TOPIC: Overcoming Student’s Anxiety

TITLE: Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning on Physical Education in Overcoming Student’s Social

Anxiety.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Cooperative learning is a type of teaching. It means that two or more learners become a

learning unit. Through the interaction of group members and the sharing of responsibilities, learners can

achieve common learning goal. In this process, each learner must take responsibility for team members.

This kind of teaching is learner-centered and can provide students with opportunities for active

thinking and more interactive communication. Cooperative learning is a learning activity that establishes a

common goal between group members, who then work together toward this, cooperate and support one

another. Through the cooperation of peers, the effectiveness of individual learning is improved, and group

goals can be achieved. For learning to be fully cooperative, it needs to have the following three key

elements: promotion of positive interdependence; personal performance responsibility; face-to-face

interaction. Cooperative learning is a structured and systematic teaching strategy, which is less subject to

the restrictions of subjects and grades. Teachers can help meet the needs of students of different genders,

abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, races, etc. After getting into groups, the whole group establishes a

common goal. All group members are responsible for themselves and for the others. They encourage and

assist one another in order to achieve the learning goals. Teachers arrange suitable cooperative

learning situations and group students in a heterogeneous manner, providing guidance to students to

help them cooperate, learn from one another, share resources and achieve learning goals together,

which not only contributes to learning achievement but also to motivation levels. Cooperative learning is
a systematic and structured teaching strategy, which supports learning outcomes and also students’

communication and social skills (Chettaoui et al., 2020; Chen et al., 2021d,e).

Cooperative learning can be considered as an umbrella term for a number of classroom practices. Slavin

(1985: 6) argued that ‘cooperative learning methods are structured, systematic instructional strategies’,

while Johnson and Johnson (1999: 72) held that they are ‘the instructional use of small groups so that

students work together to maximise their own and each other’s learning’. Despite the classification of a

number of instructional approaches that fit under the term ‘cooperative learning (Schmuck, 1985; Slavin,

1985), this family of approaches has been predominantly influenced by social psychological research and

theory. Slavin (1985: 7) posited that the ‘engine’ that powers cooperative learning is always the same, i.e.

heterogeneous groups working together to reach common goals. That said, he concluded that the methods

of actual cooperative learning differ in almost every other way. This diversity occurs, according to Slavin

(1985), because all cooperative learning methods are adapted in different ways when they (a) are used to

meet the intended practical requirements of the classroom and (b) are manipulated to solve the problems

introduced by cooperative learning itself (i.e. maintaining the individual’s accountability while working

towards a group’s goal). Given the mixed heritage of cooperative learning, and the interchangeable use of

terms like ‘method’, ‘instructional’ and ‘learning’, it is important to consider the model’s epistemological

cornerstones, in our case in physical education. (Casey & Quennerstedt, 2020)

One of the most important human traits for achieving goals is self-esteem (Doodman, Zadeh,& Changizi,

2017), because self-esteem is related to performance (Nyarko, 2017) and student success (Duraku &

Hoxha, 2018). So that in communicating and interacting, the teacher needs to protect the human rights that

students have by not applying punishment during the disciplinary process and so on. Physical and social

punishment that teachers implement will only increase aggression, antisocial behaviour, low relationship

quality, depression, and lack of more internalization of students (Smith, 2006).Teachers should appreciate
students’ effort and offer various solutions if students do not complete their tasks not to punish and

intimidate students with verbal and physical violence that makes them feel unworthy in front of others.

Whether the teacher is aware or not, every social interaction is related to student self-esteem (Widodo

&Pratitis, 2013). When teachers respond to students’ work with negative feedback or verbal abuse, it will

break the development of self-esteem, emotional well-being, and physical condition of students (Noh &

Tallat, 2012). The reason is that this feedback is a form of “legitimization” that students are not better than

their classmates. When teachers or classmates bully each other, there has been an invasion of privacy that

can damage the psycho-social development of students in learning even its culmination can trigger tension

among fellow students. (Blegur et al., 2021)

