Shlomo Sharan

Learning to cooperate, cooperating to learn

This book was written and edited as a project of the International Asso- ciation for the Study of Cooperation in Education (lASCE). It grew di- rectly out of the second conference of the lASCE, held at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, in [uly 1982. The chapters in the book were originally presented in some form at the Provo conference, though most have been considerably revised since that time. This is the second book sponsored by the lASCE; the first, Cooperation in Education (Provo, Utah:Brigham Young University Press, 1980),edited by Shlomo Sharan, Paul Hare, Clark Webb, and Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz, was based on the proceedings of the first conference of the IASCE in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1979. The IASCE is a group of educators interested in studying, devel- oping, or applying cooperative methods at various levels of the process of education. It includes researchers, teacher educators, teachers, and school administrators from more than a dozen countries.

Academic Achievement of Elementary School Children in Small-Group versus Whole-Class Instruction

A three week experiment was conducted comparing the academic achievement of pupils in five classrooms (N = 108) taught in small cooperative groups against that of pupils from five classes (N = 109) taught in the traditional whole-class approach. Special achievement tests were prepared for each grade level, two through six. These tests were constructed with items requiring responses at low and high levels of cognitive functioning. Pupils in grades two, four, and six from small-group classrooms excelled on high level items as predicted. Pupils in the fifth grade produced superior answers on questions requiring original contributions. Achievement scores of both groups did not differ on items measuring low level cognitive functioning.

In pursuit of the “spatial gene”: A family study

Members of 192 families in the Tel Aviv area were given a battery of eight cognitive tests focusing on spatial measures but sampling verbal, numerical, and perceptual speed domains as well. The patterns of parent-child and sibling correlations gave very weak evidence, if any, for the operation of the X-linked recessive gene postulated by Stafford and others to affect performance on tasks involving spatial visualization. An analysis of male and female score distributions provided results more favorable to the X-linkage hypothesis, at least for the child generation, although suggesting that X linkage does not explain the whole male-female difference in performance on spatial tasks.

Modifying Status Relations in Israeli Youth An Application of Expectation States Theory

The theory of status characteristics and expectation states provided the basis for applying expectation training to Israel society. A baseline study identified Middle Eastern and Western ethnic background as low and high states of a diffuse status characteristic; Jews of Western background were more active and influential than Jews of Middle Eastern background in four-person groups engaged in a collective task. Next, 180 Jewish boys of Middle Eastern and Western ethnic background participated in an experiment to alter ethnic interaction patterns reflecting the status ordering of the larger society. Middle Eastern subjects were trained to exhibit a high degree of competence on either academic or nonacademic tasks, whereupon they instructed Western boys in these tasks. Four-person groups comprised of two members from each ethnic group engaged in two group decision-making criterion tasks. Analysis of the interaction data revealed that both academic and nonacademic training increased the amount of influence wielded by low status subjects in contrast with control groups. Generality of the application to mixed status classrooms is analyzed.

Effects of an Instructional Change Program on Teachers' Behavior, Attitudes, and Perceptions:

A field experiment was conducted to change current instructional methods in the classroom to cooperative, small-group teaching (SGT) instead of the whole-class, presentation-recitation method. Fifty teachers, constituting the majority of the staff in three elementary schools serving a lower class neighborhood in the larger Tel-Aviv, Israel area participated in this experiment which lasted more than 18 months. Findings revealed that: Implementation of SGT occurred during the second year of the project following eight months of workshops and the adoption of teacher self-help teams for monitoring classroom instructional performance. The experimental group registered a significant positive change on an attitude questionnaire indicating a more progressive and less controlling approach to teaching and to education in general. Implementers of small-group learning were found to be less conservative and more willing to take risks, more spontaneous and imaginative, more open to feelings, and more socially oriented than were teachers who did not implement the new methods in their classrooms. In intensive interviews conducted with all teachers, implementers of SGT expressed greater openness to educational innovations and a greater sense of being able to cope with problems in the classroom than teachers who did not implement the small-group approach.

