Cooperative Learning and the Relationship between Gender Grouping and Motivational Climate in Physical Education Classes

Background: Cooperative Learning is an instructional strategy in which small heterogenic groups of students work together to accomplish a common learning task under conditions such as positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face interaction and group processing.

Aim and Methods: The study sought to examine the effect of cooperative learning and the relationships between gender grouping and motivational climate in four 7^th grade classes (N = 120 students) in their physical education lesson. The classes were divided into four groups: boys, girls and two mixed groups. The boys, girls and one mixed group were taught a basketball unit using the Direct Instruction Model (DIM) in the first six lessons, and the remaining six lessons were taught using the Cooperative Learning Model (CLM). One mixed class was taught first using CLM, and the remaining lessons using DIM.

Results: The results show that boys preferred single-sex classes and DIM, while girls preferred mixed classes with no preference to the model used. Coed classes showed a significantly higher motivational climate in physical education than did same sex classes.