Disentangling the Effects of Curricular Revision and Social Grouping Within Cooperative Learning Arrangements

Two conditions were compared to study how the social grouping versus curricular revision components of cooperative learning affect participants' classroom performance. Participants were from an eighth-grade English class with 22 peers without disabilities and 2 students with moderate to severe disabilities. The first condition, a typical cooperative learning arrangement, combined the social grouping of participants and revision of course materials. The second condition presented participants with the revised curriculum but removed the social grouping component. Dependent variables included the percentage of time participants were actively engaged in class activities, weekly pre-/posttest scores on the classroom curriculum, and the frequency and duration of social interactions between students with severe disabilities and their peers. Results indicated that the active engagement of participants did not differ across conditions. A second consistent finding was that peers without disabilities showed greater improvement on posttests when they were presented with the revised curriculum minus the social grouping component. Results of a social validity assessment, however, indicated that general and special educators perceived that peers without disabilities preferred the condition with the social grouping component. Finally, results indicated that 1 of the 2 students with disabilities had higher quality social interactions in the condition that combined social grouping and the revised curriculum.