Effective Group Work to Enhance Student Achievement and Pro-Social Behaviors in a Computer-Based Science Learning Environment

Different ways of structuring learning tasks and situations lead to different interaction patterns and cognitive outcomes among students. The present study examined the instructional effects of two grouping methods, specifically, cooperation with or without inter-group competition, on student academic achievement and pro-social behaviors in a computer-based science learning environment in Taiwan. The results indicated that the external contingency imposed upon by inter-group competition was not helpful in inducing pro-social behaviors within the learning groups and that inter-group competition tended to inhibit socially responsive behaviors among the learning groups through the inter-group tensions that inter-group competition inevitably generated. Furthermore, the non-significant results on achievement yielded from the present study supported the assertions that it was unnecessary to have inter-group competition built under a cooperative learning environment so as to actualize the cognitive benefits of cooperative learning.