The Effects of Cooperative Learning on English Reading Skills and Attitudes of the First-Year Students at Bangkok University

The purposes of this research were: 1) to study the effects of cooperative learning on English reading skill development of 40 first–year students at BU, 2) to survey the students’ attitudes towards cooperative learning method used in English classroom, and 3) to examine their cooperative learning behaviors. A Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) program was used with the subject group over an eight–week period. The instruments used were the reading comprehension test, the questionnaire of attitudes towards cooperative learning, the cooperative learning behavioral assessment form, and the interview. The researcher administered the English reading comprehension test before and after teaching. The pre-test and post-test scores of the group were compared using a t-test dependent measure. Results indicate that the students obtained higher reading comprehension scores for the post-test than the pre-test scores at the .05 level of significance. As to their attitudes towards cooperative learning, the findings indicate that most students rated cooperative learning moderately positive. Also, assessment forms show they performed good cooperative learning behaviors in their tasks.