Relationship between Democratic Attitudes and Attitudes Toward Implementing Cooperative Learning: A Cross-sectional Study of Pre-service Science Teachers

Kırık Ö.,

Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, cilt.19, sa.2, ss.22-41, 2024 (Hakemli Dergi)

Özet

Pedagogical methods shape students' grasp of democracy. Cooperative learning, by fostering democratic values in classrooms, empowers students for active civic participation. This approach is seen as ideal, suggesting pre-service teachers using it will hold positive democratic attitudes. This study seeks to determine how attitudes towards democracy and implementing cooperative learning differ among preservice science teachers at various grade levels (n=207), and how these attitudes correlate with each other. Additionally, the study aims to investigate how the relationship between attitudes towards democracy and implementing cooperative learning changes across grade levels. A cross-sectional design was employed. Data was collected using the Collaborative Learning Scale to measure the attitudes towards implementing cooperative learning and Democratic Perceptions and Attitudes Scale to measure democratic attitudes. The findings revealed that pre-service teachers’ year of training has no influence on their democratic attitudes and their attitudes towards implementing cooperative learning. However, participants consistently exhibited strong democratic attitudes and attitudes towards implementing cooperative learning, with a non-significant increase across grade levels. These findings suggest a widespread support for democratic principles in future classrooms and a belief in the value of cooperative learning as an instructional approach and their high expectations of success when using this method. Furthermore, there is a strong, positive correlation between democratic attitudes and attitudes towards implementing cooperative learning at all grade levels. This means that pre-service teachers who value democratic principles in the classroom are more likely to view cooperative learning strategies favorably. These findings highlight a strong link between pre-service science teachers' democratic values and their openness to using cooperative learning. The correlation coefficient increases with higher training years. As pre-service science teachers progress through their training program, the focus on democratic education practices might increase.