Effectiveness of Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) method on cognitive, emotional and metacognitive indicators in mathematic's learning

Cooperative learning is one of the most extensive theoretical, methodological and effective executive areas in education. This study was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of a cooperative learning method - Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD) – on cognitive, metacognitive and emotional indicators in mathematics’ learning at guidance school level. The research sample consisted of 313 third grade guidance school students from Tabriz. Research design was semi-experimental with pretest -posttest with a control group. Student teams achievement division method was conducted during the 6-weeks in the experimental group. Three instruments were used in this study:1) Mathematics Achievement Test to measure academic progress in mathematics, 2) The School Attitude Assessment Survey – Revised to measure emotional outputs, 3) Cognitive – Metacognative Strategies and Knowledge Questionnaire for measuring changes in cognitive – metacognative strategies and knowledge. Results showed that students in Teams Achievement Division Method are more effective than the conventional method one in academic achievement and part of the emotional indicators. But this effect was not observed in the metacognition outcome. Based on the findings of this study and review of theoretical and empirical studies, we could conclude that application of this method compared with individual teaching method could be more effective on the development of cognitive, academic, emotional and verbal skill of students.