Differences between student and organisational team projects

In the specific context of student team working, the team is brought together to undertake one particular task, after which the team will be disbanded, so a team project is usually short lived compared to some organisational project teams. Other principal differences from work teams are the manner in which teams may be selected and leaders appointed, and the ways in which assessment or evaluation of outcomes of projects is conducted. Many of the other issues of student team working may be similar to those experienced by organisational teams, on the occasions when difficulties arise. But for student teams, these issues may take on greater significance, because of the pressure students are under to achieve good grades for their work. These include the balance of workload, communication and misunderstandings, managing disagreements, the commitment of individuals in the team, emotional factors, the diversity of students and their needs and the sheer complexity of a team project.

Team projects tend to be short term for students, but that does not make them any less critical from the student perspective, because the students’ assessment grades depend upon the outcome of their team project work, so trusting other team members to perform their roles is very important (Wilcoxson 2006). Students may themselves choose to work with the same team members for a variety of reasons, such as friendship, convenience of home location and similarity of home commitments, alternatively teams may be assembled by tutors taking experience and skills into consideration. A leadership role may be conferred on one member by the team, in response to a pressing problem, as this problem is overcome the status and power the member had is reduced and another member takes on the leadership role. The more formal learning groups are similarly affected by these influences, but student team members do not take up the option of resigning from the group, and leadership does not usually pass around the team unless specifically organised by the tutor.

Assessing a student team effort is problematical and often leads to student dissatisfaction because of a number of factors, which arise in student teams, and may cause more disaffection than for organisational teams. Jones and Issroff (2005) suggest that process as well as product should be assessed. This issue is not going to be discussed further, except that students are known to be assessment driven, so the form of assessment chosen by the tutor may impact upon the motivation of individual students in the team (Wells 2002). The other issues identified from the literature for organisational teams, which impact upon student teams will be explained next.

One drawback of teamwork is the possibility of being dragged down by weak students, and the phenomenon of “free-riding” also called social loafing (Piezon and Ferree 2008) or unequal contribution or distribution of tasks (Burdett 2003). There have been few studies into the affective or socio-emotional aspects of team working with students, except for Jones and Issroff (2005), who suggest that more longitudinal studies need to be carried out, if an understanding of affective aspects of team working is to be gained. Positive and negative emotions may also affect the progress of a project, and emotions are only a symptom of other aspects of team working (Peslak 2005).

In the workplace developing trust through good team cohesion is important, and difficulties often emerge as a result of poor communication (Politis 2003). In the same way, Hogan and Thomas (2005) found that communication, as well as time management, are significant factors in higher education software engineering teams, because as students are not always present at the same time, team cohesion is harder to achieve, and since students have different agendas for their learning, trust is harder to develop through students getting to know each other.

Conflict arises in the storming stage of the project, because of disagreements and misunderstandings, which are alleviated through communication via meetings, agreeing norms of behaviour and clarifying roles, leading the team to the norming stage, and hence to performing. Communication of information about each other is an important means of filling in the unknown quadrants of the Johari window, in order to develop a shared mental model of other team members. A study by Banks and Millward (2007) with students in a team simulation, found that shared mental models contribute to team processes, which positively impact upon team performance.

In a study with undergraduate students, Cornelis et al. (2006) found that difficulties arose from different levels of motivation to develop good working relationships within the team, and the effect of interpersonal relationships and the fairness of the leader, will affect the project outcomes. Huang and Ocker (2006) found that students working on real world IT projects in partially distributed teams, experienced conflict, not only as a result of geographical distance, but also power and flow of information, which were found to be partly ameliorated by a positive work ethic, the quality of work produced and the media used for communication. The structure of an informal learning group depends upon a mix of power exerted by individuals, the members’ orientation towards the task and emotional affiliation between members (McLeish et al. 1973; Gillies 2004).

Trust develops as team members come to rely on other members either to complete what is expected of them, often through conflict, and begin to generate a safe environment for open discussion of team issues (Golembiewski and McConkie 1975; Jehn and Mannix 2001). There is limited literature supporting the extent to which cohesiveness is essential for team working in the educational context, except for

Gillies’ study in schools (Gillies 2004). Disagreements and misunderstandings more easily become conflict, and students have limited ability (experience) to overcome them. Project management, running meetings and leading projects are being learnt at the same time as carrying out the project and learning about the subject matter, so students are often overwhelmed by the complexity of the situation (Cornford and Smithson 1996). Studies by Postmes et al. (2001), on students in experimental conditions suggests that the history of a group affects the formation of team norms, and that these norms may tend to be consensus type in a cohesive team, or critical norms in a group where individual and critical thought prevails. However, the teams with critical norms were found to make better quality decisions.

Commitment to achieving goals is high in a team of students working towards a common assessment. In addition accountability in taking responsibility for part of the work, when tasks have been allocated, and learning to work as a team are being acquired along the way. Some learners adapt well to working in a team, whereas others do not. The combination of students with different learning preferences, who react and learn differently from team working, makes for a richer team process, as they ask for clarification, and dispute issues, so come conflict is good for teams.

In recent years the student body has become more diverse. No longer is the typical student a white male, aged 18 to 22, but students may be of any age from 18 upwards, are increasingly female, and can be from different countries and cultural backgrounds. This diversity affects the ways in which our teaching is presented in response to the variety of learning preferences, which may be represented in our student body. As an example, older students who bring work experience to their studies may be more self- directed learners, but, lacking the recent learning experience of younger students, may require more guidance. Women may display a preferred approach to learning, which shows empathy, listening and collaboration. Students from other cultures may vary in ways of learning, for instance students from the Far East tend to prefer to learn by rote, rather than by experiment, and African students prefer to learn in a community (Montgomerie 2003). Researchers into gender in IT have found that gender may be significant in teams allocating tasks to members (Beranek et al. 2005), and perceptions of the team project (Ingram and Parker 2002), as well as learning preferences (Montgomerie 2003).

As well as diverse backgrounds students also have different needs, and are now working more from home than previously (Parchoma and Dykes 2008), so their environment becomes more like that of distance learning students. Alexander (2006) found that students in his study, working in virtual teams, were dissatisfied with the experience. Another study comparing face to face and virtual student teams found that the co-located teams were more satisfied with their team experience (Whitman et al. 2005). Kimble et al. (2001) identified technological barriers, organisational and cultural differences, control and supervision issues and a reluctance to share partly completed work, all of which may affect students as they rely on communication tools to coordinate their team working. Pauleen and Yoong (2001) note that support for student team working is different to that required for work teams in business.

A development model by Johnson and Johnson (2006:19) shows changes over time from a group of individuals, to a pseudogroup, then a traditional work group, to an effective group and then to a high-performance group. Many student teams do not proceed beyond the traditional work group level of being forced to work with others, but with no real interest in the tasks to be completed, because of the time constraints of a short project and the necessity to complete tasks for assessment. Others will become an effective group, having some concern for other members of the team and recognising an interdependence between each other in their efforts, but few student teams would progress to the level of a high-performance team, which also embodies a mutual concern for each others’ well being and learning, without considerable help and input from tutors (Heffernan and Poole 2005).