Cooperative Learning as a Preference of Adolescent Students: The Case of Dance Activities

There are a number of extracurricular activities, carried out in today junior high schools, which give priority to the interaction between individuals and groups. Dance-as an extracurricular, physical activity with educational characteristics and cooperative elements - is believed to develop social and cultural values, since it creates emotional bonds between the individual and the group. The fact that a learning method is preferred by students can influence their performance. The aim of the study is to investigate students’ preferences concerning cooperative or individual learning methods and the difficulties of group work. The sample of the study was made up of 289 students, at the age of 13. Three groups were created. The first group was constituted of adolescents who took up extracurricular dance activities organized by the state. The second group was constituted of adolescents participating in extracurricular dance activities organized by non profit private societies. The third group was made up of adolescents who did not take up any physical activity in their free time. The Greek version (Goudas, Magotsiou, & Hatzigeorgiadis, 2009) of the «Feelings towards Group Work Scale» (Cantwell & Andrews, 2002) was used. The results showed differences among all groups. The adolescents involving in private dance activity programs presented a higher preference in group learning methods than adolescents involving in state dance activity programs. This is probably due to the higher efficiency of the teachers working in the private sector. The group that did not involve in any extracurricular activity preferred the individual work method.