THE EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION ON PERFORMANCE AND SATISFACTION

There is a consensus that Cooperative Learning (CL) highlights both academic and social skills, which in turn are considered education goals (Sharan, 2010).

The literature has demonstrated the importance that CL has acquired in all levels of the education system so as to develop skills needed in the current context.

There is, however, an important question of whether CL should be encouraged through compulsory education. What’s more, the perceptions of students enrolled in courses that involved CL should be analyzed in order to consider the level of students’ satisfaction.
Thus, we aim to investigate first-degree university students’ perceptions of the skills achieved through CL and, to analyze the influence of student’s satisfaction on their measure of performance.

We conduct a survey with a sample of 269 first-degree university students. Our results reveal a negative relationship between students’ satisfaction with CL and the measure of performance. Broadly speaking, the students’ satisfaction with CL is high although the advantages perceived by women are higher than those perceived by men.

Finally, recommendations are offered which could help educators increase the satisfaction of those outstanding students.