4. Results
Question one: Can cooperative learning method improve students’ academic achievements compared
with traditional English teaching?
At the beginning of the experiment, the scores of pre-test were used to test the coherence between the experimental
class and the controlled class, in order to find out whether there were any significant differences between
these two classes to ensure accuracy of the experiment.
Table 1 compares the English scores of the experimental class and the controlled class on the pre-test.
At the end of the experiment, the post-test was conducted to show the progress students made and the differences
between the experimental class and the controlled class, in order to find out whether there were any
changes after the implementation of the experiment.
Table 2 compares the English scores of the experimental class and the controlled class on the post-test.
The pre-test shows that students in the experimental class and the controlled class were almost at the same
English level, as the average score, the portion of students with scores above 125 and the portion of students
with scores above 90 were with no significant difference while the post-test form shows that students in the experimental
class have made greater progress compared with the controlled class.
As in the pre-test, the score of controlled class was nearly the same as the experimental class in almost all
areas. But in the post-test, the lowest score, the average score, the portion of students with scores above 90 and
the portion of students with scores above 125 of experimental class over-passed that of the controlled class by a
great deal. And the average score of the experimental class is obviously higher than that of the controlled class
by more than 7 scores. The portion of students with scores above 90 of the experimental class is higher than that
of the controlled class by more than 18%. The portion of students with scores above 125 of the experimental
class is higher than that of the controlled class by more than 3%. The lowest score of the experimental class is
higher than that of the controlled class by 12 scores. It shows that students in experimental class have made
much higher progress after the implementation of cooperative learning.
In the pre-test, there were 18 students from the experimental class failed the test while in the post-test there is
only 7 of the students from the experimental class who failed the test and even the scores of the 7 students have
improved a lot.
Therefore, cooperative learning method can certainly improve students’ academic achievements compared
with the traditional English teaching.