The effects of cooperative learning on academic achievement of fourth grade students towards science and technology course and attitudes towards cooperation

The main purpose of this research is to determine the effects of cooperative learning (group investigation technique and cooperative learning activities) on academic achievement towards science and technology course on ?Riddle of our body? and ?Let?s Recognize the Elements? units and on their attitudes towards cooperation. The sample of the study consists of 131 fourth grade primary school students (81 girls, 50 boys) who are attending a state school in 2006 -2007 academic term at the centre district of Aydın. Four groups take part in the study. Two classes were assigned as the experimental groups; two classes were assigned as the control groups. The experiment groups learned science using the cooperative learning method and the control groups took the activities that take part in the primary school?s science and technology curriculum. Data has been collected by achievement test and the Scale of Cooperation Attitudes. Data gathering process were practiced as a pretest before the experimental activities, as a post-test after the experimental treatment and after four weeks preparing the experimental treatment and it was performed as a retention-test. SPSS was used for data analysis process. Covariance analysis was used to analyse data and Bonferonni comparison test was performed to determine level of the meaningful difference among groups. p=0,5 was considered for meaningfulness level of statistical tests. The results showed that cooperative learning has a positive effect on science and technology achievement. The analysis of the obtained data from Scale of Cooperation. Attitudes showed that there is no significant difference among four groups? cooperation attitudes scores.