Cooperative Learning: The Foundation for Active Learning

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Provisional chapter
Cooperative Learning: The Foundation for Active
Learning
David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson
Additional information is available at the end of the chapter
© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
David W.Johnson and Roger T.Johnson
Additional information is available at the end of the chapter
Abstract
The role of instructors is evolving from the presenter of information to the designer of
active learning processes, environments, and experiences that maximize student engage-
ment. The more active a lesson, the more students tend to engage intellectually and emo-
tionally in the learning activities. Cooperative learning is the foundation on which many
of the active learning procedures are based. Cooperative learning is the instructional use
of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s
learning. Most of the active learning procedures, such as problem-based learning, team-
learning, collaborative learning, and PALS, require that students work cooperatively in
small groups to achieve joint learning goals. Cooperative learning is based on two theo-
ries: Structure-Process-Outcome theory and Social Interdependence theory. Four types of
cooperative learning have been derived: formal cooperative learning, informal cooperative
learning, cooperative base groups, and constructive controversy. There is considerable
research conrming the eectiveness of cooperative learning. To be cooperative, however,
ve basic elements must be structured into the situation: positive interdependence, indi-
vidual accountability, promotive interaction, social skills, and group processing.
Keywords: active learning, cooperative learning, collaborative learning,
student engagement, student involvement
1. Introduction
The role of instructor is evolving from the presenter of information to the designer of learn-
ing experiences that maximize student active engagement [1]. The inuences behind this
change include (a) the growing awareness that learning experiences should be active in ways
that maximize student engagement and (b) the evidence that careful design of instructional
© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

experiences makes students’ acquisition of knowledge and competencies more ecient, eec-
tive, and appealing. One of the most useful methods of ensuring that students are actively
engaged in learning experiences is cooperative learning. In addition, it is the foundation on
which many of the active learning and student engagement procedures are built. First, we
will explain the relationship between cooperative learning and active learning and student
engagement. Second, we will explain the nature of cooperative learning.
1.1. Active learning and student engagement
The rst requirement for designing a learning experience is to ensure students are active rather
than passive. Passive to active is a continuum, as no learning experience is entirely passive (even
sleep has active components) or entirely active. The question is the degree to which a learning
experience is structured to make students passive or active. Near the passive end of the contin-
uum, learning is typically listening to the instructor or individually reading information with or
without taking notes and highlighting key passages. Characteristics of passive learning are that
the student is silent, isolated (working separately from others), and under the direction of others.
Near the active end of the continuum, learning occurs when students construct, discover, and
transform their own knowledge. Active learning requires students to engage meaningfully cog-
nitively and emotionally with other students, the task assigned, and the materials or resources
used to complete the task. Characteristics of active learning are that students are talking with
others (i.e., engaged in dialogs), interacting with others (i.e., member of a pair, triad, or group of
four), generating new ideas and cognitive structures (discovering their own insights and mean-
ing from the learning activities), and determining their own direction (i.e., coordinating with
groupmates as to the direction and speed of the work). Active learning typically requires stu-
dents working in pairs or small group to conceptualize, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate during
discussions the information, procedures, strategies, and conceptual frameworks being learned.
Active learning subsumes students engaging intellectually and emotionally in the learning
activities. The continuum of student engagement (both intellectually and emotionally) has
disengagement at one end and engagement at the other. Student disengagement is dened as
o-task behaviors, negative emotions, and the absence of focus, interest, eort, curiosity, per-
sistence, the use of cognitive strategies, and other indicators of learning. Student engagement
is students’ exerting eort to complete the learning task, reecting interest in completing the
task successfully, focus on the task, curiosity about the task and its content, persistence, and
the use of cognitive strategies. Engagement may be dierentiated into three types: behavioral
engagement (aending class, doing homework), cognitive engagement (eort to understand
information and master complex skills), and emotional engagement (positive reactions to
classmates, academic task and materials, teachers, and so forth).
Well-designed lessons require students to be active and engaged. These two aspects of lessons
overlap, so that often if you get one, you get the other. The easiest way to ensure that students
are active and engaged in learning may be to use cooperative learning. In addition, many of
the forms of active learning being implemented in schools and universities are based on the
foundation of cooperative learning. Some of the most common are discussed below. This is
by no means an exhaustive list.
Active Learning2

