Individual and Group Contingencies in Cooperative Learning at the Collegiate Level‪.‬

Six sections of an undergraduate human development course (N = 317) taught across two semesters were exposed to one of three cooperative learning arrangements awarding bonus credit for individual and/or group improvement in exam performance: (1) individual improvement first required to earn group bonus credit, (2) group improvement first required to earn individual bonus credit, and (3) individual and group bonus credit earned separately. Based on exam scores in a previous unit of the course, students were categorized as high, average, and low performers. The high performers fared least well when individual improvement was primary in the cooperative contingency but had a much higher success rate under the other two contingencies. Low performers generally had the highest rate of success of all performance groups under all contingencies. Keywords: cooperative learning, group contingencies, individual contingencies, college students.