The Effect of the Student Team Achievement Division (STAD) Learning Method on the Students’ Reading Comprehension and Attitude: Fresh Man Students of Oromia Police College in Focus

Abstract

The student team achievement division (STAD) cooperative learning method allows learners to work together toward common learning goals rather than individual learning. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the STAD learning method on EFL Oromia Police College first-year students’ reading comprehension in the academic year 2023-2024. Two groups took part in the study: the control group (N = 20) and the experimental group (N = 21). Students in the experimental group participated in the STAD cooperative learning method for 12 days, whereas the students in the control group were taught by the usual method, which is mostly whole-class teacher-centered and later divided into the traditional group work method. After administering the pretest and posttest of reading comprehension, the independent sample t-test was used to test the research hypothesis. Thus, a reading comprehension posttest was given from the content taught at the end of the instruction to gather data to ascertain whether there was a substantial difference in the student's achievement or not. To determine whether there was a significant difference in student’s posttest at alpha 0.05 levels, independent and paired samples t-tests were used. The finding of this study showed that there is a significant difference between the control and experimental groups, which is reported as t (8.025), P =.000 <0.05. Finally, the students who participated in the STAD method had a positive attitude toward the use of STAD in improving reading performance. Therefore, the student team achievement division (STAD) learning method had a positive effect on the student’s reading comprehension.