Promoting early adolescents' achievement and peer relationships: The effects of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic goal structures

We checked this card's citation and the finding we state against the source's own page or record in October 2026.

What it found

Classes where students worked toward shared goals were linked to higher achievement and better peer relationships than classes where students competed or worked alone, and achievement and good relationships went together under cooperative goals.

What kind of study it is

Design

Meta-analysis

Weight

A synthesis: it pools or weighs many studies, so it carries the most weight on the evidence meter.

Sample

148 studies of over 17,000 early adolescents in 11 countries

Who

School-age children (K–12)

Limits

The review tests predictions of social interdependence theory, which two of its authors have written about at length (Johnson & Johnson, 2009). The studies span eight decades.

Read it

doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.223 · ERIC record EJ787692

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Cited in the Library

• Cooperative learning