AER International Conference 2012
Gloria Cha-Gardiner Ed.D
IMPLEMENTING COOPERATIVE LEARNING FOR
YOUNG ADOLESCENTS WITH VISUAL
IMPAIRMENTS TO IMPROVE SOCIAL SKILLS
ORGANIZATIONS
1. Introduction
 2. Literature Review
 3. Methodology
 4. Results
 5. Discussion

INTRODUCTION
Nature of the problems
 Statement of the purpose
 Background and significance of the problem
 Purpose of the study

NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
Social skills involve the competencies that
students demonstrate in getting along with their
peers, the ways that they exercise their self-control
and self-management in the school setting and
their ability to advocate on their own behalf.
 Developed social skills through various
experiences: imitation of role models, coaching,
modeling provided by significant of others
(Gresham et al, 2001)
 Positive social skills will lead to successful
experience in careers.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Students in a residential school for the Blind and
visually impaired were demonstrating significant
delays in acquiring age-appropriate social
competencies.
 Sighted students are able to develop social
competencies naturally through observation,
imitation, and experiential learning.
 The absence of vision presents difficulties for
students with visual impairments because they
cannot acquire information from their social
environment.

BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
PROBLEM
During middle and high school years, students
experience physical, cognitive and emotional
changes that may affect the development of
social skills.
 The absence of vision creates problems in
meeting the needs of social development
although adolescents with visual impairments
are embarking on the same quest for
independence and identity(Wolffe, 2006).

THE SOCIAL NETWORK PILOT PROJECT STUDY
(SACKS, WOLFFE, AND TIEMEY, 1998)
Only 25% of the students with visual
impairments and their parents indicated that
they participated social activities with their
friends after school.
 The students with low vision were involved in
fewer activities and were least likely to be in
social situation.
 The students with visual impairments have
fewer friends than their sighted peers.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK PILOT PROJECT STUDY
(SACKS, WOLFFE, AND TIEMEY, 1998)
The students with visual impairments were
involved more frequently in passive and
sedentary activities.
 The students with visual impairments
established greater closeness when they
interacted with friends with visual impairments.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY : RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
Based on SSRs results, did cooperative learning
strategies instituted in the after school program
lead to positive changes in student social skills,
as perceived by teachers, in the area of
cooperation, assertiveness, and self-control?
2. Based on SSRs results, did cooperative learning
strategies instituted in the after school program
lead to positive changes in student social skills,
as perceived by students, in the area of
cooperation, assertiveness, and self-control?
1.
LITERATURE REVIEW

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Development of social skills in Adolescents
Barriers in social skills for students with visual
impairments
Self-esteem issues for adolescents with visual
impairments
Cooperative learning strategy
Elements of cooperative learning strategies
Techniques for facilitating cooperative learning
strategies.
Cooperative learning strategies and students with
disabilities
DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL SKILLS IN
ADOLESCENTS
Physical development
 Social Development
 Psychological development
 Cognitive development
 Social competence

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Physical appearance: height, weight, walking,
sitting, standing, posture
 Movements and mannerism often identify
adolescents as belonging to a specific peer
group or club.
 Adolescents with visual impairments do not
have the ability to observe mannerism and
movements of others, which can affect pee
group interactions.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Developing peer relationships and participating
in various social activities help adolescents to
acquire social skills.
 The students with visual impairments lack
social opportunities (Kef, 1999; Roseblum,
1998). Although they may participate on some
group activities in comparison to sighted peers,
they are always limited unless the activities are
modified.

PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
Adolescents typically develop trustworthy and
nurturing friendships that bring emotional
comfort build positive self-esteem and selfconfidence.
 Lack of visual skills creates limited
opportunities for social interactions, which
affect positive self-esteem and self-confidence.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Individuals begin to think more abstractly and
creatively during adolescents (Wolffe, 2000).
 The adolescents with visual impairments may
have particular difficulty in understanding
certain abstract concepts (Wolffe, 2000).

SOCIAL COMPETENCE
Ability to demonstrate a repertoire of behaviors
and actions that meet the norms and culture of
the society.
 A high level of social competence strongly and
positively affect educational performance,
psychological development, independent
functioning, and community participation (Brener
& Smith, 2004; Tuttle & Tuttle, 2004).
 Many visually impaired students demonstrates
deficits in social competence (Sacks & Silberman,
2000)

BARRIERS IN SOCIAL SKILLS FOR STUDENTS
WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENTS
Lack of visual cues.
 Lack of peer relationships
 Lack of social opportunities

LACK OF VISUAL CUES
Do not observe physical changes in themselves
or others:
 Cannot observe nonverbal communication.
 Inability to observe visual images and to
interpret nonverbal communication is a critical
issue that negatively impact their social
integration (Jindal-Snape, 2004, 2005; Kim,
2003;Sacks, 2006; Sacks & Silberman, 2000).

