Cooperative learning and group contingencies

Journal of Behavioral Education, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1991, pp. 105-115

Cooperative Learning and Group Contingencies

Robert E. Slavin, Ph.D. 1,2

Accepted." August 13, 1990. Action Editor: Thomas G. Haring

This paper discusses the similarities and differences between cooperative learning and group contingencies. Cooperative learning refers to any methods" in which students work together to help one another learn, while group contingencies refer to rewarding students based on the performance of a group. Re- search on the achievement effects o f cooperative learning finds that these methods are effective primarily when they incorporate group contingencies, when groups are rewarded based on the average of their members' individual learning performances. The use o f group contingencies within cooperative learning is hypothesized to motivate students to do a good job of explaining concepts and skills to their groupmates, and elaborated explanation is the prin- cipal behavior found to account for achievement gains in cooperative learning.

KEY WORDS: cooperative learning; group contingencies; achievement gains; motivation.

INTRODUCTION

Cooperative learning methods are instructional techniques in which students work in small groups to help one another learn academic material. The use of these methods has been increasing rapidly in use at all instructional levels, from elementary school to college, and in every school subject.

There are several different forms of cooperative learning that are widely used and/or extensively researched. Some cooperative methods only involve

IPrincipal Research Scientist and Director, Elementary School Program, Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.

2Correspondence should be directed to Robert Slavin, Director, Elementary School Program, Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students, The Johns Hopkins University, 3505 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218.

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1053-0819/91/0300-0105506.50/0 �9 1991 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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changes in the task structure of the classroom, allowing or encouraging students to work together on academic tasks but leaving intact the traditional system of formal and informal incentives (e.g., grades and praise, respective- ly). Other cooperative methods also change the classroom reward structure.

This can be done in many ways. In our own Student Team Learning methods (Slavin, 1986), students work in four-member, heterogeneous learning teams. The teams can earn certificates or other forms of recognition based on the learning of all team members, as demonstrated on individual quizzes, essays, compositions, or other assessments taken without teammate help. In methods developed by David and Roger Johnson (1987), students may be graded based on the quality of one group product, the sum or average of individual quizzes, or randomly selected individual work. Other cooperative methods affect the classroom reward structure more indirectly. For example, such methods as Jigsaw Teaching (Aronson, Blaney, Stephan, Sikes, & Snapp, 1978) and Group Investigation (Sharan & Shachar, 1988) have students divide an overall group topic or task into individual subtasks. Even if the reward structure is not directly changed in such programs, the fact that students must depend on their groupmates for critical information or a key ele- ment of a group project means that the classroom reward structure has become more interdependent (and less competitive or independent).

GROUP CONTINGENCIES

When cooperative learning involves changes in the classroom reward structure, it is using strategies familiar to behavior analysts: Group contingencies. Definitions of group contingencies vary (see Litow & Pumroy, 1975), but in the context of cooperative learning the term means incentive systems in which reinforcement is provided to members of a group based on the performance of the group as a whole. Group contingencies have been studied extensively in the applied behavior analysis tradition. For example, one of the earliest classroom group contingencies to be studied was the Good Behavior Game (Barrish, Saunders, & Wolf, 1969). In this program, students were randomly assigned to two large teams. When the teacher saw any student disobeying class rules, the whole team received a check mark on the chalkboard. If a team had fewer than five check marks in a period, all team members could take part in a free-time activity at the end of the day. If both teams got more than five check marks, the team that got fewer marks would receive the free time. This program had an immediate and dramatic effect on student behavior. Similar findings have been obtained in dozens of classroom studies (Cavanagh, 1984; Hayes, 1976; Litow & Pumroy, 1975).

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The theory behind group contingencies hypothesizes a two-step process (see Slavin, 1977). First, the group is rewarded if it collectively meets some standard. Second, the members of the group apply social sanctions to one another to encourage group members to do what is necessary to ensure that the group will be successful. It is actually these interpersonal reinforcers and punishers that are hypothesized to have the most important effects on student behavior.

