho: There is no significant difference in students’ achievements in reading
comprehension between the cooperative group with workshops and the individual
group with and without workshops.
H1: There is significant difference in students’ achievements in reading comprehension between the cooperative group with workshops and the individual groups with and without workshops.
2. Ho: There is no significant difference in vocabulary gain between cooperative group with workshops and individual groups with workshops and without workshops.
H1: There is significant difference in vocabulary gain between cooperative group with workshops and individual groups with workshops and without workshops.
2.3. Materials
The materials used in this study were adapted from selected texts of HAVO English test. The HAVO English test is an English proficiency test developed by Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science for Senior general secondary education that will determine the next level of student’s education. It provides entrance to
‘vocational universities’ (HBO). The havo (literally means: "higher general continued education") is a stream in the secondary educational system of the Netherlands. It has five grades and is generally attended from age twelve to seventeen. There were 5 sets of HAVO English tests whereby each of the set consisted of 1 passage with 10 modified multiple choice comprehension questions. The five texts are as follows: 1.
“Flirting”, 2. “Why are phones replacing cars”, 3. “The Beauty of the wind farms”, 4.
“The fat of the land”, and “Taking our leaders at face value”. The first two texts were
and 3 respectively. These five texts have been tested at the pilot study and the results were relatively similar. The texts were also used to test English proficiency level of Havo students in 2008.
Along with the pre and post-test, the vocabulary test was also administered.
The vocabulary items in the test were mainly selected from the new lexical items taught and given exposure to during the course. The test was used as the assessment tool in the pre-test and the post-test phase of the study. Students were asked to do a pre-test which aimed at checking their performance level before the workshops (intervention). The result of the pre-test was also used as a basis to classify them into small groups for cooperative learning in order to create a heterogeneous ability in each small group.
2.4. Procedure
The following procedure was followed in this study:
2.4.1. Pilot study
Before the study per se, a pilot study was first conducted on five Indonesian students who studied in Groningen for clarity of instruction, time consumed, and the difficulty level of the test. The results showed that the instruction of the test was clear enough and not too difficult to understand. The texts used in the experiments and the test were also equivalent.
2.4.2. Selection of participants
75 students of 3 classes who took part in the study were assigned at random. They were intact classes. There were two experimental groups (cooperative leaning and individual learning with workshops) and one control group (individual learning without workshops). The two experimental groups and one control group were selected with the assumption that the three groups were at the same reading level proficiency because they have enrolled in the university at the same time and they were at the same semester. In addition, the three groups were chosen to make a clearer contrast between the two experiments (the cooperative and the individual with workshops) and one control group. So, there were 25 students who were allocated to 1 of the 3 groups. The cooperative group was also divided into five small teams (in a group of five). Each team consisted of students whose performance level range from low to average to high based on the results of the pre-test.
Why workshops used instead of reading comprehension test to work with? The
reading comprehension tests usually use to measure students’ comprehensions
individually, on the other hand, the workshops involve cooperative students in a closed
interaction in reading activity. Hopefully, in the reading workshops activity students
could enhance their individual comprehension cooperatively by working together in
the small groups better than the individual reading
After the groups were formed, a meeting with all of the participants was organized and during that meeting all of the details of the experiment was explained to them and they were given a schedule of all the activity sets. During this meeting, the date of the pre- test and that of rules of the class during the treatments were unanimously agreed upon.
As the tests consumed much time, the students and the teachers agreed that the test scores during the experiment would count as normal grades for the students’ diplomas
2.4.4 Pre-test
To start with, a pre-test of reading comprehension adapted from a HAVO English test (2008) was administered to the 3 groups and the results were recorded. The results of the pre-test were also used to determine the level of the students in order to be able to divide them equally among the 3 groups to make them as heterogeneous or mixed in ability as possible. The test consisted of 1 text with 10 multiple choice questions.
Participants were requested to cross the best answer out of 4 options for 40 minutes.
Along with the comprehension tests, a 20-item multiple-choice test of vocabulary whereby for each question, participants were presented with 4 synonyms or definitions of the vocabulary was also administered.. Participants were requested to choose the words or phrases that had the closest or most similar meaning to the synonyms and definitions presented in the questions for 20 minutes.
2.4.5. The study
The study started in the third week of April until the second week of June 2010. Each group learnt according to its method and time schedule. The cooperative group with workshops worked in heterogeneous learning teams. These teams were provided with a text, a worksheet, and a comprehension test to measure their achievement after the workshops (treatment) at the end of the class meeting. There were five teams in this cooperative group, in which each member of the team has her/his own role: the role of a leader, a writer, a reader, a speaker or as a checker. The roles here were aimed at maintaining individual accountability.
A leader was responsible for managing teamwork and monitoring inside group activity, i.e. making sure that everyone did what they were supposed to do, giving turns to his/her members to speak, and making sure that time was managed well. A writer was responsible for making notes of all activities in the group, reformulating the answer everyone agrees on and writing it down. A reader was responsible for reading out the correct answer on the answer sheet and deciding if the group answer and the answer on the answer sheet were similar. There was one speaker who had the specific task of being a spokesman who represented the group and who communicated to other groups or to the teacher. A checker was responsible for checking the members’ answer and correcting wrong answers.
