İşbirlikli öğrenme öğrenciyi merkeze alarak bilişsel ve sosyal becerilerini geliştirmeyi hedefleyen yöntemler arasında yer almaktadır. İşbirlikli öğretim yöntemlerinden jigsaw ve öğrenci takımları başarı bölümleri (ÖTBB), işbirlikli yapılardan en iyi bilinenleri, en çok araştırmaya konu olanları ve öğretimde en çok kullanılanlarıdır. Epistemoloji ise bilginin kaynağını, doğasını ve sınırlarını inceler. Bu çalışmanın amacı, sosyal bilgiler öğretmen adaylarının işbirlikli öğrenme yöntemlerinden jigsaw ve ÖTBB'nin epistemolojik inançlara ve akademik başarıya etkisiyle ilgili görüşlerinin belirlenmesidir. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu Artvin Çoruh Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Sosyal Bilgiler Eğitimi Anabilim Dalı, ikinci sınıfta öğretim ilke ve yöntemleri dersini alan 10 öğrenci oluşturmaktadır. Katılımcılarla yarı yapılandırılmış soruların sorulduğu görüşmeler yapılmıştır. Görüşme formlarının araştırmacı tarafından incelenmesinin ardından her bir katılımcıyla bireysel olarak görüşülmüş ve araştırmacı tarafından katılımcılara konuyla ilgili görüşlerini, düşüncelerini ve deneyimlerini rahatça açıklayabilecekleri açık uçlu sorular sorulmuştur. Veriler tematik kodlama ile ayrıştırılıp tablolaştırılarak değerlendirilmiştir. Jigsaw grubundaki katılımcıların yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme sorularına verdikleri yanıtlar bu grubun epistemolojik inançlarının ÖTBB grubundaki katılımcılara göre daha sofistike olduğunu gösterirken ÖTBB grubundaki katılımcıların yanıtları da işbirlikli çalışmalar boyunca başarıya jigsaw grubundaki katılımcılara göre daha çok güdülendiklerini göstermektedir. Araştırmanın nitel bulguları ayrıca her iki yöntemin uygulanış biçimi ve genel olarak işbirlikli yöntemlerin özellikleri hakkında öğrencilerin verdiği dönütleri ve gelecekteki uygulamalara yönelik önerileri içermektedir

Cooperative learning is one of the student centered methods and it aims improving student’s cognitive and social skills. Among a variety of cooperative learning methods, jigsaw and student teams achievemen devisions (STAD) are the most known, most widely used, mostly mentioned in researches, and mostly researched ones. Epistemology, on the other hand, examines the resource, nature, and borders of knowledge. The aim of this study is to determine social studies preservice teachers’ opinions regarding the effects of jigsaw and STAD on their epistemological beliefs and academic achievement. The study group of the research was consisted of 10 students who attended ArtvinÇoruh University College of Education Department of Social Science Education. Qualitative data was collected with semi structured interview forms and analyzed with thematic coding and was tabulated. Participants’ answers to semi structured interview questions and later on to open ended questions indicate that pre-service teachers in jigsaw group have more sophisticated epistemological beliefs than the ones in STAD group. On the other hand, STAD group seemed more motivated to success than jigsaw group. Qualitative findings of the research also include the opinions of pre-service teachers about the implementation of both methods, features of cooperative methods in general; and recommendations for future applications Teacher centered, traditional methods that were criticized for not to care problem solving and critical thinking skills enough are giving place to different thinking techniques and participation centered methods. Cooperative learning is one of these student centered methods which aim to improve social skills. Research shows that cooperative learning improves problem solving, decision making, critical thinking and creative thinking strategies which are skill types also. Studies examine cooperative learning state its contributions to attitudes towards courses, motivation towards learning, retention of knowledge, psychological and social development, increase of self reliance, improving communication, increase of individual accountability, and decrease of anxiety Jigsaw and student teams achievement divisions (STAD) are two of most known, most widely used, and most researched of cooperative methods. In the results of the researches regarding jigsaw it was found that this method increases student' self reliance and communication skills and affects student' attitude and motivation towards course positively. Researches regarding STAD also show that this method affects students' self reliance, communication skills, and motivation towards learning and attitude towards courses positively. It is an expected situation for cooperative learning that affects many cognitive psychological factors in learning process, being effective also on individual's epistemology. Epistemology is the study of what would be accepted as knowledge, where knowledge is and how it is increased. Teachers' personal epistemology is beliefs about gaining knowledge that provide teaching in class and learning. Epistemological beliefs of teachers affect teaching strategies they use and their openness about students' different views and opinions. Thus, the aim of this study is to specify social studies pre-service teachers’ opinions regarding the effects of jigsaw and STAD on their epistemological beliefs and academic achievement. Methodology To collect the qualitative data of the research, five from each group, a total of ten participants that volunteer and active in their studies were chosen from jigsaw and STAD groups which are constructed for implementation. Semi-structured interview questions were asked to the participants. To provide content and face validity three faculty member's opinions were taken who are experts in the area. Considering expert opinions, corrections were made on interview questions and a pilot study was conducted with five students. Students' answers in pilot study were given back to the students as coded form for member checking. In the light of expert views and member checking interview form was finalized. After semi-structured questions answered by the participants, the researcher interviewed with each participant individually and asked open ended questions that they could answer and declare their views, opinions, and experiences comfortably. The answers that given to open ended questions were printed by the researcher and were transcribed verbatim with the answers of the first interview questions. Findings Participants' answers to interview questions show that some of them made group studies in their learning life but none of them participated in cooperative studies. The question about their attitude towards knowledge is answered as knowledge is not absolute or certain; could be change dependently on time, person or context; or contrarily, it is universal; could be accepted as right or wrong; certain and endless. Besides, according to the participants knowledge is varied and complex; or contrarily has a simple structure. In terms of speed of learning they expressed their opinions as knowledge could be learned in time or learning and forgetting occur fast. In the matter of effects of authority on gaining knowledge, while some of the participants expressed the importance of authority, some of others stated that a person can learn without needing authority. The opinions, learning depends on ability or contrarily depends on effort, expressed by equal number of participants from both groups. While jigsaw group students attribute the changes in their learning life or achievement level to their individual studies and efforts more in comparison with the STAD group; also they include circle of friends and peer influence factors. Even