LACK OF PEER RELATIONSHIP
Visually impaired students have few close
friends and have difficulty making friends.
 They (Visually impaired students) often suffered
from lower self-esteem, which affected their
ability to establish positive relationships with
others. (Rosenblum, 1998).
 Visually impaired students experienced in
forming and maintaining friendship. (Hurre,
2000).

LACK OF SOCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
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Inability to access visual cues.
Inability to drive
The adolescents with visual impairments preferred to
interact with other visually impaired peers because they
felt a great sense of closeness with them than they did
with sighted peers (Sacks, et al, 1998(.
Many visually impaired adolescents would like to have
more social opportunity for social engagement with
sighted peers, but their visual disability limits both their
social interactions and social opportunities (Kef, 1999
COOPERATIVE LEARNING: DEFINITION
The cooperative learning strategy places
students within small groups and encourages
individuals to work together in solving common
problem, completing tasks, and learning
specific content (Siegel, 2005).
 “Small group instruction and practices that
uses positive interaction to achieve
instructional goals” (Dyson and Grineski,
2001).

ELEMENTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Positive interdependence: group members
share a common goal and that each member
must demonstrate successful network and
cooperation although group members have
different learning style.
 Individual accountability: Individual
contribution to the group.

ELEMENTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Face to face interaction: Individual
accountability promotes face to face interaction
(Jacob et all, 2002).
 Interpersonal skills: Students within a
cooperative group listen to each other, share
discussion-making processes, encourage each
other and give/receive feedback.

ELEMENTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Group processing: It is a time allocated to
discussion of how group members achieved
their goals and maintained successful working
relationship with each other.
TECHNIQUES FOR FACILITATING COOPERATIVE
LEARNING
Jigsaw: each student is responsible for learning
and performing a portion of the content and
teaching it to other group members.
 Think-pair share: encompasses three stages.
 1. The students think silently about a question
posed by a teacher.
 2. the students are paired and asked to exchange
their thoughts about a question.
 3. The students share responses with the whole
class.

TECHNIQUES FOR FACILITATING COOPERATIVE
LEARNING
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Circle of writers: each student in a group have a piece of
paper and all members write simultaneously on a given
topic. After completing the writing, the students share
their ideas with the class.
Focused discussion pair: students are paired, and
teachers pose a question to each other. Students then
respond to the question and compare answers to see if
they can improve their responses as a pair. Students
must be responsible for developing new answers and for
sharing them later with the group.
TECHNIQUES FOR FACILITATING COOPERATIVE
LEARNING

Numbered heads together: Students are placed
in groups of four, and each number is given a
number from 1-4. the teaher3 pose a question
or assigns a task to the students. Groups work
together to respond to the question or task.
The teacher calls a number and the students in
each group with that number responds to the
question or share the work completed within
the group.
TECHNIQUES FOR FACILITATING COOPERATIVE
LEARNING

Talking chips: The teacher provides each
student three chips. Students are seated in a
circle. When called upon, the student is asked
question about the content studied. After
responding, the student places the chip in the
middle of the group. After a student uses all
three chips, he or she is not allowed to speak
again until everyone has used all the chips.
COOPERATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES AND
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
Offer advantages for students with intellectual,
;earning, behavioral, physical, vision and
hearing impairments (Ashman, 2003).
 Because students with disabilities demonstrate
different levels of academic and social skills,
cooperative learning provide both academic
and social support in the classroom.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES AND
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
Gillies and Ashman (2003): studied behaviors,
interactions and learning outcomes of students
who participated cooperative learning groups.
 Kuntz, McLaughlin, and Howard (2001):
compared the use of cooperative leaning
strategies, small group instructions, and
individualized instruction approached to the
traditional teaching of math in a self-contained
special education classroom

COOPERATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES AND
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Avcioghu (2007): studied whether cooperative
learning strategies were so effective
intervention to address social skills deficits in
students with hearing impairments.
METHODOLOGY
Participants
 Instruments
 Procedures
 Data collection and analysis

PARTICIPANTS
18 out 50 7th through 10th grade middle and high
school students with visual impairments.
 They were recruited to participated in the study for
8 weeks.
 They were selected as possible participants in the
study by their teachers and administrators based
on classroom discipline and academic records.
 Able to read and comprehend reading materials at
the fourth grade level and demonstrate ageexpected written communication skills with the
help of assistive technology.

INSTRUMENTS
The SSRS (Social Skills Rating System) was
administered to a group of 18 randomly
selected students as a pretest and posttest
measure to determine social skills
competencies.
 Three core and elective teachers who worked
with each of the participating students also
completed the SSRS survey prior to and
following the implementation.

