Meta-analysis of effectiveness of group teaching methods on learner's cognitive, emotional and social indicators

Over the last few decades, group instructional methods have been the focus of many researchers. There are multiple studies on the effects of group instruction that highlighted a demand for a combination of research in this area. The method of the recent study was meta-analysis and the purpose of this study was combination of studies on the effects of group teaching methods (cooperative and discussion) on the learners’ cognitive, emotional and social indicators. The research population consisted of the available related studies which were conducted in Iran between 1370-1392, including full-text articles, theses and research projects in databases and libraries, universities or government agencies. Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, as well as sensitivity analysis, almost 323 effect sizes on 172 researches were investigated. The result for the combinational effect size was obtained 0.643 for the random effects model. Findings indicated that these methods have a more effect on social and cognitive outcomes, respectively. The other finding of this study was to determine the effect size for each outcome with separate indicators. It became clear that based on the critical thinking indicator for cognitive outcome, self-esteem indicator for emotional outcome, and citizenship skills indicator for social outcome had the largest effect sizes. The finding of this meta-analysis has an adequate theoretical and empirical support, and they emphasize to review and use these methods in the educational system.