Postgraduate Diploma in Education

ii The study was conducted to determine the attitude of students towards cooperative learning at a community college. Questionnaires were administered to ninety (90) students and twelve (12) lecturers, in-depth interviews were conducted with three lecturers and two classes were observed to investigate the students attitude towards cooperative learning methods, how it impacted on class participation and where or not cooperative learning was been practiced at the institution. The results indicated that due to various fears such as possible low grades students prefer to work on their own rather than within group due to various fears. There are numerous benefits that can be attributed to cooperative learning such as an enhancement in class participation as well as improvements student academic performance. Informal cooperative learning is practised at the institution, since groups are typically for short time periods and not all the principles of cooperative learning can be applied to the group activities