Effects of cooperative learning method on the achievement, attitude and motivation at 10th grade geography course

In the current study, effects of cooperative learning and teacher ? centered education on the students? academic achievement, attitude toward geography course and motivation of 10th grade geography class students were investigated on ?Earth, water and plant reserves of Turkey? topic. Additionally, views of students participated at experimental condition on cooperative learning applications were examined.Participants in this study were consisted of eighty-two 10th graders from Abidinpaşa High School at the second term of 2006 ? 2007 academic year. In the study, pretest ? posttest model with control group experimental design was used. In the research, cooperative learning method was conducted to the experimental condition and teacher ? centered education was applied to the control condition. To collect data, ?Achievement Scale?, ?Attitude Scale?, and ?Motivation Scale? were filled out at pretest and posttest conditions, and in order to assess views of students open ? ended questions were asked. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 15 package program and 0.05 significance level was accepted at analyses. Furthermore, frequencies and percentile values were presented by clustering students? views about cooperative learning applications in certain groups.Results revealed that participants in cooperative learning condition significantly outperformed participants in teacher ? centered education on academic achievement, attitudes, and motivations. According to the results of the qualitative section of the study, participants reported that they liked cooperative learning more, they learned more with this approach, they had positive developments on peer relations, and they attained some social skills.Keywords: Cooperative Learning Method, Geography Education, Academic Achievement, Attitude, Motivation.