IMPACT OF JIGSAW AND THINK-PAIR-SHARE COOPERATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS' CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN MATHEMATICS AT THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL: A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

Abstract

One of the primary goals of contemporary mathematics education is to develop students’ critical thinking abilities. However, traditional teacher-centred instruction often provides limited opportunities for students to engage in higher-order thinking and collaborative problem-solving. This study investigates the effect of cooperative learning strategies on the critical thinking abilities of Grade 8 elementary school students. The study employed a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest control group design. The current study involved intact sections of grade eight. Both sections had 60 students; the researcher purposively selected one section as the experimental Group and the other as the control group. The researcher implemented a twelve-week intervention in which the experimental Group received cooperative learning instruction, while the control group continued with conventional lecture-based instruction. The pretest and posttest consisted of a critical-thinking test developed by the researcher. Descriptive statistics, paired-samples t-tests, and independent-samples t-tests were used to examine the data. The results showed no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups at the pretest stage, suggesting the groups were comparable before the intervention. The experimental Group's posttest scores increased significantly more than the control group's, even though the latter showed only a slight gain in critical thinking abilities. These findings suggest that structured cooperative Learning outperforms standard instruction in promoting higher-order thinking, cooperative problem-solving, and active participation. The findings indicate that integrating cooperative learning strategies into elementary mathematics instruction can significantly enhance students’ critical thinking abilities.