Effects of cooperative learning on the development of student's social skills

Cooperative learning is an active learning method that has attracted the attention of educationalists. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cooperative learning through small group learning on the development of students’ social skills. This quasi-experimental study was carried out on male high school students of Kashan during 2009-10. 50 students were randomly selected from two of the 2nd grade classes of a high school in Kashan. The experimental group was taught using cooperative learning techniques, whereas the control group continued in their ordinary traditional method. Pretest was carried out before the intervention and post-test was carried out after implementing the experiment. Follow up was done 45 days after intervention. Data were collected through the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills and were analyzed by descriptive statistical methods and variance analysis with repeated measurements using SPSS 16 software. The mean scores of the experimental group showed significant difference between the pretest and post-test (p=0.0001) and also had significant difference with the control group (p=0.0001). There was also difference between the social skills of the two studied groups including the reduction of aggressiveness, impulsivity, dissocial behaviors, pride, jealousy and isolation (p=0.0001). Cooperative learning method is more effective in the development of students’ social skills compared to traditional learning methods.