Cooperative Learning: A Systematic Review of the Economy Subject in the Curriculum of Secondary Education

Abstract

Cooperative learning (CL) has been applied to different subjects in different educational levels. Economy as a subject has been introduced recently in the curriculum of secondary schools compared to other classical subjects such as mathematics or literature. The aim of this research is to systematically review the application of CL in the teaching of economy in secondary education. Methods: a search in the Web of Science (WOS), Scopus and EBSCOhost (Academic Search Complete, Business Source Ultimate, EconLit with full text, ERIC, Library, information science & technology abstract, PsycArticles, PsycInfo) was carried out from database inception to December 1st, 2019. The query for the search was as follows: “secondary school or secondary education” AND “cooperative learning or collaborative learning” AND “economy or finances or business”. As secondary sources of bibliography, we used the reference list from the selected articles. Results: A total of 428 documents were retrieved from the databases searches. One paper was retrieved from the secondary sources. EBSCOhost was the database that elicited most documents, 325 against the 29 documents that were retrieved from Scopus and the 74 documents retrieved from WOS. A total of 48 duplicates were elicited from the three databases. After removing the duplicates 380 document were scrutinized to look for eligibility. No single paper met the criteria except for the paper found through the secondary sources. Conclusion: Despite of the importance of the subject of economy in the curriculum of secondary education, only one empirical paper was found in our review. Future research on this topic should try to fill this gap