Who Takes the Cake: Rethinking the Using of Student Teams-Achievement Division in Electronics Course

Many studies show that the Student Teams-Achievement Divisions(STAD) of cooperative learning helps improve the students' learning achievement. The objective of this current study is to investigate whether STAD actually benefits the students with lower academic achievement, meanwhile, to understand the corresponding factors influencing on the learning achievement, and to show the course's conducting process. The study invited 47 sophomores at one University of Science and Technology to participate in a three weeks' STAD's teaching project. According to the scores of mid-term exam, they were sorted into three groups. The groups were divided base on high, medium, and low academic achievement and then were evenly divided into 6 groups. The individual participant who had more progress and a higher score was awarded in time every week. Finally, each group got the rewards depending on the total progressive scores after three weeks. The study results presented that there was (1) a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores. (2) a significant difference between the participant's learning achievement and the influence factors, including the learning sheet, the heterogeneous grouping, and the alienation behavior. (3) a significant difference between the attendance and the heterogeneous grouping of the participants (4) a very different look exists in the participant behavior, the group discussion, and the learning achievement for the high-score and low-score participants. This current study's results support the effect of STAD approach and show the fact that the low-score participants cannot have significant improvement in STAD. There are four parts put forward to discuss, which includes the work-division and cooperative ability for the group, remediating the background knowledge and exciting the inner motivation, the various assessments for learning, and the improvement of the teacher's teaching competence. This study also suggests that the rate and duration for the STAD's conduction can increase to understand more about its effectiveness and the corresponding influence in the future.