The Effects of High Level Questions in Competitive and Cooperative Environments on the Achievement of Selected Social Studies Concepts

Abstract

This study explored the relationship between cooperative and competitive instructional environments in which high level teacher questions were the primary instructional strategy and student achievement was measured by recall of content and the ability to respond to high level test questions. Ninety-six fifth grade students were randomly assigned to one of three groups: competitive environment (Cm), cooperative environment (Co), and control (C). Results of the data analysis by MANOVA indicated that Cm and Co did better than C on both low level and high level portions of the posttest. There were no significant differences between Cm and Co in low level understanding, but significant differences in favor of Cm over Co did emerge on the high level subtest. The implications for structuring classroom environments and the need for further research studies are discussed.