Students' achievement in individualistic, competitive and cooperative settings and their emotive perceptions for each setting

ABSTRACT

The aim of present study is to experimentally assess students' achievement in different social settings. Research also intended to explore students' emotive perceptions during different experimental conditions. - Experimental Study [Randomized Group Design]. Islamabad, Pakistan 2006-2007. After detailed literature review, it was hypothesized that a cooperative setting is more effective than interpersonal competition and individualistic effort in yielding successful completion of task. It was also hypothesized that subjects working in cooperative setting experience positive emotive perceptions about their work setting as compared to students working in competitive and individualistic settings. The sample of present research consisted of 90 students taken from private school. Their age, education, socioeconomic level, birth order, and type of school were held constant. Equal number of boys [n=45] and girls [n-45] were randomly assigned to all three experimental conditions. A game situation was constructed to manipulate three types of social settings, that is, individualistic, competitive, and cooperative. Post experimental questionnaire was administered to determine the students' emotive perceptions during each of the experimental social settings. F test was applied to assess the mean difference of students' performance in three social settings. Means were also tabulated on the post experimental questionnaire to determine the students' emotive perceptions during each of the experimental social settings. Results revealed maximum goal achievement for subjects who were randomly placed in cooperative conditions as compared to those assigned in competitive and individualistic situations. Findings also revealed emotive perceptual differences among subjects of all three experimental groups. Subjects of cooperative setting reported more ositive emotions of shared intimacy, better communication and division of labor. On the other hand, subjects performed incompetitive situation shared feelings of frustration, aggression, oppositional interaction and concealing information. Finally, subjects of individualistic condition endorsed feelings of depression, loneliness, worthlessness, stress coping, and alienation. Students can achieve their goals more effectively when working in a cooperative environment as compared to individual efforts. Cooperative settings are also associated with healthy and positive psychological feelings and emotions