George M. Schuncke

A Cooperative Curriculum Experience and Choice of Task Organization.

The effectiveness of a set of curricular activities and differing group experience in facilitating interdependent task structuring by seventh graders was examined. Two different sets of experimental groups were trained. In one, group members worked together on every activity; in the other, group membership changed with each activity. Following training, these groups and a set of control groups participated in a simulation for which they were asked to choose rules. As predicted, no significant differences were found in the structures selected by experimental groups and experimental groups structured the task more cooperatively than the control groups. In addition, experimental groups behaved more cooperatively as they participated in the simulation. These results suggest that curricular activities can be effective means of teaching cooperation in the classroom.