Classroom learning style and cooperative behavior of elementary school children

Cooperative behavior of 243 3rd-7th graders who studied in cooperative small groups was compared to that of 150 pupils in classrooms conducted with whole-class instruction. An expanded version of M. Madsen's (1971) domino game was used to assess Ss' judgments about distributing payoff to themselves or to others in an altruistic, cooperative, or competitive fashion. In a 2nd experiment, 54 groups of 5 Ss were asked to construct new words from the letters appearing in an epigram, with the option to work alone or to collaborate with others. Ss from small-group classrooms were more cooperative on both judgmental and behavioral measures than were Ss from traditional classrooms. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).