Running Head: Anchor Action Research 1

Anchor Action Research – Using Collaborative Student Groups to Improve Content Transfer

Ruth Stewart

Georgia State University

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Introduction & Overview of Literature

It is well-documented that active learning strategies engage students and promote better

learning outcomes than passive learning strategies (Burke, 2011). According to Yale

University’s Center for Teaching and Learning, active learning is when students are participants

in the learning process rather than recipients, and that students are thinking about what they are

doing while being participants (Ormrod, 2016 & Yale Center for Teaching and Learning, 2018).

There are a wide variety of effective ways for teachers to engage students in active learning

including large group discussion, individual writing assignments, work that promotes

metacognition, and small group work, just to name a few (Yale Center for Teaching and

Learning, 2018). One of the most-studied strategies for active learning is cooperative learning, or

group work. In the field of science in particular, group work has gained popularity in recent

years, due to the national Next Generation Science Standards, which are geared towards

increasing science literacy for all K-12 students (NGSS, 2018). Science, as a profession, is

heavily based on working with others to gain a deeper understanding of the world. It makes

sense that the Next Generation Science Standards, as a way to increase science literacy, would

encourage students to engage in scientific practice, and that group work would be one of the

ways in which this could be accomplished (NGSS, 2018). In a science classroom that routinely

engages students in individual active learning, but less frequently engages students in

cooperative active learning, will individual student learning outcomes improve with a shift to

more group work, or is individual active learning sufficiently facilitating content transfer?

According to past and current literature on the benefits of cooperative learning, students

who engage in these practices outperform students in a variety of content areas who are in a

traditional classroom setting, where the individual workload is heavy (Aziz & Hossain, 2010;
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Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Burke, 2011; & Kyndt, et al, 2013 ). In a meta-analysis of 65 studies

done on the effects of cooperative learning across a variety of subjects and grade levels,

“a significantly positive effect of cooperative learning was found for achievement...The

average weighted effect size of achievement (ES = .54) is relatively high...A lot of

researchers (Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996) consider an effect size of .33 as a minimum for

practical significance within studies of education” (Kyndt, et al, 2013).

The fact that group work enhances student learning across a variety of subjects adds strength to

the claim that students in the science classroom could benefit academically from working

cooperatively. While group work is undoubtedly an important part of learning in the way

professional scientists do, it goes deeper than just that. Since working in a group enhances

learning across subjects, it is not only a good science practice, but a good thinking practice. The

benefits of group work for developing higher order thinking skills is also supported by the

literature. A study in the Journal of Technology Education found “students who participated in

collaborative learning had performed significantly better on the critical-thinking test than

students who studied individually” (Gokhale, 1995).

Critical thinking is an integral part of meaningful learning. The ability to make

connections between facts and evaluate information based on its source is crucial to academic

success. In the article Students Remember...What They Think About, the author proposes that

“[The] fundamental principle of memory– memory is as thinking does– yields a clear strategy to

encourage deep, meaningful knowledge. If students think about the meaning of material,

meaning will end up in memory” (Willingham, 2003). The author then poses the question, “How

can teachers be sure that students are thinking about meaning?” (Willingham, 2003). According

to Willingham, to foster effective learning lessons should be designed so students have to think
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about the lesson’s goal (2003). Putting students into collaborative work groups to complete a

lesson has the power to accomplish this, because students, instead of just receiving information

directly from the teacher, have to work together to construct their knowledge and sift through

what they deem important. In a study cooperative learning and its correlation to student

mathematics achievement, it is highlighted that

“the post test result indicates that [cooperative learning] provided students with the

opportunity to determine their algebraic expression, geometric theorem and trigonometric

ratio confidently. [Cooperative learning] enables students to acquire the appropriate

procedural problem solving techniques, and therefore, they were able to solve their

problem accurately than the students in the [control group]. Students in the [experimental

group] worked cooperatively to obtain shared group goals” (Aziz & Hossain, 2010).

Learning cooperatively in small student groups works to help students construct their own

knowledge, giving students invaluable thinking skills and ensuring students are learning

meaningfully.

