A comparative study of achievement in college-level written business communication using lecture and cooperative learning teaching methods

Scope and method of study. The study was designed to compare the effectiveness of primary lecture and cooperative learning methods for teaching collegiate written business communication classes. Students' achievement scores were used to determine if a difference existed between the two methods. Data for the study were obtained via a quasi experiment in which one instructor taught a control class (lecture method) and an experimental class (cooperative learning group method) of Written Business Communication at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, during the fall semester, 1988. The population initially consisted of 54 students, of which 48 completed their required course work. Of the 48, 16 were control students and 32 were experimental students. A 75-item multiple choice objective pretest-posttest was administered to both classes at the beginning and at the end of the semester to determine students' achievement in both the control and experimental classes. The data were analyzed with a two-sample T-test at the.05 level of significance.;Findings and conclusions. A significant difference existed between the pretest and posttest scores of students in both control and experimental classes, which indicated that both teaching methods were effective. No significant difference existed between the mean scores or the mean improvement scores of the control and experimental classes on the post-test examination, which indicated that neither method was better than the other. Research questions regarding instructor-developed examinations were tested using the t-test. A.01 level was used on all the research questions to control for Type I error. No significant difference was found between the mean scores of the two classes on any of the instructor-developed examinations; therefore, it was concluded that subjects used in this experiment were statistically equal in all areas observed and representative of the population from which they were drawn. Diary sheets collected from students in the cooperative learning groups indicated maturation in the area of interpersonal relationship skills.