though there are students who stated the negative effects of teachers' attitudes, lecture styles, presentations and guidance; generally they said teacher or authority has positive effects on their learning. While jigsaw group students stressed that teachers should consider individual differences and should not be authoritative, STAD group students expressed their opinions otherwise, in terms of the authoritativeness. In the matter of teacher is a knowledge authority and should motive to exploration, participants from both groups sharing approximately the same opinions. The question, how teacher education should be, generally answered with the necessity of making pre-service teacher specialize with more application courses than theoretical ones. Participants of both groups agree that teacher should be an expert in her area. About the whole implementation process participants in jigsaw group expressed that role distribution could not be done as it should be or contrarily, roles distributed accurately; subject that could not be specialized, could not be learned enough; jigsaw increased their self-reliance, achievement, retention of knowledge, communication skills, socialization, and individual responsibility, improve investigativeness, created positive interdependency, worked for conflict resolution ; investigation and teaching peers that are two of the important features of the method motivated them to learn and success. On the other hand, participants in STAD group expressed that STAD increased their self-reliance (some of them said decreased), quizzes and scoring that are the important features of the method motivated them to learn and success, increased academic achievement, retention of knowledge and concept, communication skills, socialization, empathy and problem solving abilities, decreased individual accountability; group processing and heterogeneous groups are useful, positive interdependency is useless; the method causes to study more; and the critique towards the method that getting the same grade points for students who study and who do not is wrong. Results, Discussion and Suggestions Cooperative learning increases self-reliance of students and make know them. This feature of the cooperative learning was mentioned by both groups' participants, mostly by jigsaw students. Cooperative learning motivates students to investigativeness and improves their investigative characteristics. This feature of the cooperative learning is expressed by only jigsaw group participants as could be guessed from the implementation of the method. Cooperative learning motivates students to learn, success; increases positive attitude towards courses and academic achievement. These features of cooperative learning are expressed by both groups' participants, mostly by jigsaw students. Although motivation part of this finding of the research is contradicting with the studies belongs to the theoreticians who found that individual studies increased continuity motive more than cooperative studies, the finding overlaps with the findings of relevant studies in the literature. Academic achievement part of the finding on the other hand, except for a few studies which could not found any significant effects of cooperative learning on academic achievement, has a lot of examples in the literature. Also according to the participants some of the features of the cooperative learning affected their academic achievement indirectly and are supported by the literature, such as increasing retention of the knowledge, problem solving, analytical thinking skills, and decreasing anxiety level. The finding that cooperative learning increases socialization in general is verified by a number of researchers. Additionally some features of the cooperative learning that affect socialization indirectly are specified by the participants: Increasing helping each other, communication skills; teaching by discussing; openness to the new ideas; improving empathy; accepting differences, its role in conflict resolution; increasing selfknowledge and individual accountability findings are all in the same direction with findings of the relevant studies in the literature. Participants found positive interdependence which is pertain to cooperative learning useful. This situation overlaps with the results of similar studies. Participants found group processing which is pertain to cooperative learning also useful and this finding shows consistency with the similar examples in the literature. Heterogeneous grouping is one of the common critiques towards cooperative learning. Only one participant expressed her idea and found heterogeneous grouping useful. In the literature there are both compatible and incompatible studies with this finding. Connecting with the positive interdependence, one of the critiques towards cooperative learning is some of the group members not to study enough and the effects of this situation on others was approved by some participants and was not approved by others. One of the most important findings of the research is grade points to motivate students. This finding was expressed by STAD group participants and it is compatible with another study. According to the authorities in the area, STAD was designed to motivate students. The system that motivating by grade could be the most important factor for STAD group had higher academic achievement than jigsaw group. The second important factor is the similarity of STAD and teacher centered education methods that the participants are accustomed to. As an evidence, more participants from STAD group agreed that "teacher's intervention is necessary". And for the topics of "student centered education", "teacher should be authoritative", "individual differences should be considered", and "individual can learn herself, not only from the authority" STAD group participants agreed less or gave no comment. In the matter of epistemological beliefs, it is easily seen that jigsaw group participants carry more sophisticated epistemological beliefs than the STAD group. Because, agreement to “knowledge is not absolute; it changes and evolves”; “knowledge is not simple; it is complex”; “learning occurs in time and gradually”; “individual learns knowledge not only from the authority but also herself”; “learning does not depend on ability”; “learning depends on effort” and “I have learnt from my peers” expressions are more in jigsaw participants’ sentences than the STAD participants’. The difference between can be interpreted with jigsaw’s motivation feature to individual study and reading; students to find recourses themselves, share and discuss the knowledge they gained when they come together with group members and teach in their original groups, therefore learn to reach knowledge themselves without needing an authority. With this result the research supports the idea that cooperative learning is founded on social psychology that is shortly defined as “positive interdependence, individual accountability and creating conditions for group to thing together”. The results of the study suggests necessity of giving information about implementation of cooperative learning in classes to school administrators and teachers with in service training. Because one of the findings of the research is during elementary and secondary learning of our participants participating the group studies but never involving in cooperative learning activities. This means teachers are voluntary for students centered activities all along but they do not have enough information. Another result of the study is that pre-service teachers want more application directed teacher education