Abstract

• The major purpose of this research was to study the comparative study of cooperative learning and teacher directed instruction on Grade Ten students’ achievement in physics. This study was conducted with both quantitative and qualitative research methods. For quantitative research, an experimental study was used to study the effects of cooperative learning. In this experimental study, the subjects were Grade Ten students selected from No (1) BEHS Insein and No (2) BEHS Mayangone. The experimental designed adopted in this study was a true experimental design, namely, posttest only control group design. For this study, (120) Grade Ten students were selected from both schools by random sampling method. These students were divided into two groups: control and experimental. The experimental group was treated with cooperative learning and the control group was taught as teacher directed instruction. After that, a posttest was administered to two groups. Independent samples t-test was used to test whether there was significant difference between these two groups. Examination of the means and t-test at No (1) BEHS Insein (t=4.40, df = 58, MD=11.97, p=.000) and No (2) BEHS Mayangone (t=3.98, df=58, MD=12.90, p=.000) indicated that students who were taught by cooperative learning demonstrated significantly better than those who were taught as teacher directed instruction. The qualitative data also supported the findings from the experimentation. For this research study, students from the experimental group from two selected schools were given a questionnaire. It consists of (15) items four-point Likert scale. The results showed that the students expressed their willingness to learn in cooperative learning and they had positive attitudes towards cooperative learning. Research findings proved that cooperative learning has positive contribution to the physics teaching at Grade Ten.