The effect of reversed jigsaw classroom on university students' academic performance and statistics anxiety

The reversed Jigsaw, one of the cooperative learning techniques, is based on group dynamics and social interactions. The aim of current study was to investigate the effect of reversed jigsaw method on university students' academic performance and statistics anxiety in statistics course. Research design was quasi experimental with pre and posttest and control group. Research participants were 43 under graduate university students. In one class students have been instructed using reversed Jigsaw method (n=20) and the students of other class have been instructed using instructional teacher-centered teaching method (n=23). The data was collected through statistics anxiety Scale (Rekabdar & Soleimani, 2008) and academic performance test. One way univariate and multivariate analysis of covariance was used for data analysis. The statistical analyses revealed that there were significant differences between the experimental and control groups in terms of their academic performance and statistics anxiety (p<0.001). The results of mean comparisons indicated that, the mean of experimental group is significantly higher than control group. Also in statistics anxiety the mean of experimental group is significantly lower than control group. In general research finding indicated that, reversed jigsaw method has positive effect on students' academic outcomes such as anxiety and performance. In the other words, by using this method, students' academic performance will increase and their statistics anxiety will decrease.