INSTRUMENTS
A weekly record of observation was developed
by the researcher to document the frequency of
specific behaviors that was observed during
the intervention period.
 The researcher also developed a behavior
checklist to measure the progress of the
participants during the cooperative group
activities over 8 week period of
implementation.

PROCEDURES
The researcher used experimental and control
group design.
 The experimental group consisted of nine of 18
randomly selected 7th through 10th grade
students, and they participated in a cooperative
learning groups for 8 weeks.
 To select students for each group, the researcher
entered the numbers from 1 through 18 on
individual cards, and put the numbers in a hat

PROCEDURES
The researcher hosted an introductory meeting
for all participants and asked the students to
pick a card from a hat.
 The following week, students in both
experimental and control group completed the
SSRS behavior rating scale.
 Responses to the scale with regard to the
targeted social skills (cooperation,
assertiveness, and self-control)

PROCEDURES
The researcher conducted a second meeting:
During the meeting, the participants discussed
about what constitutes working cooperatively in
a group to complete class assignments
successfully.
 Experimental group: they would be meeting for
1 hour twice weeks over a period of 8 weeks
during and after school program. They were
assigned to different cooperative group weekly.

PROCEDURES
Each group consists of three students. All groups
read information about career education and then
completed written activities that included
vocabulary definition, answering comprehension
questions, and writing a cooperative summary of
the reading.
 The researcher developed four concepts units in
career education, which served as the academic
content to be learned through cooperative learning
groups.

PROCEDURES
A new unit was introduced every 2 weeks, and
each unit had four corresponding lessons on a
given topic. Each lesson included three nonfiction
texts that could be obtained from internet sources.
All texts were related to different areas of career
education that were of interest to students at this
level.
 Students responded questions and activities
within their group: defining vocabulary words,
retelling detail, answering inferential questions,
and writing a summary after reading

PROCEDURES
After students completed their assignments,
they were reassigned to a sharing team. Three
sharing teams were created and provided
students the opportunity to share their
summaries and information with other teams.
 The researcher later assed the summaries and
grades were assigned to the entire group
following the state’s standards-based
assessment rubric by writing.

PROCEDURES
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During the cooperative learning intervention,
observations were made twice a month by the
researcher to determine whether individual
students were exhibiting following target behaviors
within the group: demonstration of cooperation
within the group, assertiveness defined as
initiating conversation with other group members,
and demonstration of self-control when there was
a disagreement among members of the group.
Four observations were made: Middle of first
month, end of first month, middle of second
month, and end of second month.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: RESEARCH
QUESTION 1

Compared data from teacher responses on the SSRS
before and after completion of the intervention. Also,
Assessment of student social behaviors during the
cooperative learning activities was created as a
checklist. The researcher assessed each behavior as no
progress, making progress or mastered. The responses
for each behavior checklist were counted for each
student and a table was created to indicate the number
of positive responses for each student. Percentages
were tabulated to determine progress and differences
for all students throughout the implementation on each
behavior assessed. Comparison chart was developed.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: RESEARCH
QUESTION 2

The researcher compared students’ self-reports
on the SSRS before and after the
implementation. A distribution table was
developed, and the mean score and standard
deviations were developed.
RESULTS: FINDINGS FOR RESEARCH QUESTION
1
Seven out of nine students (77.78%) in the
experimental group demonstrated an
improvement in their social skills from preintervention to post-intervention.
 The scores for the students in the control group
decreased before/after the intervention.
 Observation: three desired social behaviors
were assessed

RESULTS: FINDINGS FOR RESEARCH QUESTION
1
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Behavior 1: Seven out of nine students
demonstrated this behavior one time during
the middle of first observational month. All
nine students demonstrated this behavior at
least one time by first observational month, two
or three times during the middle of second
month and 7 out of 9 students showed this
behavior 2-3 times at the end of the second
month.
RESULTS: FINDINGS FOR RESEARCH QUESTION
1
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Behavior 2: 8 out of 9 students demonstrated this
behavior at least one time during the middle of the
first observational month. All 9 students
demonstrated this behavior at least one time at
the end of first observational month, and 8 out of
9 students demonstrated this behavior either two
or three times during the middle of the second
observational month, and all students
demonstrated this behavior two or three times at
the end of second observational month.
RESULTS: FINDINGS FOR RESEARCH QUESTION
1
Behavior 3: 7 out of 9 students demonstrated this
behavior during the middle of the first
observational month. 8 out of 9 students
demonstrated this behavior one time at the end of
first observational months. 4 out of 9 students
demonstrated this behavior four times at the end
of second observational month.
 The behavior data suggests that the cooperative
learning strategies instituted in the classroom
resulted in positive changes on all three behaviors.

