The experimental team study showed up many of the problems that are often encountered when studying team activities. The participants were required to work as a team of three to take part in other Psychology departmental studies and as the individuals on the whole neither knew their fellow team mates, nor felt any team affinity with them, there was no cohesive feeling that the team need be as successful as they could be in achieving the teams’ goals. It made little difference to the individuals whether their team was successful or not. The main aim of the participants was to achieve their own individual goal of collecting the required number of ‘SONA’ credits and once that had been achieved the individuals felt no compulsion to carry on with this specific study’s aims. The semi-structured interviews confirmed the researcher’s beliefs that the team activity ended up as an individual task rather than a team goal and that there was little feeling of being an integral part of a bigger team.
Although there was little team data that was gleaned from the study there were some interesting effects found in terms of time behaviours and the individuals. A significant difference was found between the elder postgraduate cohort and the younger undergraduate cohort in three of the five time perspectives (Past Negative, Future and Present Fatalistic). This suggests that there is a developmental aspect to Time Perspective confirming that as people age they become more Future orientated, less Present Fatalistic and less motivated by their negative views of aspects from the past. Fung and Isaacowitz (2016) reported that people’s perception about time does change with age but that research on age differences in time perspective are generally
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consistent, finding that as aging occurs people become more Present orientated. This is in line with the Socioemotional Selectivity theory (Fung & Carstensen, 2003) which suggests that as people age their future becomes shorter and they focus more on their present goals. This may well be the case with much older people, but in this case the participants were, in the majority, still in their 20s, and the elder age range noted in the postgraduate cohort are likely to be settling down to a more serious and focussed attitude towards their future than the younger undergraduate participants. This was noticed in Siu, Lam, Le and Przepiorka’s (2014) study which looked at adolescents aged 15-25 and adults aged 35-55 finding that although both groups were more Future oriented than Present oriented the younger group was less Future oriented than the older group. The majority of participants in this study would still have been in the younger age groups of the Fung and Carstensen (2003) and the Fung and Isaacowitz (2016) studies. Lens and Gailly (1980) suggested that Future time perspective has a curvilinear relationship to age, reaching its maximum in adulthood and reducing in old age to a similar level as adolescence or early adulthood.
This study also found that there were no significant gender differences in the collection of ‘SONA’ credits which did not support the previous research by Harber, Zimbardo and Boyd (2003). They had found that females were more likely to attend compulsory participation sooner than their male counterparts. In this study there were many more females than males who took part. There were limited numbers of studies in which to participate. Some psychology studies also had specific requirements and male participants tend to be required more often as there is an imbalance of males to females within the participation scheme users. This meant that the male participants in the research participation scheme often had a greater choice of studies in which to partake.
The study by Harber et al. (2003) suggested that those who were more Future oriented would sign up and complete the studies’ participation sooner than those who were Present orientated. Harber et al. (2003) calculated the length of time to complete the participation obligation differently to the methodology used in this study. In this study the calculation was from when the participant first took part in a study until the time they had completed their required obligation. In the Harber et al., (2003) study the calculation was from the start of the semester until the participant had completed the
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hours required. A similar data collection method was not possible in this study as not all the participants had access to the research participation scheme from day 1 of the semester. This different approach meant that in this study the participant was able to decide their starting time and the time taken to finish showed the single-mindedness of the participant in completing the task, whereas in Harber et al. (2003) the task started on the same day for all the participants and noted their finish date. Perhaps in this study the females started earlier in the process to collect points but took a similar length of time to complete the task. This was not analysed as gender was not a main interest in the study.
The undergraduate participants who had two academic years to complete collection of the ‘SONA’ credits showed some effect of time behaviours on when they finally finished collection of the credits. There were weak positive correlations seen with their scores on Present Hedonism and Deadline pacing style and a weak negative correlation with the score on the Steady pacing style and when they finished collection. This shows that when time is not pressing the time behaviours particularly the more procrastinatory behaviours affect when tasks are completed. The higher the steady pacing style the faster the credit collection was carried out, but the higher the Present Hedonism score and the deadline score the slower the credit collection. This effect was not seen in the postgraduate cohort who had less time to complete collection and so it appears they could not let their natural procrastination behaviours affect their task completion.
7. 6: Conclusion
This chapter showed up many of the problems encountered when studying team behaviours. However the data showed a developmental aspect to time perspective factors and that timing of the volunteering to take part in a research participation scheme only showed any effects of time behaviours if there was sufficient time for the behaviours to manifest themselves. The postgraduate participants who had little available time to complete their credit collection showed no effect of any of the time perspectives that were studied whereas the undergraduate cohort who had more available time to complete their task showed some effects of time behaviours.
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CHAPTER 8
The following chapter utilises qualitative analysis to establish how students view working together in teams within the education system. Thematic analysis is a method which focuses on examining themes within a data set. It constructs theories that are grounded within the data and allows a rich, detailed, and complex description of that data. Having established how the students viewed working in educational teams generally, part 2 of the chapter goes on to explore if those with lower scores on the two ZTPI factors that have been seen to have an association with team performance, the Future factor and the Present Fatalistic factor, view team work differently from those who scored higher in these factors.