Sample description of findings, critique and conclusions
Descriptions of the part of the methods describing the procedure of the experiment:
Note: I’ve added information about the type of research design the studies represented.
1.
In this one shot case study, students participated in a jigsaw reading preparation, where
students each read one of four perspectives on events leading up to the civil war (e.g. slave
narratives, southern plantation owners, soldiers, and abolitionists). They were then given a text
book article on the civil war and asked to analyze which perspectives were represented and
which were missing in the article. At the beginning of the next class period students were given
a quiz on the key issues of the civil war addressed in their jigsaw readings and the text. They
were also given another text on the civil war to individually analyze for perspectives that were
represented or missing.
Research design: X O
2.
In this static group comparison, two teachers agreed to participate in the study. They each
taught 2 sections of social studies. Teacher A taught the cooperative lesson and Teacher B
taught the traditional lesson.
In the cooperative learning condition, (same as above) students participated in a jigsaw reading
preparation, where students each read one of four perspectives on events leading up to the civil
war (e.g. slave narratives, southern plantation owners, soldiers, and abolitionists). They were
then given a text book article on the civil war and asked to analyze which perspectives were
represented and which were missing in the article.
In the traditional learning condition, the teacher gave a presentation on the four perspectives of
events leading up to the civil war that were represented in the other groups jigsaw reading
exercise. The teacher presented an analysis of the same text book article as in the cooperative
learning condition, on the ways in which the four perspectives were represented or missing in
the article.
Both groups received the same quiz on the key issues of the civil war addressed in their
respective lessons at the beginning of the next class period students. They were also given
another text on the civil war to individually analyze for perspectives that were represented or
missing.
Research design:
3.
X
_
0
0
In this one group pretest/posttest design, students first took a test in order to check in with
their prior knowledge of the key issues of the civil war they were about to learn about. The next
day two (same as scenario #1 above): Students participated in a jigsaw reading preparation,
where students each read one of four perspectives on events leading up to the civil war (e.g.
slave narratives, southern plantation owners, soldiers, and abolitionists). They were then given
a text book article on the civil war and asked to analyze which perspectives were represented
and which were missing in the article. At the beginning of the next class period students were
given a quiz on the key issues of the civil war addressed in their jigsaw readings and the text.
They were also given another text on the civil war to individually analyze for perspectives that
were represented or missing.
Research design:
0
X
0
Sample critique
Note:
(i) I wrote this critique to help see how a critique of the internal validity of a study could impact the
conclusions I could draw about the research question.
(ii) This critique assumes I had 3 read three studies that all closely related to the same question. If I
only had one study on the effects of cooperative group work on student thinking, then I would be
even more circumspect about what could conclude.
Getting in touch with whether and how the study helps to inform my question:
While the studies all make use of one form of collaborative group work (i.e. jigsaw), none of the studies directly compared
different types of group work. So the only part of the question that Kelly can address is whether cooperative learning can
support learning. To be more certain about the effect of group work in general, he’d need to find and examine studies
examining the effects of different kinds of group work on learning. A closer look at these studies will help us consider
whether Kelly can conclude anything about how group work supports learning.
I’d first summarize the findings:
Both study #2 and #3 revealed significant effects of cooperative group work on higher level thinking and student
learning. Study #2 showed that students demonstrated a significantly more extensive analysis of the passage and
higher test scores after the lesson that involved cooperative group work, than after the traditionally taught lesson.
Study #3 showed that there was a significant improvement in both the quality of the text analysis and test scores
after the cooperative group work. 1
I’d then write a critique to explain what I can/cannot conclude from the study:
1
x
There was no clear comparison group or pretest that would help indicate whether or not
cooperative group work in study #1 had any impact on student thinking or test scores.
x
While study #3 showed students thinking and test scores change after the cooperative lesson, it’s
hard to distinguish the possible impacts of history or testing from the effects of the cooperative
lesson itself. Specifically, without a comparison group, it’s not possible to determine whether
factors other than cooperative learning contributed to the change in students’ performance. Since
only one group was studied in this last study, the students may have had particular experiences
which set them up to do well in the cooperative task. For example, what kinds of experience do the
students have in reading and analyzing text before doing this jigsaw exercise? Might the learning
outcomes be more dependent on those prior lessons than on the cooperative work itself (history)?
Furthermore, it’s possible that the pretest might have primed or even instructed students on what
to attend to in the cooperative lesson and in so doing been a contributor to changes in student
performance (testing). Finally, without a comparison group, there is no indication of the scale of the
changes in performance. Would a direct instruction approach to the lesson have had a similar
impact?
x
Study 2 begins to address these concerns by building a comparison group into its design. However,
since the groups were not randomly assigned to the two treatment groups, and since there was no
indication of how the groups were similar or systematically different in, for example, their reading
skills, the results may have been due to selection bias rather than the different pedagogical
approaches.
Note: these findings are fictitious.
Finally, I’d write a conclusion that takes into account the critiques when summarizing what I learned from studies:
x
The studies seem to reveal that when students engaged in cooperative group work, they also
demonstrated noticeable improvements in critical thinking and content knowledge, or
demonstrated gains in learning over a non-cooperative task.
x
Taken together, studies #2 and #3 controlled for different kinds of confounding (lurking) variables.
To be confident of the impact of cooperative learning itself, I’d need to see studies that attend to
the possible effects of history, testing and selection bias.
x
That being said, since none of the findings directly challenge cooperative group work as a teaching
strategy, it’s hard to dismiss this strategy as a possible contributor to student learning.
x
Several authors have indicated that for group work to support learning depends on how well the
assignment is structured, how interdependent and challenging the task is (author a, 1999; author b,
2000; and author c & author d, 2001). This particular set of protocols included all three of these
characteristics– it would be useful to see whether it is the presence of these characteristics per se,
rather than the simple act of working together, explain the gains in learning and thinking.