RESULT FINDINGS: RESEARCH QUESTION 2

Eight of nine students in the experimental
group demonstrated improvement in their
ability to exhibit the desired social skills before
and after the intervention.
DISCUSSION
Based on the research question 1, the students
in the experimental group appeared to have
benefited from their participation in the
cooperative learning strategy.
 Based on the research question 2, the students
who participated in the cooperative learning
strategy demonstrated more positive behaviors
because they were able to interact more
successfully.

DISCUSSION: INFORMAL INTERVIEW WITH THE
STUDENTS IN THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP
1. How do you like to work with different students with
different interests? It was very difficult at the beginning,
but it was easier at the end of the study.
2. Why did you or did you not like to work with different
students with different interests? Everyone has
different ideas and thought, but they had to work
together to meet the common goals.
3. Would you like to participate again in the future? The
students recommended that the cooperative learning
activities be offered as an after school program options
in the future.

DISCUSSION: IMPLICATION OF FINDINGS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The students had opportunity to work with other
students whom they did not usually interact.
They learned how to divide a task into parts, and
each student was responsible for the part.
They learned the importance of working together
cooperatively to complete an assignment
successfully.
They learned some problem solving strategies
when facing with academic challenges.
The found in value and pleasure in helping each
other to be successful..
DISCUSSION: IMPLICATION OF FINDINGS
They were able to maintain their involvement
on a task, which resulted in more constructive
use of time.
7. They had experience of receiving feedback
from their peers in addition to the usual
feedback from their teachers.
6.
DISCUSSION: LIMITATIONS
Small sample size of population
 The researcher-created instrument that had not
yet been validated.

DISCUSSION: RECOMMENDATION OF FUTURE
RESEARCH

How cooperative learning strategies can
improve social skills of students with visual
impairments in the elementary level.
REFERENCE
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Avcioglu, H. (2007). Examining the effectiveness of a program
developed for teaching social skills to hearing-impaired students
based on cooperative learning. Educational Sciences: Theory &
Practice, 7(1), 340-347. Retrieved from ERIC database. (EJ796204)
Bremer, C. D., & Smith, J. (2004). Teaching social skills. Retrieved
from http://www .ncset.org/publications/viewdesc.asp?id=1749
Dyson, B., & Grineski (2001). Using cooperative learning structures in
physical education. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation &
Dance, 72, 28-31. Retrieved from ERIC database. (EJ622342)
Gresham, F. M., Sugai, G., & Horner, R. H. (2001). Interpreting
outcomes of social skills training for students with high-incidence
disabilities. Exceptional Children, 67(3), 331-344. Retrieved from
ERIC database. (EJ623175)
REFERENCE
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Hurre, T. A. (2000). Psychosocial development and social support
and self-esteem for adolescents with visual impairments. Helsinki,
Finland: Tempera University of Public Health.
Jacobs, G. M., Power, M. A., & Loe, W. I. (2002). The teacher’s
sourcebook for cooperative learning: Practical techniques, best
principles, and frequently asked questions. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin Press.
Kef, S. (1999). Outlook on relations: Personal network and
psychosocial characteristics of visually impaired adolescents.
Amsterdam, Netherlands: Thelathesis.
Sacks, S. Z., & Silberman, R. K. (2000). Social skills. In A. J. Koleng &
M. C. Holbrook (Eds.), Foundations of education (2nd ed., pp. 616648). New York, NY: AFB Press.
REFERENCE
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Sacks, S. Z., Wolffe, K. E., & Tierney, D. (1998). Lifestyles of
students with visual impairments: Preliminary studies of
social networks. Exceptional Children, 64(4), 463-478.
Retrieved from ERIC database. (EJ570233)
Siegel, C. (2005). Implementing a research-based model of
cooperative learning. Journal of Educational Research, 98,
339-348. Retrieved from ERIC database. (EJ698921)
Rosenblum, L. P. (1998). Best friendships of adolescents
with visual impairments: A descriptive study. Journal of
Visual Impairment & Blindness, 92, 593-608. Retrieved from
ERIC database. (EJ573562)
Tuttle, D. W., & Tuttle, N. R. (2004). Self-esteem and
adjusting with blindness (3rd ed.). Springfield, IL: Thomas.
REFERENCE
Wolffe, K. E. (2000). Growth and development of
middle childhood and adolescence. In A. J. Koleng
& M. C. Holbrook (Eds.), Foundations of education
(2nd ed., pp. 135-160). New York, NY: AFB Press.
 Wolffe, K. E. (2006). Theoretical perspectives on
the development of social skills in adolescents. In
S. Z. Sacks & K. E. Wolffe (Eds.), Teaching social
skills to students with visual impairments (pp.
332-364). New York, NY: AFB Press.
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