So, where does cooperative learning come into play in the science classroom? To start, all

science disciplines require some sort of critical thinking, and that fact has been reflected in both

the national Next Generation Science Standards as well as the similar Georgia Standards of

Excellence (Georgia Department of Education, 2015 & NGSS, 2018). The Georgia Standards of

Excellence and the Next Generation Science Standards alike use language indicative of higher

order thinking skills, asking that students are able to “obtain, evaluate, and communicate”

(Georgia Department of Education, 2015) or “construct an explanation based on evidence”

(NGSS, 2018). Structuring a class to promote and enhance critical thinking, which aligns with

the prescribed standards, makes sense in order to ensure student success– if students are
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engaging in the practices of obtaining, evaluating and communicating information or

constructing their own explanations daily, as they would working in a group, then standards are

routinely being met (Aziz & Hossain, 2010; Georgia Department of Education, 2015; Gokhale,

1995; & NGSS, 2018). When it comes to performing for a test that has been written with these

standards in mind, students who have engaged in cooperative learning of content may well be

better prepared to succeed than students who have not engaged in cooperative learning of the

same content.

Study Population & Methods

Using the Georgia Standards of Excellence as well as the Next Generation Science

standards as content and assessment guidelines, collaborative small group learning was

implemented in a high school biology classroom that typically exclusively employs a

combination of direct instruction and individual active learning strategies to find out if

collaborative small group learning has an advantage over individual active learning in this

setting. The study was quasi-experimental in design, as the classes were determined before the

start of the study and then selected to be as comparable as possible.

The experimental and control groups were 2 honors biology classes. Both classes

occurred after lunch, and both classes were during the teacher’s last period of the day– meaning

content has been taught twice before both the control and experimental class. Class

demographics were similar– the control class consisted of 22 students, 3 of them Hispanic and 19

African American/Black, while the treatment consisted of 17 students, 3 of whom are Hispanic

and 14 of whom are African American/Black. Additionally, both classes had a relatively even

divide of males and females. The control class consisted of 10 females and 12 males, while the

experimental class consisted of 9 females and 8 males. Though not every student in the control
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and treatment groups consented to participate in the study, it was important that the overall class

environment was comparable as possible for reliability of data.

Regardless of whether or not students and parents consented to releasing their data, all

students in the control class received the same instruction, and all students in the experimental

class received the same instruction. However, only 12 students from the control class and 9

students from the treatment class consented to have their data released for the study. Of the 12

control group students, 8 were female and 4 were male. Of the 9 treatment group students, 5

were female and 4 were male. All students in the study were in either 9th or 10th grade, and

between the ages of 14 and 16. No students had previously taken a biology course.

The tool used to measure student content knowledge was modeled after the pretest-

posttest method used in the Aziz & Hossain study (2010). The pretest and posttest questions and

format was similar, although not identical, and the mini-unit was planned to last anywhere from

2-3 weeks, depending on how quickly students were picking up content. The students were able

to pick up content within the timeframe expected, and the study lasted 2.5 weeks. To evaluate

intervention effectiveness, the difference between the pretest and posttest scores for the control

and experimental groups were compared, using both average data for pretest mean, posttest

mean, and difference between the pre and posttest scores, as well as a statistical significance test.

The pretest consisted of 10 multiple choice questions that covered the whole unit, not just

the mini-unit, with 2 questions addressing the Georgia Standards of Excellence Biology Standard

covered in the mini-unit. The posttest consisted of 6 multiple choice questions addressing the

standard. The selected standard from the Biology Georgia Standards of Excellence, SB1, states

that students will, “Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to analyze the nature of the

relationships between structures and functions in living cells” (Georgia Department of

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Education, 2015). So, the pretest and posttest assessed students’ abilities to communicate, by

selecting the correct multiple choice answer, an analysis of the relationship between structure

and function in cells. Obtaining and evaluating information was also assessed by the test because

it is part of the teaching, in both the control and experimental groups. This is because the

learning of facts as part of content knowledge is, in essence, obtaining and evaluating

information. Taking into account the large body of literature on the topic, it was expected that the

experimental group would perform equally or better on the posttest when compared to the

control. Additionally, it was expected that the experimental group would have a larger margin of

improvement when compared to the control.

