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self-fulfilling prophecy can occur. High-status students in a group may ignore the contributions of low-
status students who, in turn, withdraw from participation. The high-status students’ view that their
lower-status counterparts know less and have less to contribute is thus confirmed, and the position of the
low-status students is reified (Cohen, 1994a).
A main goal of the rest of the chapter will be to introduce you to a variety of instructional methods for
overcoming these obstacles and achieving these goals, as well as to help you to understand why these
methods are effective.
CORE PROCESSES OF EFFECTIVE GROUPSBy encouraging six core processes in collaborative learning, the obstacles cited listed above can be
avoided. These six core processes are hallmarks of groups that promote student learning. The processes
are: (1) engagement, (2) positive interdependence, (3) mutual respect, (4) balanced participation, (5) high-
quality strategy use, and (6) uptake of peers’ ideas. When you begin teaching, you will see that
collaborative groups are more effective to the extent that you can promote these processes. Throughout the
chapter, you will learn methods that will help you achieve these core processes in the groups in your future
classes.
Engagement
Effective groups are deeply engaged in their task (P. C. Blumenfeld, Mergendoller, & Puro, 1992).
They find the task interesting. They may even elect to give up free time to continue to work on the task
(e.g., K. Smith, Johnson, & Johnson, 1981). When groups are engaged, they are less likely to be off task,
and students will be less inclined to social loafing.
Positive Interdependence
Positive interdependence occurs when students can achieve their goals only by helping each other,
not by acting independently (D. W. Johnson & Johnson, 1991). A task with positive interdependence is a
task that individual students cannot successfully do alone; input from all the students in the group is needed
for success.
As an example of positive interdependence, suppose that students in groups of four are given the task
of planning to populate and maintain a 10-gallon aquarium for the class. Students meet in groups to
become expert on different topics related to aquariums. Students in each group becomes experts on a
different aspect of aquariums. One group learns about water biochemistry, one about aquatic plants, one
about scavengers, and the fourth about other fish. To design a thriving aquarium, each student’s area of
expertise is needed for proper design. Then new groups are formed; each group has one expert in each of
the four areas. This is an approach to cooperative learning called jigsaw (Aronson, 1978). In jigsaw,
students first become experts on a topic, and then they form new groups so that each group has one expert
on each of the four topics. Jigsaw establishes positive interdependence because no individual student has
enough information to solve the task alone; they must put all the information together (as in the pieces of a
jigsaw puzzle) to complete the task successfully. In addition, positive interdependence discourages social
loafing, increases interactions, and encourages more equal interactions because all of the students must
participate for the group to be successful.