1.2. Problem-based learning
Problem-based learning may be dened as assigning students to small groups and giving
the groups a problem to understand and solve, with the goal of having students learn rel-
evant information and procedures [2–4]. While students work in small groups the instruc-
tor facilitates and guides their work. Problem-based learning requires students to work in
small groups to ensure that the relevant information and procedures are discovered and
mastered by all members of the group, thus making cooperative learning the foundation on
which problem-based learning is built. When this connection between cooperative learning
and problem-based learning is explicit, it is known as Cooperative Problem-Based Learning
or Problem-Based Cooperative Learning.
1.3. Team-based learning
In team-based learning instructors assign students with diverse skill sets and backgrounds
to permanent groups of ve to seven members to enhance the quality of student learning
[5]. Students are individually accountable for homework assignments and for contributing
to team eorts in class. Signicant credit is given for inclass team activities and application
exercises aimed at increasing both academic learning and team development. The activities
are structured to give students frequent and timely feedback on their eorts. Since students
work in teams to increase their own and teammates’ learning, team-based learning is in eect
another form of cooperative learning.
1.4. Collaborative learning
In the 1970s, Sir James Brion and others in England [6] created an active learning procedure
known as Collaborative Learning based on the theorizing of Vygotsky [7]. Brion believed
that a student’s learning is derived from the community of learners made up of other stu-
dents. Brion was opposed to providing specic denitions of the teacher’s and students’
roles, which he considered to be training (the application of explanations, instructions, or
recipes for action). Instead, he recommended placing students in groups and leing them
generate their own culture, community, and procedures for learning, which he considered to
be natural learning (learning by making intuitive responses to whatever one’s eorts produce).
Brion believed the source of learning is dialogs and interactions with other students (and
sometimes the teacher resulting from the positive interdependence among students’ learning
goals. The heart of collaborative learning, therefore, is the cooperative foundation of students
working together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.
1.5. Peer-assisted learning
Peer-assisted learning (PALS) involves classmates of equal status actively helping each other to
acquire knowledge and skills [8]. It subsumes Reciprocal Peer Tutoring, which places same-age
students into pairs of comparable ability and gives them the responsibility is to keep each
other engaged academically [9]. Peer-assisted learning is based on cooperation, as assistance
and encouragement tends not to take place in competitive interaction.
Cooperative Learning: The Foundation for Active Learning 3

1.6. Conclusion
Almost all forms of active learning assume that students will work cooperatively in small
groups. Cooperative learning is, therefore, the foundation on which most active learning
strategies are built.
2. Cooperative learning
Most methods of active learning require the use of cooperative learning as an essential part of
their method. Cooperative learning is the foundation on which most active learning methods
are built. Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals [10, 11]. When coop-
erating, individuals work to achieve outcomes that benet themselves and all other group
members. Cooperative learning exists when small groups of students work to enhance their
own and their groupmates’ learning [1]. It is often compared to competitive learning (students
working to accomplish academic goals that only one or a few participants can aain) and
individualistic learning (each student working by him- or herself to complete assignments).
Student eorts are evaluated on a criteria-referenced basis in cooperative and individualistic
learning, while in competitive learning students are evaluated on a norm-referenced basis.
Any learning task in any subject area with any curriculum may be structured cooperatively,
but there are limitations on when and where competitive and individualistic learning may be
used appropriately.
Cooperative learning is largely based on two theories: Structure-Process-Outcome theory and
Social Interdependence theory.
2.1. Structure-process-outcome theory
Watson and Johnson [12] theorized that the way a situation is structured determines the process
individuals engage in to complete the task, which determines the outcomes of the situation.
The processes of interaction, in other words, determine outcomes, not the structure of the situ-
ation directly. This theory focuses instructors on structuring learning goals to create desired
processes of interaction among students and between the students and the instructor. Once
the desired processes of interaction occur, outcomes will tend to automatically result [10, 13].
2.2. Social interdependence theory
A second theory underlying cooperative learning is social interdependence theory [10]. In the
early 1900s Kurt Koa, proposed that groups were dynamic wholes in which the interdepen-
dence among members could vary. In the 1930s Kurt Lewin stated that the interdependence
among members created by common goals is the essence of a group. The goal interdependence
unites members into a “dynamic whole,” so that changes in the state of a member or subgroup
modify the state of other members or subgroups. In addition, motivation to accomplish the
common goals results from an intrinsic state of tension within each group member. For inter-
dependence to exist, there must be more than one person or entity involved, and the persons
Active Learning4