Although group contingencies have most often been applied to increasing student compliance with class rules, a few studies have established the effects of these methods on student achievement. Several (e.g., Axelrod & Paluska, 1975; Lovitt, Guppy, & Blattner, 1969) used immediate recall or accuracy in classroom tasks as dependent measures, but others (e.g., Cavanagh, 1984; Hamblin, Hathaway, & Wodarsld, 1971; Jacobs, 1970; Van- Houten, 1980) found that group contingencies were more effective than individual contingencies or untreated control conditions for increasing student performance on achievement tests. For example, Jacobs (1970) randomly assigned fourth graders to five groups: no rewards, random rewards, individual rewards, group rewards (based on the behavior of the entire class), and combined individual plus group rewards. All students used programmed reading materials. After 11 weeks, students were assessed on the Stanford Achievement Test. All of the reinforcement conditions resulted in greater achievement than the control group, but the group rewards were consider- ably more effective than the individual rewards. Similarly, Cavanagh (1984) compared Team Assisted Individualization (Slavin, Madden, & Leavey, 1984), an individualized mathematics program that uses cooperative teams and group rewards, to a form of the program that was identical except that it used individual rewards. Students who received group rewards finished substantially more units and achieved more on a standardized mathematics test than did the individually rewarded students.

Research in the applied behavior analysis tradition has also inves- tigated peer tutoring (e.g., Greenwood et al., 1987). However, peer tutoring is different from cooperative learning in one fundamental respect. In peer tutoring, the tutor is assumed to know the material being taught, while in cooperative learning, all students are equally assumed to be learners, and therefore group activities usually follow a lesson from the teacher.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING AND GROUP CONTINGENCIES

As noted earlier, the degree of overlap between cooperative learning and group contingencies depends on the extent to which cooperative methods explicitly alter the classroom reward structure. Our own Student

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Team Learning methods most clearly employ group contingencies (see Slavin, 1987a), and other cooperative methods do so as well. However, even when the degree of correspondence is highest, there are significant differences in emphasis between group contingencies and cooperative learning. The most obvious is the concern of cooperative learning for task structure; all cooperative learning methods place considerable emphasis on the types of task-related interactions engaged in by students in their small groups. Theories underlying group contingencies emphasize motivational issues, while those underlying cooperative learning emphasize cognitive as well as motivational issues (see Slavin, 1987b, 1989). For example, cognitive theories underlying the effectiveness of cooperative learning for increasing student achievement include learning by teaching or cognitive elaboration (Webb, 1985; Dansereau, 1988), Vygotskian or Piagetian theories emphasizing learning through cognitive conflict and students operating in each others' proximal zones of development (Murray, 1982; Mugny & Doise, 1978), and opportunities for students to provide individualized assessment, immediate feedback, and personally tailored assistance to groupmates (Slavin, 1989, 1990). Cooperative learning theorists would hold that within any particular reward structure, variations in task structure would have major consequences for student achievement, and would emphasize interactions among students as an essential causal link in any theory relating cooperative learning to achievement. In contrast, research in the applied behavior analysis tradition has often studied group contingencies in which students do not actually interact at all.

DO GROUP CONTINGENCIES CONTRIBUTE TO EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING?

While cooperative learning and group contingencies are conceptually distinct, they do usually overlap in practice when learning of school subjects is involved. Much research and debate in cooperative learning focuses on a set of questions which, in the language of applied behavior analysis, would be phrased as "what effects do group contingencies have on the instructional effectiveness of cooperative learning, and which particular forms of group contingencies are maximally effective?" Shifting back to the language of cooperative learning research, this question focuses on the necessity of group goals and individual accountability for achievement effects. Coopera- tive methods which use group goals are ones in which students are rewarded based on the learning or performance of the group as a whole. In other words, group goals are synonymous with group contingencies (Slavin, 1987a). Individual accountability refers to the degree to which


Table 1. Effect Sizes from Elementary and Secondary Studies of Achievement Effects of Cooperative Learning a

Median effect Number of size studies

Group goals and individual +.32 35 accountability

Group goals only +.04 8 Individual acct. only (task +.12 9

specialization) No group goals or indi- +.05 2

vidual acct.

aAdapted from Slavin (1990). Effect sizes are the difference between cooperative learning and control classes on achievement measures divided by the posttest standard deviation. In- cludes only methodologically adequate studies of at least four weeks' duration.

group success depends on the individual learning of all group members. For example, in our Student Team Learning methods, individual accountability is accomplished by having group success depend on the sum or average of performances on individually administered quizzes or other assessments. The idea is that because the only way for teams to succeed is for all team members to individually know the material, team members are motivated to direct their efforts toward teaching each other, not simply giving answers. Providing and receiving elaborated explanations are the be- haviors within cooperative groups most positively associated with learning (Webb, 1985).

