While cooperative learning (CL) has gained considerable attention in the current discourse about undergraduate quality education, it is minimally used in higher education classrooms, particularly in the developing countries context. Using a non-equivalent control groups design and a sample of undergraduate students (n = 340) from Jimma University, Ethiopia. This study examined the effects of informal CL on teaching effectiveness, task orientation, and learning satisfaction, together with the convergence between these latent variables. For these, the authors used t-test, one-way MANOVA, bivariate correlations, and structural equation modeling (SEM). As predicted, t tests and MANOVA results indicated that participation in the informal CL pedagogy does have low to medium effect on each variable measured (0.031[less than or equal to] partial [eta superscript 2] [greater than or equal to] 0.049 or 0.36 [less than or equal to] Cohen's d [greater than or equal to] 0.45). This suggests that higher perception of teaching effectiveness, more task orientation, and greater learning satisfaction were associated with informal CL rather than traditional lecture instructions. In addition, as predicted, SEM analyses also confirmed the significant positive associations between the teaching effectiveness, task orientation, and learning satisfaction (0.79 [less than or equal to] r [greater than or equal to] 0.85). Beyond this, the process indicators teaching effectiveness and task orientation, together predicted 85% of the variance in learning satisfaction. Implications are discussed.