Teacher beliefs and practices: the discipline carries the message

Do teachers from different academic disciplines possess different ‘theories of knowledge’ and different attitudes toward education, and are these attitudes related to their classroom practices? Those were the main questions posed in this study in which 142 secondary school teachers from eight schools in the Tel‐Aviv, Israel, area responded to a detailed questionnaire constructed to explore these topics. The responses of teachers of Sciences, Humanities and Languages were compared on 4 scales of progressive versus traditional attitudes and classroom instructional methods, namely: 1. students’ use of varied informational sources for studying academic topics; 2. students’ use of their personal experience for studying and applying academic knowledge; 3. relating given academic material to other disciplines; and 4. teachers’ instructional style (lecture versus experientially orientated learning). Findings indicate that teachers’ views of knowledge, as objective bodies of information or as ideas emerging from p...

Asymmetry, Academic Status, Differentiation, and the Ethnic Perceptions and Preferences of Israeli Youth

Ethnic attitudes and preferences of Jewish youth in Israel from Middle Eastern and Western ethnic background were investigated in this study. A multiscale questionnaire was administered to 1033 ninth-grade students in 30 classrooms from ethnically integrated schools in different parts of the country. Results indicated that the two groups perceived themselves as being markedly different from each other. However, (1) ethnic attitudes in this sample were asymmetrical, since both Middle Eastern and Western sub-jects expressed more positive evaluation of and preference for persons of Western than of Middle Eastern background; (2) ethnic attitudes varied with academic status in each ethnic group; and (3) Middle Eastern subjects displayed a more differentiated person perception than did subjects of Western background. Implications of thesefindings were considered from a variety of theoretical perspectives as well as in terms of their generality in light of current research in Israel and the United States.

Classroom Learning Environment of City and Kibbutz Biology Classrooms in Israel

Summaries English The Learning Environment Inventory (LEI), adapted to conditions in Israeli schools and factor analysed on an Israeli sample, was administered to 572 students in 10th‐grade biology classes. Fourteen classes were in urban schools, six in Kibbutz district schools. All classes used the same BSCS (yellow version) curriculum. Seven out of the nine scales of the LEI Israeli version yielded significantly different scores for urban and Kibbutz samples indicating a more positive social learning climate in the Kibbutz than in the city. Differences were most marked on scales assessing cohesiveness, favouritism and cliquishness. Results were interpreted to indicate that social climate in classrooms is influenced by school‐wide policies regarding relationships in school, and not only by within‐class factors such as curriculum and teaching method.

Students’ Perceptions of Learning Geography through Group Investigation in Singapore

This study examines students’ perceptions of the Group Investigation method of cooperative learning. A total of 142 students (62 low-achievers and 80 high-achievers) from two schools worked in cooperative learning groups during a period of over six weeks using the Group Investigation method. At the end of the study, they were asked to write their perceptions of the Group Investigation method. Out of a total of 955 statements made by all the students, two-thirds (652) were positive statements and one-third (303) were negative statements. Both the high-achieving and low-achieving groups made twice as many positive statements as negative ones. The students’ written statements of their perceptions and experience of learning with the Group Investigation method provided insights into their attitudes and orientations toward school learning. Four main categories of positive statements emerged. One category indicated that the Group Investigation method was interesting, fun and effective, while the other categories reflected the students’ positive perception of their social relationships, learning skills and academic achievement in terms of deeper understanding of the topics investigated. On the negative side, students stated that they would like the teacher to continue with their normal teaching method, that is, to present academic material to them. The students thought that the Group Investigation method was time consuming and they were concerned about their coming examinations and syllabus coverage. Another cluster of statements was about their inability to learn as much from the new method of learning, and they encountered problems while working in groups, such as how to conduct their research and how to make their presentations.

The Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Scale for Assessment of Teachers' Attitudes toward Small-Group Teaching.

A scale measuring attitudes toward small-group teaching was administered to 442 teachers from 28 elementary and secondary schools in Israel. At least two dimensions of attitudes were identified: control over class and efficiency of the method. Each has been shown to have internal consistency and incremental validity with respect to a set of external variables.