+aThe influence of cooperative learning, telecommunications, and problem-solving activities on the cooperative problem-solving behavior and achievement of middle school students

In order to study achievement and the use of problem solving strategies among middle school students both in the classroom and over a telecommunications network, students were given a Social Studies Test, observed and coded using the Student Interaction Observation Form. All subjects received one of three treatments: cooperative learning training (C group), cooperative learning training and participation in a telecommunications project (CT group), or cooperative learning training, participation in a telecommunications project, and problem solving training (CTP group).The findings indicate that the combination of training of cooperative learning, problem solving, and participation in a "real world" problem solving activity over a telecommunication network can significantly improve the achievement and use of problem solving strategies in middle school students. The CTP group showed a significantly larger increase between scores on the Social Studies Pre- and Posttest than either of the other two groups. The CTP group and the CT group generated a larger number of problem solving strategies than the C group and the CTP group also generated more high level problem solving strategies than the C or the CT groups. The CTP group also generated the most problem solving strategies in telecommunications messages to distant sites. This indicates the effectiveness of the combination of all three treatments in increasing the number and level of problem solving strategies used by middle school students. The success of cooperative learning across all three groups is indicated by a significant increase in the number of problem solving strategies used by all three groups.Recommendations are made to select classrooms with cooperative learning already in place to allow more time for training in problem solving and telecommunications during the study. This would also allow more time for participation in the "receiver site transfer" phase of the telecommunication project. Further recommendations for future research include the use of telecommunications with special populations of students and stressing the problem identification stage of problem solving.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio