The ultimate objective of education is to achieve necessary knowledge and to form a desirable personality in order to adapt to a society by promoting the growth of individuals. However, the role of Korean education system was to help students survive ...
The ultimate objective of education is to achieve necessary knowledge and to form a desirable personality in order to adapt to a society by promoting the growth of individuals. However, the role of Korean education system was to help students survive in highly competitive society. This has caused several adverse effects due to the negative emotions of youths, such as selfishness, competitive spirit and inferiority. To address the aforementioned problem, it is imperative to seek appropriate education environment and teaching method to help students achieve positive social interactions in a relational dimension. Hereupon, cooperative learning would be an alternative teaching-learning method for helping students develop proper personality and sociality. Cooperative learning can make students participate in various activities actively and interactive with each other on the basis of personal responsibility for the purpose of resolving the common problems and achieving the common goals of group members. Furthermore, it can allow students to develop pro-social behaviors and attitude as well as social skills.
This study aimed to examine the effects of cooperative learning based expression activity class on the personality and sociality development of learners. Therefore, this study reviewed the cooperative learning model that was suitable for the class session on the basis of the middle school dance lesson plan developed by the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation. Moreover, this study designed the lesson plan for the LT(Learning Together) model based expression activity class among various cooperative learning models. Thus, this study attempted to seek a suitable learning method by comparing the effects of the conventional group learning and the LT model based expression activity class.
This study had been conducted for 2 months from September to November 2015 with a total of 8 sessions at the N Middle School located in Bundang-gu, Gyeonggi-do. The research subjects were the 71 first year students from the two classes of the N Middle School. This study applied the cooperative learning LT model to the experimental group of the 35 first year students. The remaining 36 first year students were placed in the comparison group, which underwent the conventional group learning program.
This study first conducted the pre-test on the personality and sociality after the homogeneity verification on the two groups. This study then conducted the experimental class based on the cooperative learning LT model. In this way, this study examined the differences in the changes through the post-test after the experimental class. This study then verified the differences by comparing the test results on the personality and sociality of the two groups after the experiment. This study performed t-test verification based on the collected data. The analysis results can be summarized as follows.
First, both the experimental group and the comparison group had an higher mean score in the post-test than their respective mean score in the pre-test in terms of the changes in the personality after applying the LT cooperative learning model in the expression activity. Although both groups had an improved score, the experimental group had a statistically significant difference as compared with the comparison group.
In regard to the pre- and post- tests for each sub-domain of personality, the experimental group had a statistically significant value in the following sub-domains: sincerity/responsibility (p<0.05), autonomy/self-initiative (p<0.05), cooperation (p<0.001) and tolerance/openness (p<0.001). Therefore, there was a positive effect on their personality development.
Second, both the experimental group and the comparison group had an higher mean score in the post-test than their respective mean score in the pre-test in terms of the changes in the sociality after applying the LT cooperative learning model in the expression activity. Although both groups had an improved score, the experimental group had a statistically significant difference as compared with the comparison group.
In regard to the pre- and post- tests for each sub-domain of sociality, the experimental group had a statistically significant value in the following sub-domains: diligence (p<0.05), sociability (p<0.05) and courtesy (p<0.05). Therefore, there was a positive effect on their sociality development.
Third, there were differences in the changes of personality between the two groups after the application of LT cooperative learning model in the expression activity class. There was a statistically significant difference in the following sub-domains of personality: sincerity/responsibility, autonomy/self-initiative, flexible thinking, cooperation and tolerance/openness (p<0.05).
Fourth, there was not any difference in the changes of sociality between the two groups after the application of LT cooperative model in the expression test. As mentioned earlier, the pre- and post-test analysis indicated that the experimental group had a significant difference in such factors as diligence, sociability and courtesy in the sociality test. However, the fact that there was not any difference in the changes of sociality between the two groups is probably because the comparison group also had a higher mean score in the conventional group activity.
The objective of this study is to verify the educational effects of cooperative learning LT model in expression activity class. This cooperative learning LT model can achieve positive educational effects on personality and sociality development of students by inducing students to participate in learning activities on a voluntary basis through their personal responsibility and also allowing them to communicate and interact with other people more actively for solving problems to achieve common goals.