Action Research on Improving Female Participation in Cooperative Learning: In Case of Biology Department, Bule Hora University

Abstract

Education is one of the social factors where by gender inconsistency is reflected. Cooperative learning is an approach to team work that reduces the occurrence of those unpleasant situations and exploits the learning and satisfaction that result from working on a high-performance team. The proven benefits of cooperative learning notwithstanding, instructors who attempt it frequently encounter resistance and sometimes open hostility from the students and create conducive environments for students to release ideas freely and interact with each other. Although the change of government policies in Ethiopia improves female participation in education, participation of female students are not as much satisfactory, especially in cooperative learning system and dependent rate of female students on male active learners are clearly known. Therefore, the major purpose of this action research is to improve female students’ participation in cooperative learning system in order to create conducive learning environment and to enhance the academic performance of female students through cooperative learning in case of Bule Hora University, Department of Biology. The random sampling techniques was used to select respondent from first year to third year female students, out of all groups of one to five in all class of Biology Department College of Natural and Computational science in Bule Hora University. The total of thirty one female students from one to five group participant was selected from all years of each groups, and one female students were randomly selected to fill the questions. Based on the assessment of this action research, 100% of the females were participated in group working activities. The activities of the females participation in group work is different, which is valued as 41.9%, 38.7%, 12.9% and 6.5% always, sometimes, rarely and usually respectively respond as their work in group assignment by asking question to be answered by group members.