Background: Gender and gender diversity are group features affecting social interaction and are critical for gender-inclusive and equitable education. As such, the role of gender and gender diversity is of particular relevance to computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). However, up until now, research on this topic in CSCL remains scarce.…

Team projects are a component of many business courses. The objective is to build team skills in addition to learning subject matter. However, instructors often pay less attention to team design and behavior and assume students already have or will learn team skills on their own. The authors examined the effect of providing structure to team work…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe a symbolic-interpretative research on the leadership culture and its subcultures in one unified comprehensive school in Finland. Design/methodology/approach: The research is a phenomenological, qualitative case study. Its methodology is based on triangulation. Findings: The leadership culture of…

Understanding the dynamics of individual or group adaptation can provide valuable information for constructing professional development strategies to increase chances of instructional success. This paper reports on an exploratory study that identifies indicators of convergent vs. non-convergent adaptation in two cases of teachers working together…

The purpose of this research was to study the characteristics of the intragroup relations between the middle-status adolescents in a student group and the other status categories. It is assumed that the social and psychological portrait of an open adolescent student group, the character of the orientation and the level of its development, and the…

Findings indicate that interpersonal compatibility in work groups and its relationship to goal achievement is not a unidimensional or unidirectional phenomenon. Rather, compatibility appears inextricably related to other aspects of group problem solving, including the methodology of decision making. (Author/IRT)

Compares decision processes of consensus and devil's advocacy within an additive task, a disjunctive task, and a conjunctive task structure. Finds that high-conflict decision processes such as devil's advocacy enhances decision making in disjunctive tasks, retards decision making in additive tasks, but has no effect on decision making in…

In this study previously unacquainted two-year-olds formed a group structure coincident with a stabilization of social relations. The children's formation of a dominance hierarchy for object conflicts, reflected in part by an increasing group structural rigidity, was marked by a decrease in the likelihood of resistance to aggression. (Author/DB)

Results of this study indicate that violent offenses are more likely committed by youths acting alone. Nonviolent offenses are more likely committed in groups. Of female delinquencies, 57 percent were committed in groups. (Author)

Examined applicability of Bednar, Melnick, and Kaul's model of early group development to college student self-help groups using undergraduates (N=101) who met in high-structure or low-structure groups. Found amount of group structure was positively related to ownership of group functioning; importance of performing group behaviors was positively…

Observations were made of the social participation, constructiveness of play, and communicative interactions of developmentally delayed and non-delayed preschool children as they interacted in heterogeneous groups. The only significant effect of heterogeneous group composition on the children was reduced inappropriate play by severely delayed…

Two social psychological theories--similarity theory and equity theory--are employed to elucidate the relationship between group members' abilities and group performance on tasks involving high levels of interdependence. Contrasting hypotheses are drawn regarding specific ability compositions that should evoke performance above or below the simple…

Experimentally varied conditions relating to the people with whom participants (N=45) interacted prior to beginning a small learning group experience. Results showed that rates of attending and remaining varied according to with whom participants interacted prior to the onset of the group. (LLL)

Focuses upon group processes in order to assess the relationships among group composition, interactive processes, and pupil understanding when a cooperative decision-making task is attempted. Reports the nature of discussion in three broad group types and the relationship of this dialogue to pupil understanding. Suggests other related issues for…

Examined effects of workgroup size and structure during collaborative work on complex tasks. Found that dyads produced greater collaboration for low-achievers, whereas small groups generated more cognitive conflict among other students. Productivity did not differ as a function of background structure. Findings posed implications for optimizing…