COLLABORATIVE-COOPERATIVE LEARNING MODEL TO IMPROVE THEOLOGY STUDENTS’ CHARACTERS: IS IT EFECTIVE?

The Collaborative-Cooperative Learning Model (CCL) helps improve students’ characters. This
study is aimed at finding out the effectiveness of the CCL instructional model in improving the characters
of the theology students in the subject matter class Self Development. This study used a quasi-experimental
research design. The research sample consisted of 58 students of the Surabaya Excelsius Institute of
Theology. Data were collected through a pre-test and post-test for the experiment and control groups and
analyzed using an independent sample t-test on the SPSS software program of Amos 25. The results show
that (1) the CCL model was found to be able to improve students’ characters. Experts’ reviews concluded
that the CCL syntax could be categorized as having innovative aspects based on the rationality model on
the score of 3.29; (2) The CCL model was found to be effective in improving students’ characters by the
Mann-Whitney test (sig. = .012) and the paired sample t-tes (sig. = .000) showed a significant difference
in the mean scores; (3) the CCL model could improve the characters of self-discipline, social discipline,
and religious discipline in the theology students in the subject matter class Self Development and could
be used for subject matter classes with the same characteristics, be followed-up by research in wider
subject-matter contexts, and be integrated with research from other academic fields.