or entities must have dynamic impact on each other. In the late 1940s, Morton Deutsch, one of
Lewin’s graduate students, extended Lewin’s reasoning about interdependence and formu-
lated a theory of cooperation and competition [14, 15]. The authors of this chapter, David (who
was a doctoral student of Deutsch) and Roger Johnson, extended and expanded Deutsch’s
theory [10, 13, 16–19]. It should be noted that the authors of this chapter (David and Roger
Johnson) coined the term social interdependence theory to describe their expanded version of
the theory of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic eorts. Deutsch believed that social
interdependence theory included more than cooperative, competitive, and individualistic pro-
cesses, so he reserved the term for a future yet undened theory.
In his theory of cooperation and competition, Deutsch posits that cooperation is created by
positive goal interdependence, which exists when group members perceive that they can reach
their goals if and only if the other group members also reach their goals [14, 15]. Competition
is created by negative goal interdependence, which exists when group members perceive that
they can obtain their goals if and only if the other group members fail to obtain their goals.
Individualistic eorts are creative by no goal interdependence, which exists when individuals
perceive that reaching their goal is independent from other individuals aaining their goals.
Positive goal interdependence tends to result in promotive interaction, negative goal interde-
pendence tends to result in oppositional interaction, and no goal interdependence results in
an absence of interaction. The relationship between the cooperation and competition and the
interaction paern each elicits tends to be bidirectional. Each may cause the other.
3. Types of cooperative learning
Four types of cooperative learning have been derived from cooperation and competition the-
ory [1]. Formal cooperative learning may be implemented to teach specic content, informal
cooperative learning may be implemented to ensure active cognitive processing of informa-
tion during direct teaching, cooperative base groups may be implemented to provide long-
term support and assistance, and constructive controversy may be implemented to create
academic, intellectual conicts to enhance achievement and creative problem solving.
3.1. Formal cooperative learning
Ref. [1] dene formal cooperative learning as students working together, for one class period
to several weeks, to achieve mutual learning goals and complete jointly specic tasks and
assignments. Instructors can structure any course requirement or assignment in any cur-
riculum or subject area for any age student cooperatively. To structure formal cooperative
learning the instructor:
1. Makes a series of decisions about how to structure the learning groups (what size groups,
how students are assigned to groups, what roles to assign, how to arrange materials, and
how to arrange the room). The instructor also species the objectives for the lesson (one
academic and one social skills).
Cooperative Learning: The Foundation for Active Learning 5