Socially anxious students miss out on learning opportunities by avoiding interaction, physically or

psychologically. Attention to academic information may be distracted by an excessive focus on their

anxieties, while the ability to monitor and modify communication with colleagues and tutors may be

distorted by fears of negative evaluation. But although it is distressing and causes disengagement

from learning, there is limited objective evidence about the impact of social anxiety on academic

performance in education. Studies have reported significant effects of social anxiety on failure to

complete school, increased risk of exam failure, failure to graduate and reduced income. When

participating in a seminar or presentation, socially anxious students judge their competence poorly,

in contrast to the more positive evaluations of observers; the threat of negative social evaluation

persists regardless of academic achievement. In undergraduate programmes, academic material

becomes progressively more challenging, and anxieties rise where assessment includes performance

or presentation. Students are encouraged to make use of peer and tutor support; class interaction

increases amongst those students who are socially confident. Thus, for those who are socially

anxious, there is a growing conflict between their need to engage with the programme and with
colleagues, and their fears of exposure and embarrassment. This approach-avoidance conflict has

been reported by several researchers and is an important dynamic to appreciate in working with socially

anxious students. (Hassan, 2020)

Physical education can be a context in which students are ‘educated through the physical’, which includes

the possibility to learn social inclusion as an important life skill and contributor to the greater good of

society. A key goal in the Norwegian educational system is that such positive life skills become internalised

in students. This study showed that students may have experiences of socially exclusive behaviour as

performed by others, but they do not necessarily act to reduce this behaviour. On the contrary, they might

unknowingly facilitate it by giving positive feedback if it leads to a successful outcome (e.g. scoring goals).

Although students might dislike socially exclusive behaviour, they may act in a socially exclusive manner

themselves. This indicates the need for teachers to observe and analyse social inclusion in team activities

to elucidate students’ implicit goals in the activity, and together with the students’ experiences in the

activity, to discuss and agree upon a common explicit goal. We conclude by suggesting that the five

elements of CL (positive interdependence, promotive face-to-face interactions, individual accountability,

social skills, and group processing) provide a useful reflective framework for teachers to address a variety

of issues; for example, are students individually responsible for passing the ball to others? Are students

asking their peers to contribute? Furthermore, the learning of social inclusion must take place throughout

the team activity and be based on the students’ experiences, as argued by Dewey, and as shown by our

model of ‘learning through experiences and reflections’.

GAP OF THE TOPIC

One of the obstacles that the students with Social Anxiety is facing is the subject Physical Education,

because in this subject it is natural that all of the activities are made with collaboration with other students.

Physical Educations is a subject where students educated physically that includes a highly possibly to
interact with other people. One of the problem that this research can encounter is how to overcome the

student’s anxiety by collaborating with other people especially co-student for them to learn more effectively.

But what if a person with social anxiety chose not to cooperate and collaborate with the people in their

environment? What can be the possible solution for them to learn especially in Physical Education where

teamwork and cooperation is one of the most needed? What if we made them cooperate with other people

but it make a bigger problem like their social anxiety became worsen? This are the gaps that can

CONTRIBUTION TO THE EXISTING BODY OF KNOWLEDGE

This study will help the readers especially the people experiencing and suffering from social anxiety by

knowing what can be the possible solution for them to overcome their social anxiety. It can also help the

readers who has a family member, friend or someone who is suffering from Social Anxiety through knowing

what can be the possible thing to do when they are with them when they are experiencing it. It can also

help the teachers especially in Physical Education to decide what they can do to persuade their students

with social anxiety to cooperate with their classmates, and also for them to give advice to the classmates of

the person with social anxiety on how to address their classmate that is suffering from this.
REFERENCE

Dr.Ameer Hassan (2020) Social Anxiety in People with Learning Difficulties.

https://www.academia.edu/44539791/Social_Anxiety_in_People_with_Learning_Difficulties

Ashley Casey Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK (2020) Cooperative learning in physical

education encountering Dewey’s educational theory.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1356336X20904075

Inger Beate Larsen (2021) Students’ experiences and learning of social inclusion in team activities in

physical education.

https://www.academia.edu/56500483/

Students_experiences_and_learning_of_social_inclusion_in_team_activities_in_physical_education

Jusuf Blegur (2021) OPTIMIZATION OF SOCIAL SUPPORT IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION LEARNING TO

STRENGTHEN STUDENTS' SOCIAL SELF-ESTEEM.

https://www.academia.edu/50987850/

OPTIMIZATION_OF_SOCIAL_SUPPORT_IN_PHYSICAL_EDUCATION_LEARNING_TO_STRENGTHEN

_STUDENTS_SOCIAL_SELF_ESTEEM

Chia-Chen Chen (2021) The Efficiency of Cooperative Learning in Physical Education on the Learning of

Action Skills and Learning Motivation

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717528/full#refer1
Topic: Collaborating Social Media in Education

Submitted By: Zablan, Nyzell Mary S.

BPED32

Submitted To: Dr. Rizaldy Hofilenia