Final Year Students' Perception of Cooperative Learning in the Classroom in Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI)

Cooperative learning is one of the learning methods that emphasizes teamwork skills. Teamwork skills are the most important element to complement individual soft skills that are competent and quality and balanced from an academic and interpersonal perspective. The effectiveness of cooperative learning can be affected by the challenges faced by students to perform the assigned tasks well. However, the issue of mastery of teamwork skills in students is still being talked about because among the complaints that are often raised by employers is the weakness of graduates in terms of soft skills such as teamwork skills, communication skills, leadership skills and self-confidence. This study aims to identify the perceptions of final year students of the Bachelor of Education (Agricultural Science) program, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) towards the implementation of cooperative learning in the classroom and identify the challenges of implementing cooperative learning in the classroom for the final year students. This study applies a quantitative approach by using the questionnaire method as a data collection method. A total of 51 respondents consisted of final year students of the Bachelor of Education (Agricultural Science) program, UPSI. The findings of the study were analysed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27.0 as a data analysis step to find descriptive and frequency analyses. The findings of the study showed that students' perception of the implementation of cooperative learning was more dominant based on the mean score and standard deviation were improvement of communication skills (4.49±.589), cultivation of cooperative attitude (4.49±.549) and ease of understanding the content of the lesson (4.29±.695). In addition, the dominant challenges faced by students in the implementation of cooperative learning in the classroom were also identified through the mean score and standard deviation, namely the existence of free riders in the group (4.00±1.022), more interest in conventional learning (3.69±1.164) and differences of opinion creating conflicts in completing the assigned assignments (3.67±1.297). In conclusion, cooperative learning can motivate students in their studies, which is in line with teamwork skills because there is interaction in discussions and cooperation between students although there are several challenges that need to be faced to achieve the main goal in completing assignments.