Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of school leaders and
teachers towards CL practices in the Secondary Schools of Arsi Ticho Sub Zone.
To achieve this purpose, the descriptive research design was employed.
Questionnaire, interview and documents were used as instruments of data collection.
Data was collected from 7 secondary schools of Arsi Ticho Sub Zone. A total of
114 teachers and 88 School leaders (7 PTA Chairman, 7 supervisors, 14 Principals
and Vice Principals, and 60 Department Heads) were involved in the study. The data
was analyzed using frequency, percentage, and narrative description. To check
whether there existed a significance difference between the opinions of SL and
teachers, t-test was employed. The finding of the study revealed that the SL and
teachers have not given much attention to the implementation of CL practices in the
classroom. The SL focused on administrative activities and teachers were use talk
and chalk only to cover the portion. There is a perception difference between
teachers and school leaders. Some of the challenges which hinder the
implementation of CL practices were the resistance of teachers to participate in the
implementation of CL practices, lack of commitment of SL and teachers to help the
learners effectively, lack of Students’ motivation, and lack of budget that help the
school to full fill the resources. Improving the method of preparing organized and
participatory plan, develop the attitude of SL and teachers, and enhancing the
participation of teachers by guiding, supporting and motivating them were some of
the mechanisms that used to improve the implementation of cooperative learning.
Developing the awareness of SL and teachers through training and experience
sharing, mobilizing the community for budget allocation, give support for teachers to
develop CL practices, discussing with teachers to avoid the resistance to practice CL
in the classroom, improving the method of preparing participatory plan and improve
the participation of teachers and leaders in implementation of cooperative
learning practices are the recommendations of the study.
