This research investigates the effect of exceptionally poor team members (identified as "bad apples") on team dynamics and team performance. The negative impact of bad apples is shown to harm group dynamic factors of team effectiveness, relationships, cohesion, and increase conflict. In addition, we show that bad apples reduce team…

Purpose of this study was to identify factors contributing to the successful group performance from the perspective of business students. The in-depth interview was done followed by a survey derived forty-five items variables, after some tests 21 items variables removed due to low item remainder coefficient resulted in 24 items questionnaires. A…

Research on hazing in higher education has primarily focused on Greek-letter organizations and athletes, with little research beyond these two subsets of college students. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the attitudes of students from the general student population at a Canadian university with regard to hazing and identify…

Faulty group processes have harmful effects on performance but there is little research about intervention protocols to pre-empt them in higher education. This naturalistic experiment compared a control cohort with an inducted cohort. The inducted cohort attended a workshop, consultations, elected a leader and used tools (a group log and group…

Researchers have found that the electronic methods in use for online team communication today increase communication quality in project-based work situations. Because communication quality is known to influence group cohesion, the present research examined whether online student project teams are more cohesive than traditional teams. We tested…

Leadership educators work to engage and teach their students in new and innovative ways. The film "Glory Road" was shown in an agricultural leadership class to reiterate a lesson taught on Tuckman and Jensen's (1977) Stages of Group Development. Students wrote a paper to communicate their ability to identify and evaluate the stages of…

The present study investigates empirical models of groupwork management in online collaborative learning environments, based on the data from 298 students (86 groups) in United States. Data revealed that, at the group level, groupwork management was positively associated with feedback and help seeking. Data further revealed that, at the individual…

Collaborative learning has important group-level benefits, yet most studies in higher education only focus on individual benefits of collaborative learning experiences. This study extends these insights by testing a model in which teamwork quality mediates the impact of several compositional differences (gender, nationality and teamwork expertise…

This study explores how group processes, such as group cohesiveness and group norms, influence an individual EFL learner's motivation. The uniqueness of this research lies in shifting the focus from an analysis of the individual's experience being seen as apart from the group to considering the individual's experience in relation to the social…

Background: Although the relationship between collective efficacy and group performance has been frequently investigated, a few studies have investigated the development of collective efficacy. Aim: This paper proposes some determinants of collective efficacy in small university groups. Group level hypotheses and research questions relating…

This study explores how group processes, such as group cohesiveness and group norms, influence an individual EFL learner's autonomy--their autonomous beliefs and actual autonomous behaviors. Questionnaires were administered to 152 Taiwanese university students from the English Department of a National Science and Technology University in southern…

Dimensions of group self-disclosure, intimacy and immediacy, were examined in two experiments using college student (N=273) subjects who viewed four videotapes of group interactions. Groups in which members made more disclosures about intimate topics were percieved as more cohesive. Higher immediacy, however, was not associated with increased…

Developed and tested encompassing and utilitarian measure of small group consensus using 48 small groups involving 234 college students. Pilot study of 14 groups and 61 subjects used instrument to test consensus stability over six-week period. Results showed no significant change in consensus levels over that time. (Author/NB)

Examined the relationship between group processes and group performance and cohesion in task and social groups using college students (N=160) as subjects. Found results supported the conceptual distinction between cohesion and performance and the importance of processes dealing with both the task and group maintenance. (Author/ABL)

The credibility of personal information selected by members of small groups to describe each other's characteristics and delivered to the members by the group leader without naming the source was studied. Positive feedback was rated by recipients as more credible, desirable, and as having more impact than negative feedback. (Author)