2. Teaches the academic content students are expected to master and apply. The instructor
then explains the (a) academic task to be completed, (b) the criteria used to determine the
degree of students’ success, (c) positive interdependence, (d) individual accountability,
and (e) expected student behaviors.
3. Monitors the functioning of the learning groups and intervenes to (a) teach needed social
skills and (b) provide needed academic assistance.
4. Uses the preset criteria for excellent to evaluate student performance. The instructor then
ensures that groups process how eectively members worked together.
3.2. Informal cooperative learning
Ref. [1] dene informal cooperative learning as students working together to achieve a joint
learning goal in temporary, ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to one class period.
During direct teaching, such as a lecture, demonstration, or video, the teacher structures infor-
mal cooperative learning groups. Students engage in three-to-ve minute focused discussions
before and after the direct teaching and three-to-ve minute turn-to-your-partner discussions
interspersed throughout the direct teaching. Informal cooperative learning can create a mood
conducive to learning, focus student aention on the material to be learned, set expectations
as to what will be covered in a class session, ensure that students cognitively process the
material being taught, and provide closure to an instructional session. During direct teaching
the instructor needs to ensure that students do the intellectual work of explaining what they
are learning, conceptually organizing the material, summarizing it, and integrating it into
existing conceptual frameworks.
3.3. Cooperative base groups
Cooperative base groups are long-term, heterogeneous cooperative learning groups with stable
membership in which students provide one another with support, encouragement, and
assistance to make academic progress by aending class, completing assignments, learning
assigned material) [1]. The use of base groups tends to improve aendance, personalizes the
work required and the school experience, and improves the quality and quantity of learning.
Base groups have permanent membership and provide the long-term caring peer relation-
ships necessary to help students developed in healthy ways cognitively and socially as well as
inuence members to exert eort in striving to achieve. Base groups formally meet to provide
help and assistance to each other, verify that each member is completing assignments and
progressing satisfactory through the academic program, and discuss the academic progress
of each member. It is especially important to have base groups in large classes or schools and
when the subject maer is complex and dicult.
3.4. Constructive controversy
Johnson and Johnson [20] dene constructive controversy as one person’s ideas, information,
conclusions, theories, and opinions being incompatible with those of another, and the two seek
to reach an agreement that reects their best reasoned judgment. Constructive controversy
Active Learning6

involves the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of proposed actions aimed at
synthesizing novel and creative solutions. It also involves dissent and argumentation [20].
Dissent may be dened as diering in opinion or conclusion, especially from the majority.
Argumentation is a social process in which two or more individuals engage in a dialog where
arguments are constructed, presented, and critiqued. The theory underlying constructive
controversy states that the way conict is structured within situations determines how indi-
viduals interact with each other, which in turn determines the quality of the outcomes [12, 19].
Intellectual conict maybe structured along a continuum, with concurrence seeking at one
end and constructive controversy at the other. The process of concurrence seeking involves
avoiding open disagreement to conform to the majority opinion and reach a public consensus.
The process of controversy involves utilizing the conict among positions to achieve a synthe-
sis or a creative integration of the various positions. The outcomes generated by the process
of controversy tend to include higher quality decision making and achievement, greater cre-
ativity, higher cognitive and moral reasoning, greater motivation to improve understanding,
more positive relationships and social support, and more democratic values. The conditions
mediating the eects of the controversy process include a cooperative context, heterogeneity
among members, skilled disagreement, and rational argument.
When used in combination, cooperative formal, informal, base groups, and constructive con-
troversy provide an overall structure for school learning.
4. Outcomes of cooperative learning
Cooperative eorts result in numerous outcomes that may be subsumed into three broad
categories: eort to achieve, positive interpersonal relationships, and psychological adjust-
ment. The social interdependence research has considerable generalizability as (a) research
participants have varied as to economic class, age, gender, and culture, (b) research tasks and
measures of the dependent variables have varied widely, and (c) many dierent researchers
with markedly dierent orientations working in dierent seings and in dierent decades
have conducted the studies. We now have over 1200 studies on cooperative, competitive, and
individualistic eorts from which we can derive eect sizes. This is far more evidence than
exists for most other aspects of human interaction.
Cooperating to achieve a common goal results in higher achievement and greater productiv-
ity compared to competitive or individualistic eorts [10, 13, 19]. There is so much research
that conrms this nding that it stands as one of the strongest principles of social and orga-
nizational psychology. Cooperation also resulted in more frequent generation of new ideas
and solutions (i.e., process gain), more higher-level reasoning, and greater transfer of what
is learned (i.e., group to individual transfer) than competitive or individualistic eorts. The
superiority of cooperative eorts (as compared to competitive and individualistic eorts)
increased as the task became more conceptual, the more higher-level reasoning and criti-
cal thinking was required, the more desired was problem solving, the more creativity was
desired, the more long-term retention was required, and the greater the need for application
of what was learned.
Cooperative Learning: The Foundation for Active Learning 7

