Exploring the impacts of cooperative learning strategy on students’ motivation in learning English reading

The present study compares the impacts of a cooperative learning strategy, the jigsaw method, with traditional whole-class instruction on students’ motivation in learning English reading. The participants were 26 Primary 4 local students in one classroom. The students were assigned to learn two different units of reading by using the jigsaw method and traditional whole-class instruction respectively. The first unit used the traditional whole-class instruction as instruction method while the second unit used the jigsaw method. A pre-test and post-test were employed to investigate the differences in students’ learning performance under the two methods. Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaires (SRQ-A) and interviews were utilized to compare the effects of these two teaching methods on students’ learning motivation. Findings in this study reveal that the reading performance of students under the jigsaw method outperformed students under the traditional whole-class instruction in the tests. The English reading learning motivation could be significantly improved among both moderate and low achievers, while limited improvement was found in high achievers.