Investigating the impact of positive resource interdependence and individual accountability on students‟ academic performance in cooperative learning

Abstract

Introduction. This study addresses two major issues with respect to cooperative learning. The study aims at experimentally investigating the function of positive resource interdependence and individual accountability on academic performance of individuals in cooperative learning.Method. To achieve the purpose a two by two randomized post-test experimental study was conducted. Descriptive statistics and two way ANOVA were used to analyze the data.Results. Interestingly, the results of the study reveal that working on the full content of the information before group discussion results in better academic performance than when each member in the group works on part (positive resource interdependence) of the content before group discussion. Furthermore, it is shown that when members in cooperative learning group are informed that after group work a student will be called randomly from a group for examination and the student‟s score will be the score for the rest of the group members and the score will be part of the final grade, it strengthens individual and group accountability and consequently facilitates learning. The results show no interaction effect of positive resource interdependence and individual accountability on the academic performance of students under cooperative learning.Conclusion. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.