The sequence of activities was as follows: the students read the text silently for
a few minutes and then they were given a worksheet consisting of comprehension
questions that helped and guided them to have a better understanding of the text. They
questions and might argue any discrepancies to find the best answers. They had to help each other and encouraged their team-mates to do their best. They also taught their team-mates and assessed their strengths and weaknesses to help them succeed on the latter test.
After 40 minutes, they were instructed to stop this activity and the next 10 minutes were given to them to check whether their answers were correct or not by comparing them with the key answer provided by the researcher. One of the members, the reader, read the correct answer from the key answer sheet, whereas the checker checked the team’s answer and the writer made notes on their worksheet and wrote the correct answers and the leader made sure that the team-mates understood and agreed on the correct answers. When all group members agreed, the leader told the group to go on.
Finally, there was a comprehension test of the text they had already read and discussed in their team. Their worksheet was taken away before they did the test.
Although the students had studied together, they were not permitted to help one another on this test. They did the test individually for 20 minutes. The test scores were recorded and were used as information to know the students’ performances during the treatments. The whole cycle of activities took 3 class periods.
The individual group with workshops was also provided with the same text and
the same comprehension questions as used in the cooperative group. The difference is
only about the number of participants who took part in the activities. The participants
did the activities all alone. They were encouraged to answer all questions by their own
way individually. They might use the dictionary as they like. Before they did the test at the end of the activities, the worksheet had also been taken away.
The control group was only provided the text and the test at the end of the activities. All of the time (fifty minutes) as devoted to reading the text. They did not need to answer the reading comprehension questions the other two groups did need to do. They were free to use the dictionary or other means that might help them understanding the text. Finally, there was a test with 10 multiple choice questions on the text they have already read at the first 50 minutes. The time allocated to do the practice was the same as in the two other groups. All of the activities were carried out individually.
It took five weeks to do the study, and all of the participants from the three groups were encouraged to study seriously and participate in all of the class activities.
All of the test results during the study counted for grades and were reported to their teachers.
2.4.6. Post-test
After the three class periods of treatment, a post test was administered to the participants. This test consisted of a similar format and time span as used in the pre- test were also applied in this test. A text entitled “Why phones are replacing cars” and a 10 items of multiple-choice comprehension test was distributed to the participants in accordance with their group schedule. 40 minutes were allocated to complete the test.
Finally, after all of them accomplished the test, a post-vocabulary test was also
given at pre-test. All of the vocabularies items in the test were derived from the texts they had already read and studied during the treatments to check whether they had been retained and could be retrieved.
2.5. Design
Experimental research design was applied in this research. Three classes of undergraduate students of the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education majoring in English Education were selected. Two classes functioned as experimental groups and another as a control group. The experimental groups were taught by means of cooperative learning with workshops and individual learning with workshops. On the other hand, an individual method without workshops was applied in the control group.
The three groups were taught by the same teacher with the same materials and the same time allocation.
The design of this study can be seen on the figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Chart of the design of the study
T1 T2 T3
Note: R=Randomization; T1, T2, T3= Treatments and Reading comprehension test at the end of each lesson.
Group 1
R
Exp.1 PretestGroup 2
R
Exp.2 PretestGroup 3
R
ControlGroup PretestS c o r e s
given at pre-test. All of the vocabularies items in the test were derived from the texts they had already read and studied during the treatments to check whether they had been retained and could be retrieved.
2.5. Design
Experimental research design was applied in this research. Three classes of undergraduate students of the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education majoring in English Education were selected. Two classes functioned as experimental groups and another as a control group. The experimental groups were taught by means of cooperative learning with workshops and individual learning with workshops. On the other hand, an individual method without workshops was applied in the control group.
The three groups were taught by the same teacher with the same materials and the same time allocation.
The design of this study can be seen on the figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Chart of the design of the study
T1 T2 T3
Note: R=Randomization; T1, T2, T3= Treatments and Reading comprehension test at the end of each lesson.
Pretest Coop with
workshop Coop with
workshop Coop with
workshop Postest Pretest Indiv.
workshopwith
Indiv.
workshopwith
Indiv.
workshopwith Postest Pretest Indiv. no
workshop Indiv. no
workshop Indiv. no
workshop Postest S c o r e s
given at pre-test. All of the vocabularies items in the test were derived from the texts they had already read and studied during the treatments to check whether they had been retained and could be retrieved.
2.5. Design
Experimental research design was applied in this research. Three classes of undergraduate students of the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education majoring in English Education were selected. Two classes functioned as experimental groups and another as a control group. The experimental groups were taught by means of cooperative learning with workshops and individual learning with workshops. On the other hand, an individual method without workshops was applied in the control group.
The three groups were taught by the same teacher with the same materials and the same time allocation.