The importance of group goals and individual accountability is clearly shown in Table 1, which presents updated data from a recent review of the cooperative learning literature (Slavin, 1990). The studies from which the table was derived compared cooperative learning to randomly selected or matched control groups on measures of the objectives pursued equally by both groups. Study durations were at least four weeks (median = 10 weeks).

Table 1 shows that the success of cooperative learning in terms of increasing student achievement depends substantially on the provision of group goals and individual accountability. Methods which incorporate group goals and individual accountability include Student Teams-Achieve- ment Divisions (Slavin, 1986), Teams-Games-Tournament (De Vries & Slavin, 1978), Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (Stevens, Madden, Slavin, &Farn i sh , 1987), and Team Assisted Individualization- Mathematics (Slavin, Madden, & Leavey, 1984).

In contrast to the relatively positive effects of methods which use group goals and individual accountability, those which use group goals but

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not individual accountability have generally been ineffective in terms of increasing student achievement. For example, in the Johnsons' (1987) methods, students work together to complete a single worksheet and are praised, rewarded, and/or graded on the basis of this common worksheet. On measures of achievement, these methods produced no better achievement than individualistic or traditional methods (e.g., Johnson, Johnson, & Scott, 1978). Two studies did find positive achievement effects of a form of this approach in which students were graded not on the basis of one worksheet, but on the 'average of individual quiz scores, which ensures individual accountability (Humphreys, Johnson, & Johnson, 1982; Yager, Johnson, Johnson, & Snider, 1986). However, it is important to note that these were highly artificial experiments. In them, teachers did not present lessons to students, but only helped individuals with worksheets, so that in the "individualistic" control groups students had no resources other than the worksheets and occasional teacher assistance to help them understand the material.

Another major category of cooperative learning methods uses task specialization, which means that each student has a unique task within an overall group objective. For example, Jigsaw Teaching (Aronson, Blaney, Stephan, Sikes, & Snapp, 1978) assigns each student a topic on which they are to become an "expert." This method has not generally been instruc- tionally effective. However, a form of Jigsaw which does use group goals and individual accountability called Jigsaw II (Slavin, 1986) has been in- structionally effective (Mattingly & VanSickle, 1990). Another effective form of cooperative learning which uses task specialization is Group In- vestigation (Sharan & Shachar, 1988), in which students take on subtasks within an overall group task. In contrast to Jigsaw, Group Investigation bases individuals' evaluations on the group's product or report, so this may in fact be an instance of group goals and individual accountability.

Finally, studies of methods which provide neither group goals nor individual accountability find few achievement benefits for this approach. One example is the Groups of Four mathematics program in which students work together to solve complex math problems (Burns, 1981; Johnson & Waxman, 1985).

Several component analyses have specifically examined the achievement effects of group rewards and individual accountability. Two studies (Hulten & De Vries, 1976; Slavin, 1980b) found that providing recognition to student teams based on the sum of their individual learning increased student achievement even if students were not permitted to interact in class. A German study (Huber, Bogatski, & Winter, 1982) found that providing students an opportunity to study together did not increase their achievement, but adding group rewards based on individual learning did lead to


enhanced achievement. Finally, Cavanagh (1984) found that students using an individualized instruction method in which they were assigned to work in small teams accurately completed more units and achieved more if they received group rewards based on unit completion than if they received individual rewards.

WHY ARE GROUP GOALS AND I N D M D U A L ACCOUNTABILITY ESSENTIAL?

Why are group goals and individual accountability essential to the achievement effects of cooperative learning? There are several reasons. Group goals are necessary to motivate students to help each other learn, giving them a stake in one another's success. Without group goals, it is un- likely that students would engage for long in the elaborated explanations that have been found to be essential to the achievement effects of cooperative learning (Webb, 1985). Further , group goals may help overcome students' reluctance to ask for help or provide help to one another; without an overriding group goal, it may be embarrassing to ask for or offer serious help. Without individual accountability, it is likely that one or two group members may do all the work, and that if group members perceived to be low achievers contribute ideas or ask for help, they may be ignored. When the group completes a single group worksheet or product, there is a danger that some group members' efforts will not be needed or may even interfere with the groups' success. For example, in a heterogeneous four-member group, the two most able students could probably complete a group worksheet by themselves as well as or better than if they actively involved the two less able group members. In contrast, if the group's success depends on the individual learning of each group member, then group members are motivated to attempt to ensure that all group members master the material being studied.

