Research on Cooperative Learning and Achievement: What We Know, What We Need to Know

Research on cooperative learning is one of the greatest success stories in the history of educational research. While there was some research on this topic from the early days of this century, the amount and quality of that research greatly accelerated in the early 1970's, and continues unabated today, a quarter-century later. Hundreds of studies have compared cooperative learning to various control methods on a broad range of measures, but by far the most frequent objective of this research is to determine the effects of cooperative learning on student achievement. Studies of the achievement effects of cooperative learning have taken place in every major subject, at all grade levels, in all types of schools in many countries. Both field studies and laboratory studies have produced a great deal of knowledge about the effects of many types of cooperative interventions and about the mechanisms responsible for these effects. Further, cooperative learning is not only a subject of research and theory; it is used at some level by millions of teachers. A recent national survey (Puma, Jones, Rock, & Fernandez, 1993) found that 79% of elementary teachers and 62% of middle school teachers reported making some sustained use of cooperative learning.