2. Literature Review

2.1 The Definition of Competitive Games and Cooperative Games

Kohn (1992) defined a competitive game as one that involves winners and losers, focusing on an inpidual’s success and an opponent’s failure, whereas cooperative games require two or more participants for achieving success and thus create interest in encouraging and assisting others. In a competitively structured classroom, students engage in a win-lose struggle in an effort to determine who is best (Johnson & Johnson, 1991). In competitive classrooms students perceive that they can obtain their goals only if other students in the class fail to obtain their own goals. Students in independently structured classrooms work by themselves to accomplish goals unrelated to those of the other students (Johnson & Johnson 1991). In a cooperative learning classroom, students work together to attain group goals that cannot be obtained by working alone or competitively. In this classroom structure, students discuss subject matter, help each other learn, and provide encouragement for members of the group (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1986). Using traditional games, Bay-Hintz et al. (1994) concluded that it is not a particular game that affects behaviour, but whether or not it is organised as a competitive or a cooperative game. Their findings suggest that cooperative games, along with limitations on competitive games in primary schools, may reduce tendencies to respond aggressively and may positively affect future social behaviour. A review of the effect of cooperative and competitive learning by Johnson and Johnson (1999) also showed that cooperative methods were found to have a greater effect on academic achievement compared to the competitive.