Comparing Traditional with Cooperative Pairs: The Case of Iranian EGAP Students

This article reports on a study that made a comparison between traditional pair work in which students were merely asked to form pairs and work with a partner and cooperative pair work in which they received training in essential collaborative skills. To this end, 68 Iranian EGAP university students majoring in Biological Sciences participated in this study. The participants were randomly assigned to an experimental and a comparison group. The participants in both grou ps were asked to do a vocabulary gap-fill activity. While the participants in the comparison group formed traditional pairs (without receiving any training) the participants in the experimental group formed cooperative pairs (by receiving training in colla borative skills). The findings revealed that the participants who formed cooperative pairs significantly outperformed the participants who formed traditional pairs. This indicates that pair work will be more effective and maximize further learning when stu dents learn how they ought to cooperate with each other.