More positive and commied relationships develop in cooperative than in competitive or
individualistic situations [10, 13, 19]. This is true when individuals are homogeneous. It is also
true when individuals dier in ethnic membership, intellectual ability, handicapping condi-
tions, culture, social class, and gender. Cooperative learning tends to be essential for classes
with diverse students from dierent ethnic groups and handicapping conditions [10]. The more
positive relationships that result from cooperative learning tends to reduce absenteeism and
turnover, increase member commitment to academic goals, increase feelings of personal respon-
sibility to the group and school, increase willingness to take on dicult tasks, increase motiva-
tion to achieve and persistence in working toward goal achievement, increase morale, increase
readiness to endure pain and frustration on behalf of the group, increase readiness to defend
the group against external criticism or aack, increase readiness to listen to and be inuenced
by classmates, increase commitment to each other’s academic success, and increases academic
productivity. Cooperating on a task, compared to competing or working individualistically,
also results in more task-oriented and personal social support.
Working cooperatively with peers, and valuing cooperation, results in greater psychological
health and higher self-esteem than does competing with peers or working independently
[10, 13]. Personal ego-strength, self-condence, independence, and autonomy are all pro-
moted by being involved in cooperative eorts with caring people, who are commied to
each other’s success and well-being. When individuals work together to complete assign-
ments, through their interaction they master needed social skills and competencies, promote
each other’s success (gaining self-worth), and form both academic and personal relation-
ships (creating the basis for healthy social development).
When schools are dominated by cooperative eorts, students’ psychological adjustment and
health tend to increase. The more students cooperate with each other, the higher tends to
be their self-esteem, productivity, acceptance and support of classmates, and autonomy and
independence. Working cooperatively with peers is not a luxury. It is an absolute necessity
for students’ healthy development and ability to function independently.
5. Basic elements of cooperative learning lessons
Five basic elements for designing cooperative learning lessons have been derived from Social
Interdependence theory and Structure-Process-Outcome theory and the research on social
interdependence. The ve basic elements that are required in any cooperative learning lesson
are: positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction, social skills,
and group processing.
Positive interdependence is the heart of cooperative eorts. Students must perceive that (a) they
are linked with groupmates in a way so that they cannot succeed unless their groupmates do
(and vice versa) and (b) groupmates’ work benets them and their work benets their group-
mates [10]. Positive interdependence among students must be structured into the lesson for it to
be cooperative. While every lesson must contain positive goal interdependence, positive inter-
dependence may also be structured through mutual rewards, distributed resources, comple-
mentary roles, a mutual identity, and other methods of structuring positive interdependence.
Active Learning8