The design of this study can be seen on the figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Chart of the design of the study
T1 T2 T3
Note: R=Randomization; T1, T2, T3= Treatments and Reading comprehension test at the end of each lesson.
Postest Postest
Postest S c o r e s
Chapter 3: Results
3.1. Research question 1: Is there a significant difference in students’ achievements
in reading comprehension among a cooperative group with workshops and individual groups with and without workshops?
3.1.1. Analysis of reading comprehension gain
A descriptive analysis has been done to see the mean differences among groups on reading comprehension. The statistical means revealed that there were little discrepancies among the groups. The post-test score indicated slightly higher achievements in individual learning without workshop (the control group) than in either cooperative scores or individual (with workshops) scores. It implies that there were slight differences between the cooperative and the individual groups. Table 1 below shows the mean scores of the cooperative learning group, and the individual groups with and without workshops.
Table 1. Mean of Dependent Variable of the three groups
Groups N
Mean Scores
Pre-test Post-test Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Cooperative
with workshops 25 53.2 58.4 54.4 51.6 54
Individual with
Workshops 25 42 57.2 46.2 44 44.4
Individual No
The slight differences among the three groups can be made more apparent by looking more closely at the scores of each group (mean of post-test – mean of pre-test). The cooperative group gain was (M=.0720, SD=.1646), the individual group with workshops (M=.1560, SD=.1959), and the cooperative group without workshops (M=0960, SD=.0960). The individual group with workshops attained a better score than the two other groups. Furthermore, by comparing the means of reading comprehension gain to the three groups’ means plot, the following figure can be drawn:
Figure 2: Means plot of reading comprehension gain of all groups
In more detail, the total gains of reading comprehension of each group could be shown in figure 3.
Figure 3 Box plot of reading comprehension gains of all groups
The box plot reveals a slight discrepancy among the three groups. In case of
the cooperative group with workshops, the mean and the median on reading
comprehension gain overlap at 0.00. It indicates that 75% of the students in this group
achieved larger scores than the mean and the median scores and only 25% of them
attained the lowest scores in between -1.00 and 0.00. In the individual group with
workshops, the highest score was 6.00. This score was the same as the mean gain of
the individual group without workshops. The lowest score of the individual group
with workshops was in between -3 and 0.00. A Larger range of the lowest score can be
condition implies that despite of the differences that exist among the groups (the cooperative group, and the individual groups with workshops and without workshops) as indicated on the box plot, it cannot be said that the differences were significant.
The table 1 also tells that that in the Test 1, 2, and 3 the mean scores of the cooperative group with workshops are better than the individual group with workshops. In contrast to the individual group without workshop, the achievements of the cooperative group with workshops are still superior in the Test 1 and 2, with an exception in the Test 3. These imply that the cooperative learning method is more effective to support students to promote a better comprehension in reading workshops.
It also can be described from the table 1 that almost at the entire tests the cooperative group with workshops attains better achievements comparing to the individual groups with and without workshops. However, the individual group without workshops reaches higher scores than the cooperative group in the Test 3. It can be elucidated that the difference is only in this test, whereas at the entire tests the cooperative group prevails the individual groups in reading comprehension. In short, the cooperative group with workshops gives students opportunities to obtain more understanding in reading activity. Hence, students in this group have more possibilities in promoting higher achievements in the test.
However, to check more precisely the differences were significant or not, a
One-Way ANOVA test needed to be carried out. The result of the analysis of the total
comprehension gain (post- test scores minus pre- test scores) using SPSS 16 is
depicted in Table 2.
Table 2 Analysis of variance for achievements scores in reading comprehension
Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.
Between Groups .094 2 .047 .968 .385
Within Groups 3.482 72 .048
Total 3.575 74
Table 2 shows that there were no significant differences between the experimental groups and control group at F (2.72) = 9.68, p = .385 > 0.05. Contrast tests (2 tails), which were assuming equal variances and were not assuming variances, also demonstrated similar result, with a significant level at 0.319 for the first assumption and 0.261 for the latter (both of them bigger than 0.05). Thus, it can be said that there were no significant differences among the cooperative group and both of the individual groups, with and without workshops in term of reading comprehension gain (the post-test scores minus the pre-test scores).
To sum up, due to the absence of significant differences on achievement scores
among the cooperative group, the individual groups with workshops and without
workshops as shown by the result of the ANOVA analysis, the following null
hypotheses was accepted for this study “There was no significant difference between
students’ achievements on reading comprehension among the cooperative group with
workshops and the individual groups with workshops and no workshops.”
3.2. Research Question 2: Is there a significant difference on vocabulary gain among
the cooperative group with workshops and the individual groups with workshops and without workshops?
3.2.1 Analysis of vocabulary gain
By looking at the table 3, we can see whether or not there was a difference among the cooperative group with workshops, and the individual groups with workshops and without workshops.
Table 3 Analysis of variance for achievement scores in vocabulary gain
VocabGain Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.
Between Groups
96.663 2 48.332 3.477 .036
Within Groups
986.958 71 13.901
Total 1083.622 73
