PEER -REVIEWED LITERATURE REVIEW/CRITIQUE/DISCUSSION

Peer -Reviewed Literature Review/Critique/Discussion

Literature Review/Critique/Discussion

“Conducting a Literature Review for Your ARP,”

Whicker (1997) said: " in this study, the decline in mathematics scores was likely a function of the increasing difficulty of the course material (pre-calculus) " , but the reason might be that the cooperative learning environment (or STAD method) was not appropriate for subjects needing the higher level thinking and conceptual learning, which needed learners to use cognitive activities to process their though. Nichols (1995) study had this similar phenomenon. He also used STAD method to test students' achievement in his study. He pointed out that maybe students in geometry class were hard to learn geometric proofs during the second test and often thought of difficult to understand geometric concepts.

Nodding (1989) mentioned that STAD is successful raising on "routine lower- order thinking skills. Hence, there are some questions emerging. First, is cooperative learning greatly effective for high-grade (9-12) mathematics subjects needing more higher order thinking? Maybe cooperative learning is not so useful in grade 9-12 mathematics as some researchers claimed that the achievement effects cooperative learning have the same degree at all grade levels (2-12), in all major subjects, and in any schools. Second, is STAD of cooperative learning methods the most effective and appropriate for all mathematics courses? Or, is there any other cooperative learning method that could be used in advanced mathematics courses to significantly improve students' mathematics achievement? There is a need more research for these questions.

In these research findings of cooperative learning about mathematics achievement, the authors discussed some explanations why students using cooperative learning improve their learning situations. Although there are many different forms of cooperative learning, all of them is only one purpose that involve having students work together to help others in order to complete their goals (Slavin, 1983). Native (1995) pointed out students' helping behaviors are strongly related to their academic achievement. Cooperative learning establishes a community in which students can get help and support from other group members immediately in a non-competition learning environment, not just raising their hands and waiting the right answers. In contrast, giving or receiving answers only without help from others is not positive for students' achievement.

Whicker (1997) and Leikin & Zaslavsky (1997) found that most students like receiving help from others or like working in groups. Some students in his study responded that the complex concepts or difficult problems are to ...