Each group member is individually accountable to contribute his or her fair share of the
group’s work. Individual accountability exists when the performance of each individual stu-
dent is assessed and the results are given back as feedback to the group and the individual
[10]. Individual accountability includes completing one’s share of the work and facilitating
the work of other group members. A purpose of cooperative learning is to make each group
member a stronger individual. There is considerable group-to-individual transfer. Students
learn together so that they can subsequently perform higher as individuals. Individual
accountability may be structured by (a) observing students as they work together and docu-
menting the contributions of each member, (b) having each student explain what they have
learned to a classmate, or (c) giving an individual test to each student.
Students promote each other’s success by helping, assisting, praising, encouraging, and
supporting each other’s eorts to learn [10]. Doing so results in such cognitive processes as
discussing the nature of the concepts being learned, orally explaining to others how to solve
problems, teaching one’s knowledge to classmates, challenging each other’s reasoning and
conclusions, and connecting present with past learning. Promotive interaction also includes
interpersonal processes such as supporting and encouraging eorts to learn, jointly celebrat-
ing the group’s success, and modeling appropriate use of social skills.
Contributing to the success of a cooperative eort requires interpersonal and small group
skills. In cooperative learning groups, students are expected to use social skills appropriately
[10]. Leadership, trust-building, communication, decision-making, and conict-management
skills have to be taught just as purposefully and precisely as academic skills. How to teach
students social skills is the focus of Johnson [21] and Johnson and Johnson [20].
Finally, students need to engage in group processing. Group processing may be dened as the
examination of the eectiveness of the process members use to maximize their own and each
other’s learning, so that ways to improve the process may be identied [10]. Group members
need to (a) describe what member actions are helpful and unhelpful in ensuring that all group
members (a) achieve and maintain eective working relationships, (b) decide what behaviors
to continue or change and (c) celebrate group members’ hard work and success [22].
These ve basic elements are the educator’s best resource. They enable instructors to (a) structure
for cooperative learning any lesson in any subject area with any set of curriculum materials,
(b) ne-tune and adapt cooperative learning to their specic students, needs, and circumstances,
and (c) intervene in malfunctioning groups to improve their eectiveness. These ve essential
elements allow instructors to structure any lesson for student activeness and engagement. It is
only when these ve aspects are carefully structured in a lesson that the lesson becomes truly
cooperative and students become active and engaged.
6. Return to active learning
Characteristics of active learning are that students engage in dialogs, interact with class-
mates in small groups, generate new ideas and cognitive structures within the groups,
and coordinate with groupmates as to the direction and speed of the work. Active learning
Cooperative Learning: The Foundation for Active Learning 9

typically requires a learning partner or a small group in which the information being learned
is analyzed, synthesizes, evaluated during discussions. In a discussion, students construct
new cognitive structures or access their existing ones to subsume the new information and
experiences.
It is clear from the research that having students compete with each other will result in stu-
dents opposing each other’s learning, thereby reducing their motivation and achievement. It
is also clear that having students work alone without interacting with classmates will have
students being indierent to each other’s learning, also reducing their motivation and learn-
ing. What does increase motivation and achievement is cooperative learning. In cooperative
learning lessons, students are assigned to small groups (usually two, three, or four members)
and given an assignment to complete (such as solving a problem or mastering a set of proce-
dures). Working cooperatively with classmates to solve a problem is far more eective than
competing with classmates or working by oneself to solve the problem. It is the cooperative
structure that promotes students to engage cognitively and emotionally with other students,
the task assigned, and the materials or resources used to complete the task. Doing so allows
students to construct, discover, and transform their own knowledge.
Students are engaged in a learning task when they exert eort to complete the task success-
fully, focus on the task, are curious about the task and its content, persist in completing the
task, and use higher-level cognitive strategies in completing the task. Students engaged in
cooperative learning activities tend to engage in more on-task behavior (and therefore are
more engaged, behaviorally, cognitively, and emotionally) than do students participating in
competitive or individualistic learning activities [10].
Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to
maximize their own and each other’s learning. Cooperative learning is based on two theories:
Structure-Process-Outcome theory and Social Interdependence theory. There are four types of
cooperative learning: formal cooperative learning, informal cooperative learning, cooperative
base groups, and constructive controversy. To be cooperative, ve basic elements need to be
structured into the learning situation: positive interdependence, individual accountability, pro-
motive interaction, social skills, and group processing. Cooperative learning, compared with
competitive or individualistic learning, tends to result in students exerting more eort to learn,
building more positive relationships with classmates, and improving their psychological health.
Cooperative learning is one of the foremost active learning procedures. It is also the founda-
tion on which many of the active learning procedures are based.
Author details
David W. Johnson* and Roger T. Johnson
*Address all correspondence to: dwj@visi.com
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Active Learning10

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