A Survey on Physical Education and Sport Department Students’ Opinion about Cooperative Learning Method

Abstract

The aim of the study is to find out the opinion of the students who had taken two different courses as theoretical and applied courses about this learning strategy with the help of cooperative learning method and to match the opinion of students who are studying theoretical and applied courses with each other. Totally, 55 students, 25 of which are the ones who studied applied “Basic Gymnasium” in the curriculum of Physical Education and Sports Academy of Education Faculty in the academic year of 2009-2010, and, 30 of which are the ones who studied theoretical “Physical Education and Fundamentals of Sports” at the same department in the academic year of 2010-2011, constitute the sample group of cooperative learning method that was applied. At the end of courses, student opinion scale that was developed by the researchers in order to detect the interests of students about the related method was applied to the students. In order to find out the opinion of the students about the method, their answers to the questions were evaluated statistically and percentage distributions were given comparatively as a result of the applications that have been done. According to the data that was gathered, the application of cooperative learning method in physical and sports department was confronted positively. The study has revealed that the students to whom cooperative learning method was applied in applied courses had more positive thoughts than the students to whom cooperative learning method was applied in theoretical courses.

Keywords: Cooperative Learning, Theoretical Courses, Applied Courses, Students’ Opinions