The effect of cooperative learning method on student achievement in teaching the history subjects that are in social studies course at seventh grade in elementary school

The aim of this study is to determine the effects of cooperative learning method andtraditional method on student success in teaching history subjects of social studies course atseventh grade in elementary school.The research has been conducted in Elazığ Mehmetçik Elementary School in Springterm of 2005-2006 academic year and it has included 50 seventh grade students. For thisstudy, experiment and control groups has been arranged including 25 students each. Whilearranging the groups, some criteria have been assessed. These belong to the students. Theseare;Pre-test scores,•The cumulative total scores in the 6th grade,•The cumulative total scores in the 6th grade in social studies course,•The cumulative total scores of social studies course in the first semester at the•seventh grade.In the research, ?Jigsaw ? technique of the cooperative learning method has beenapplied to the experiment group and traditional method has been applied to the control groupand an achievement test including 40 questions has been used as a pre-test and post-test. Inorder to evaluate the data statistically, independent groups `t `test and paired sample `t? testwere used.According to the results obtained from the research, in the respect of post-test marks,the students in the experiment group are more successful than the students in control group.Both methods used in experiment and control groups have fostered the student?s success inknowledge and comprehension level of cognitive domain. The students in the experimentgroup have been more successful achieving the goals in the application level of cognitivedomain than the students in control group. According to the scores of the pre-test and post-testtaken from the whole test, both cooperative learning method applied to the experiment groupand the traditional method applied to the control group, it has been seen that they foster thestudent success and it has been seen that achievement level and post-test scores which belongto the whole test show the students in the experiment group are more successful.In the light of the results obtained from this study, in general, it can be said that whileteaching history subjects in social studies course, cooperative learning method is moreeffective than traditional learning method to foster students? success.Key Words: Cooperative Learning, Social Studies, History, Jigsaw