DOES PEER INTERACTION CONTRIBUTE TO EFFECTS OF GROUP CONTINGENCIES?

The research on practical cooperative learning methods clearly sup- ports the position that cooperative reward structure, or group contingencies, based on the individual learning of group members are necessary for the success of these methods in improving student achievement. However, does the peer interaction central to cooperative learning add to the effectiveness of group contingencies? Here the evidence is more indirect, but

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Table 2. Critical Features of Group Contingencies and Cooperative Learning a

Effective coopera- Cooperative tive learning

Group contingencies learning methods

Cooperative interaction Optional Essential Essential Group rewards Essential Optional Essential Individual accountability Essential Optional Essential

aFrom Slavin (1987a).

there are indications that peer interaction is important to the success of cooperative strategies. As noted earlier, Webb (1985) and Peterson & Janicki (1979) have found that the students who learn best from cooperative interaction are those who give and receive elaborated explanations (i.e., are not simply given answers or ignored by their groupmates). This finding mirrors that of the Piagetian tradition, which finds that if two nonconserv- ing children actively work together both can become conservers (Ames & Murray, 1982), but if they simply accept a higher-quality answer to a con- servation task they will not make cognitive progress (e.g., Mugny & Doise, 1978). However, what is critical in cooperative learning is the combination of group contingencies and high-quality peer interactions. Students are motivated to engage in elaborated, cognitively involving explanations and discussions if the learning of their groupmates is made important by the provision of group rewards based on individual learning performances (Slavin, 1983b). For example, several studies (e.g., Hamblin, Hathaway, & Wodarski, 1971; Slavin, 1980b) have established that active peer discussion and peer explanation within cooperative groups are much more frequent under conditions in which group rewards are based on individual learning than under conditions in which collaborative work is encouraged but there are no consequences based on group members' learning.

The relationship between group contingencies and cooperative learning is summarized in Table 2 (from Slavin, 1987a). The table notes that group rewards and individual accountability are essential in group contingencies; group members must be aware of the individual contributions made by each groupmate if they are to be able to apply the interpersonal sanctions held to be central to the effectiveness of the group contingency. In contrast, cooperative learning emphasizes cooperative interaction but may or may not use group rewards or individual accountability. When all three elements are present, the distinction between group contingencies and cooperative learning is more or less semantic. Researchers from the applied behavior analysis tradition would probably insist on the term "group contingencies," while those from a social psychological or humanis-


tic background would use "cooperative learning." Yet it is just this form of cooperative learning/group contingencies, emphasizing interactions, group rewards, and individual accountability, that has the greatest research support in terms of student achievement.

The cooperat ive learning movement has created an interesting phenomenon, in which humanistic educators and psychologists are champion- ing classroom methods that could be described completely in behavioral language. For example, a book by the humanistic psychiatrist William Glasser (1988) attacks behavioral learning theory but proposes widespread use of cooperative learning teams. However, the attraction of cooperative learning for many humanistic educators probably lies not so much in accelerating student achievement as in the consistently found positive effects of cooperative learning on such variables as race relations, attitudes toward mainstreamed classmates, self-esteem, and other nonacademic outcomes (see Slavin, 1990). In contrast to achievement effects, these important outcomes do not appear to depend on the use of group rewards for individual learning.

Despite the consistent evidence supporting the use of group rewards based on group members' learning in cooperative learning, there are many important questions yet to be resolved. Conclusions about the centrality of these components are based on comparisons of achievement effects of alter- native models, not on direct observation of changes in student behavior. To confirm the arguments made in this article it would be important to contrast groups working under group contingencies to those simply asked to work together, to see if the quantity and quality of peer interactions are affected by the reward structures under which they take place. Also, it is possible that aspects of cooperative learning other than cooperation per se (e.g., clear objectives, frequent assessment) account for part of the achievement effect.

Cooperative learning provides a unique opportunity for collaborative efforts between researchers in the applied behavior analysis tradition and those in the social psychological or mainstream educational psychology traditions. While differences in theoretical backgrounds, research methods, and terminology are important between these different traditions, cooperative learning provides an interesting point of intersection. Much work still lies ahead to understand fully how and why cooperative learning works and to develop ever more effective strategies: collaboration among researchers from different traditions is sure to enrich this work.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This paper was written under funding from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education (Grant No.

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OERI-R-117-R90002). However, any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not represent OERI positions or policies.

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Cooperative learning and group contingencies