Development of Social Skills through Cooperative Learning
The methodology utilized by Don W. Johnson in the study Development of Social Skills through Cooperative Learning is known as action research as opposed to traditional research. Traditional research is characterized by accepted principles used to validate or invalidate the reasonableness of a knowledge claim. Johnson’s research is action research. In its simplest form action research involves teachers (i.e., practitioners) studying their environment to decided how to make it better. In this study, Johnson studies the use of cooperative learning as a means of improving social skills in a 5th/6th grade class of 14 boys and 12 girls ages 10-12. Action research enables Johnson to study his classroom problems in order to guide, correct, and evaluate his decisions and actions in the classroom.
Johnson uses cooperative learning as a means of improving social skills. For Johnson the lack of social skills is identified as a causation factor in misbehavior (5). The development of social skills is viewed as a means of resolving behavior problems, but only if that learning is as structured and supported as academic learning. In cooperative learning, small teams (in this instance pairs) of individuals work together to carry out a variety of learning activities aimed at improving skills and knowledge. Pairs of students carried out a series of tasks using the cooperative learning approach. Students tended to stick to their own primary selected partners until other groupings were added by the instructor during a computer implementation program. This caused resentment and ineffective partner interactions, so partners were randomly selected. The following skills were targeted for development: sharing and taking turns; suggesting and brainstorming; working and making decisions as a group; respecting others’ ideas and opinions through listening; negotiating; an
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