Scholars in student learning have shown a
growing interest in using Student Teams
Achievement Divisions (STAD) as a cooperative
learning technique in classroom teaching.
In the past two decades major theoretical perspectives
have been explored, related to cooperative
learning, namely motivational and cognitive
theories on student learning (Slavin 1987).
Killen (2007) defines cooperative learning as an
instructional design that stimulates peer interaction
and learner-to–learner cooperation with
the aim of fostering successful learning by all.
Van Wyk (2010) reports that cooperative learning
is a practical teaching strategy, offering students
more active learning experiences, equal
access to learning and a more supportive social
environment. Moreover, Adams and Hamm (1996)
state that cooperative learning as a teaching
strategy has been a success story in the transformation
of education over the past decade.
Student Teams Achievement Divisions as a cooperative
learning experiment was designed and
researched by Johns Hopkins University and is
known as “student team learning” (Sharan 1994).
Research studies in the use of STAD as a teaching
technique have been applied with great success
in various research projects (Slavin 1987;
Vaughan 2002; Jacobs et al. 2003; van Wyk 2010).