The Effect of Cooperative and Mastery Learning Methods on Primary Grade Students' Learning and Retention of Economic Concepts
James Duke Laney, Dean K. Frerichs, Linda P. Frerichs, Luke K. Pat · Early Education and Development · 1996
Empirical studies have shown the positive effects of combining cooperative and mastery learning methods on mathematics achievement higher order questioning skills, and originality, but little is known, at present, about the effects of cooperative-mastery learning in other subject areas or on other cognitive outcomes. The problem of this study was to explore the effects of cooperative and mastery learning methods, alone and in combination, on first and second grade students' learning and retention of basic economic concepts. A 2 X 2 (cooperative X mastery) factorial design compared the achievement of one hundred-twenty students who were individually randomly assigned (using grade level as a stratification variable) to one of four treatment conditions—instruction on basic economic concepts using (1) cooperative learning, (2) mastery learning, (3) cooperative-mastery learning, or (4) a control treatment (no cooperative or mastery learning). All subjects were administered a written pretest, post-test, and delayed post-test on their understanding of economic concepts. To further probe children's understanding of economic concepts, a randomly selected sub-sample of sixty- four students was interviewed using an oral pretest, post-test, and delayed post-test. Overall, the results support the superiority of the cooperative-mastery learning method over either method alone in promoting the acquisition and retention of economic concepts. Pretest data verified the initial equivalence of groups. The cooperative-mastery learning group outperformed (a) the control group on all post-tests and delayed post-tests and (b) the cooperative learning group on all post-tests and delayed post-tests except the written post-test. By delayed post-test on the oral measure, the cooperative-mastery learning group was also outperforming the mastery learning group. As further evidence of the superiority of the cooperative-mastery learning method, the mean score of the cooperative-mastery learning group was greater than the combined mean scores of the mastery and cooperative learning groups on the oral post-test and delayed post-test. The authors suggest that the cooperative-mastery learning method is in line with current early childhood practices and has the capacity for simultaneously boosting the conceptual development and language development of young children. This capacity is said to stem from the method's provision of (a) specific, positive feedback, (b) a social context for sustained effort and involvement in a topic, (c) child–child communication exchanges, and (d) adult–child communication exchanges.