Sampling: Third-year education student
teachers were identified for the experiment. One
hundred and sixty-eight Baccalaureus of Education
(BEd) students who were registered for
the module EEE 112, elementary economics, participated
in this study. These students were selected
as the proportional stratified sample for
the quasi-experimental research. The sample
consisted of thirty-five percent (35%) Black students
and sixty-five percent (65%) White students.
Furthermore, 81% of the students were
females (N=109) and 19% were males (N=59).
The sample comprised the experimental group
(N=85) and the control group (N=83), who were
randomly selected from the registered list for
module EEE 112. Both groups were taught by
the researcher over a 12- week period of two
contact sessions of 55 minutes per week for the
first semester. The goal for both styles of instruction
(direct instruction and STAD) was to
have students gain an equal balance of conceptual
and computational understanding of elementary
economics. A standard curriculum (elementary
economics) was followed with the cooperative
group of students covering the same
course objectives at the same pace as the direct
instruction group (van Wyk 2008). The cooperative
learning was based on the previous work
reported by Slavin (1990) and van Wyk (2010)
on Student Teams Achievement Divisions
(STAD). Students receiving STAD instruction
were placed by the researcher (instructor) in
heterogeneous groups consisting of four to five
students. Sherman and Thomas (1986) reported
student achievement in elementary mathematics
classes which used to place students in these
CL-groups. Each group consisted of a prior lowachieving
student (grade of D), a low–medium