Groups are defined as a small, interdependent group of individuals who share a common identity and interact with one another, usually face to face over time. While groups can be an effective way to explore issues and provide creative solutions to problems, rarely do members in groups get through the process without encountering a difficult group…

Goldstein and Gigerenzer (2002) [Models of ecological rationality: The recognition heuristic. "Psychological Review," 109 (1), 75-90] found evidence for the use of the recognition heuristic. For example, if an individual recognizes only one of two cities, they tend to infer that the recognized city has a larger population. A prediction…

This paper traces the unexpected emergence of community in a recently reconceptualized Teachers as Researchers unit in a preservice teacher education program. Drawing on data collected from 145 of the 292 students who completed the unit, we chronicle and theorize about key events, tensions, and dynamics in the evolution of the community, and…

Recurrent problems in medical teaching clinic are common and difficult to address because of complex interpersonal dynamics. To minimize this difficulty, we developed a conceptual model that simplifies problems and identifies the root cause of tension between groups in clinic. We used recursive analysis and modeling of the data from a larger…

We consider group decision-making on an optimal stopping problem, for which large and stable individual differences have previously been established. In the problem, people are presented with a sequence of five random numbers between 0 and 100, one at a time, and are required to choose the maximum of the sequence, without being allowed to return…

This article describes the basic elements of an intensive action research process. The process started from an educational programme offered to professional groups interested in the problems in developing the public sector as a forum that would transcend the boundaries separating different work organisations. The introduction of the programme…

This article reports the findings of a research project concerned with children engaging in scientific argumentation. Discussion activities were designed to enable groups of children to use evidence when making decisions. The findings show a variation in the success with which children construct scientific arguments; some groups debate most of the…

Research on Problem-Based Learning in medical education has undergone an evolutionary process from initial proof of concept studies through critiques of the original methods and beyond. Initial studies focused on whether or not the instructional method was effective for medical students and the goals of medical education. Despite much movement…

This research evaluates websites from 200 "non-deviant" and 200 "deviant" non-profit organizations to better understand the relationship between the type of advocacy group and the visual imagery used for self-representation. Seventeen of 21 variables measured for this study found no difference between non-deviant and deviant non-profit…

This article describes four doctoral students' process of coming together to support each other's work. What emerged was a powerful space of learning and a framework on research for social change. The authors hosted a 2-hour reflection session, which was recorded and transcribed. Text of that session appears in this article along with discussion…

Research on pre-task planning has shown that planning has beneficial effects on learners' subsequent language output. However, to date most of this research has focused on solitary rather than group planning. Furthermore, very few studies have investigated what actually happens during the planning time. This study, conducted in an EFL class in…

Peer tutoring in Higher Education is being used with increasing frequency to aid in student learning, motivation, and empowerment. Although an extensive body of research documents the efficacy of such programs, it exhibits a surprising lack of awareness of the social dynamics involved. This study focuses on peer tutors and students as they…

A distance learning educational program for in-service teachers from disperse islands was implemented in Greece. The program was designed to create and sustain a learning community within which learning would be achieved in both a formal manner (by implementing electronically supported courses) and an informal manner (through interaction and…

Social software, such as blogs, wikis, tagging systems and collaborative filters, treats the group as a first-class object within the system. Drawing from theories of transactional distance and control, this paper proposes a model of e-learning that extends traditional concepts of learner-teacher-content interactions to include these emergent…

In this article, the author shares the strategy she adopted to even out the participation among her multicultural students during their classroom discussions. The author realized that her students had different concepts about the classroom and different philosophies about competition. For the Americans and Indians, the classroom was a site of…