Three practitioner digests report, second-hand, Johnson and Johnson's finding that cooperative learning tends to promote higher achievement than competitive and individualistic learning across ages, subjects, and types of learning¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 3 studies · 2 review r2, 1 design r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 1999 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on an ERIC document (a report, conference paper or thesis). It is kept because 9 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q2 i? According to the Johnsons and others, cooperative learning experiences tend to promote higher achievement for students of all ages, across all subject areas, for virtually all types of learning than do competitive and individualistic learning experiences. → Daniels 1996

q2 i? A clearinghouse digest reports that Johnson and Johnson's meta-analysis of 122 studies (1924-1981) with 286 findings, analyzed by voting, effect size, and z score, found cooperative learning tends to promote higher achievement than competition or individual work, holding for all age levels, subject areas, and a variety of tasks. → Blosser 1993

q2 i? Johnson and Johnson's (1989) meta-analysis of 352 studies found achievement was higher for students in cooperative learning. → Kluge 1999

Evidence¶

Daniels 1996¶

Daniels, Ed; Gatto, Mike. (1996). The Cooperative Companion Digest (No. 1-4). Thinking about the Nature and Power of Cooperative Learning. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED402038

q2 · i? · design · r1

A practitioner digest reporting, citing the Johnsons and others, that cooperative learning experiences "tend to promote higher achievement" than competitive and individualistic learning across ages, subjects, and types of learning. No study design, sample, or effect size is printed; the claim is the digest's secondhand research summary.

"According to the Johnsons, and others, cooperative learning experiences tend to promote higher achievement for students of all ages, across all subject areas, for virtually all types of learning than do competitive and individualistic learning experiences."

Blosser 1993¶

Blosser, P. E. (1993). Using Cooperative Learning in Science Education. ERIC Clearinghouse for Science, Mathematics, and Environmental Education. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED351207

q2 · narrative review digest reporting a meta-analysis second-hand (was q3) · i? · review · r2

The review, a two-page ERIC clearinghouse digest, reports second-hand Johnson and Johnson's meta-analysis of 122 studies done between 1924 and 1981, whose 286 findings were analyzed using "three different methods: voting, effect size, and z score." No pooled effect size value is printed in the digest.

"All methods of analysis resulted in the same finding: cooperative learning tends to promote higher achievement than does competition or individual work, with this finding holding for all age levels, all subject areas, and a variety of tasks"

Kluge 1999¶

Kluge, David. (1999). A Brief Introduction to Cooperative Learning. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED437840

q2 · i? · review · r2

The chapter's research section reports, citing Johnson and Johnson (1989), a meta-analysis of "352 of these studies" comparing learning conditions, which "found that achievement was higher for students engaged in cooperative learning." No effect size is printed.

"Johnson and Johnson (1989) did a meta-analysis of 352 of these studies and found that achievement was higher for students engaged in cooperative learning."

Discussion¶

Neither entry is the meta-analysis itself: both are practitioner digests restating Johnson and Johnson's syntheses, and neither prints an effect size, so the page cannot say how large the advantage is or check the conditions under which it held. The primary meta-analyses (and the 352-study synthesis on the possible duplicate below) are what would settle it; they are not recorded here.

Merged from “johnson-meta-analysis-cooperative-achievement”: that page carried the Blosser (1993) entry; it is above, unchanged apart from its codes.

Related Claims¶

• Cooperative Learning Improves Achievement — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Collaborative Learning Improves Outcomes — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Cooperative learning shows benefits for gifted and high-ability students, though long-term evidence is lacking — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Competitive (norm-referenced) grading pits students against one another and discourages cooperation, according to the author's argument — related
• Cooperation compared with individualistic efforts typically results in higher achievement, greater retention, and greater social competence and self-esteem — a broader claim this one bears on
• Small-group learning improves undergraduate STEM achievement — related
• Research at primary and secondary levels indicates students learn more through non-competitive collaborative group work than in individualized competitive classrooms — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Cooperative concept mapping produces better meaningful learning than individualistic concept mapping — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Across cultures, classroom arrangements facilitating cooperative learning are more effective in supporting motivation and achievement than individual or competitive goal structures — a narrower finding that bears on this claim