Cooperative learning and its effect on students attitudes toward mathematics after a short one-lesson activity

Students' poor attitudes and lack of motivation towards mathematics is a subject that is widely studied and discussed. The purpose of this study is to investigate how one lesson of cooperative work can affect students' attitudes towards mathematics and to ask students what kind of mathematical abilities they use when working with cooperative learning. The research project is conducted in two high schools in the south of sweden. Data is collected through a pre-test post-test survey with a cooperative learning activity led by the authors of this paper in between. The method of the survey is semiquantitative where we analyze the data with statistics, self determination theory (SDT) and sociocultural theory. The results show that attitudes and motivation towards mathematics can change to the better by working with cooperative learning for only one lesson. The results also show problem solving as the main skill that students use while working with cooperative learning