Social Skills 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