Results & Discussion

A table of the participating control and treatment group students’ raw scores for the

pretest and posttest can be found below:

Student Number Study group Pretest Score Posttest Score

0001 Treatment 50 67
0002 Treatment 0 67
0003 Treatment 0 83
0004 Treatment 0 17
0005 Treatment 50 100
0006 Treatment 0 83
0007 Treatment 50 83
0009 Treatment 100 67
0010 Treatment 50 83
0023 Control 0 83
0024 Control 100 83
0025 Control 0 33
0026 Control 0 100
0028 Control 0 67
0029 Control 50 83
0030 Control 50 83
0031 Control 0 67
0032 Control 0 83
0033 Control 0 67
0034 Control 50 67
0035 Control 50 67
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The average score of the control group’s pretest was 25%, while the average score of the

posttest was 73.5%, making the average gain 48.5 percentage points. For the experimental group,

the average pretest score was 33.3%, the average posttest score was 72.3%, and the average gain

was 39 percentage points. Based solely on the averages, these results are the reverse of what

would be expected based on the literature (Aziz & Hossain, 2010; Gokhale, 1995; &

Willingham, 2003). However, based on the T-test done for student growth (difference between

pretest and posttest score for each student), the differences are not significant at p < 0.05. The

calculated p value for the data is 0.272, which is greater than the significance level of p < 0.05,

making the 9.5 average percentage point difference between the treatment and control class not

statistically significant.

Since the difference between the classes is of no statistical significance, it cannot be

determined whether or not collaborative student groups were effective. One of the limitations of

the pretest and posttest given was the number of questions addressing content in the mini-unit.

The pretest, due to school protocol and time constraints, had to be over the entire unit, not just

the study’s selected standard. The high school in which this study was conducted is very data-

driven, and students always take a short pretest before the unit to monitor existing knowledge

and track growth. Time did not allow for taking an entirely separate pretest over just the content

covered in the duration of the study. Therefore, questions from the school-given pretest

addressing the selected standard of the study were the only ones counted as part of the pretest

score for the purposes of the study. Of the questions given on the school’s pretest, only 2

addressed the selected standard, so the only possible scores were 100, 50, and 0. That few

number of questions was not the best representation of student prior knowledge, and is one

reason results may not be statistically significant.

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The posttest consisted of 6 questions, allowing for many more possible scores and

representing student knowledge more accurately. However, when comparing posttest scores to

pretest scores, the majority of gains were either very large or very small– either below 30

percentage points or above 50 percentage points. Two students even lost points from pretest to

posttest, though most likely it was not due to insufficient instruction but rather the differing

number of questions and therefore vastly different possible scores on the tests. Further study of

these classes with more comprehensive assessment methods would be needed to yield conclusive

results.
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References

Aziz, Z., & Hossain, M. A. (2010). A comparison of cooperative learning and conventional

teaching on students’ achievement in secondary mathematics. Procedia - Social and

Behavioral Sciences,9, 53-62. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.12.115

Bonwell, C. C., & Eison, J. A. (1991). Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom.

ERIC Digest,1-6. Retrieved September 4, 2018, from

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED340272.pdf.

Burke, A. (2011). Group Work: How to Use Groups Effectively. Journal of Effective

Teaching,11(2), 87-95. Retrieved September 4, 2018, from

https://uncw.edu/jet/articles/Vol11_2/Burke.pdf.

Georgia Department of Education. (2015). Science Georgia Standards of Excellence (GSE).

Retrieved September 4, 2018, from

https://www.georgiastandards.org/Georgia-Standards/Pages/Science.aspx

Gokhale, A. A. (1995). Collaborative Learning Enhances Critical Thinking. Journal of

Technology Education,7(1). doi:10.21061/jte.v7i1.a.2

Kyndt, E., Raes, E., Lismont, B., Timmers, F., Cascallar, E., & Dochy, F. (2013). A meta-

analysis of the effects of face-to-face cooperative learning. Do recent studies falsify or

verify earlier findings? Educational Research Review,10, 133-149.

doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2013.02.002

NGSS. (2018, August 07). Next Generation Science Standards. Retrieved September 4, 2018,

from http://www.nextgenscience.org/

Willingham, D. T. (2003). Students Remember...What They Think About. American

Educator,77-81.
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Yale Center for Teaching and Learning. (2018). Active Learning | Center for Teaching and

Learning. Retrieved September 4, 2018, from https://ctl.yale.edu/ActiveLearning