Reaching consensus

One statement in the questionnaire was It was difficult to reach a consensus when working on group assignments, which was adapted from an item in Volet’s (2016) SAGA instrument. In Term 1 this statement had a Mean of 3.81(N = 126, SD=1.42), in Term 3 it had a Mean of 3.67(N = 126, SD=1.40). Even though the Term 3 Mean was lower, suggesting that the students found it less difficult to reach a consensus during MGW over the course of their study, the Term 3 score is still 3.67, which is above 3.5 on a 6-point Likert-scale. This means most participants still considered reaching consensus in group discussion a difficult process. This led to formulating the question on reaching consensus in the Term 3 interviews, which were conducted after my analysis of the quantitative data: the participants were asked if they found reaching consensus difficult in their group discussion. One interviewee, Siri, explained her view of factors that have an impact on the process of consensus building.

153 Example 3.5a

I04 [Siri]: “I think it also depends on how up front people are, and the more you know about what’s going on, the easier it is to reach a consensus. But then some people just comply because why shouldn’t they, because they haven’t really started doing it, they could also be a problem.”

Example 3.5a refers to the role of information-sharing, and how more sharing would make the process of reaching consensus “easier”. When Siri talks about the importance of being or not being “up front [about] what’s going on”, she is also implying that other group members may have concealed the amount of effort they have put into the work, in fact may not have even “started doing it”. Interestingly, she identifies the last point as something that would also increase the chance of reaching consensus. If group members had different working speeds, the ones who started later would be more likely to agree with the students who had already made some progress.

Dhisha provided a different perspective, by telling a story about a recent project: Example 3.5b

I07 [Dhisha]: “Well, it is really difficult because everybody has their own opinion. I can give an example. One of our recent projects was deciding on [topic], whether it is justified or not. So, as it happens with every individual, each of us has a different opinion so the opinion was divided three to two, some of us said, ‘Yes, it is justified’, some of us thought, but it’s hard to reach a consensus, I would say. But, even if we had a three-two split, it doesn’t mean that we disagreed or we had an unhappy environment or something leads to conflict, there was no conflict, we were still working smoothly. OK, so, it’s really hard to reach a consensus. I would say that with anybody”.

In this situation, her group was attempting to reach an agreement on a question topic that had a clear and unambiguous yes/no answer. Dhisha explains that the difficulty of reaching a consensus was that everyone “has a different opinion so the opinion was divided” (Example 3.5b). However, despite this “three-two split” she emphasises that “we were still working smoothly”. In other words, she did not perceive the difficulty of reaching consensus as a source of conflict and importantly, she felt that it did not have any impact on the relationships among the group members. So in this case, the conflict was a task-related disagreement and it was not a source of negative conflict in their group interaction. When Dhisha says “OK, so it’s really hard” she concedes again that reaching consensus is difficult. Interestingly, she adds that “I would say that with anybody” which, based on her other contributions, can be interpreted to mean that from her perspective, culture or nationality are not factors in making it difficult to reach consensus.

154 For Ivanka, it was important to point out that a compromise should not be confused with a consensus. To explain the distinction, she described her previous experience of group work when working with her friends in her own country.

Example 3.5c

I06 [Ivanka]: “…I do compromise, it’s just that I feel, I don't think a compromise where you just shut up is a consensus, which is what happens in most cases. I’ve had really good work group experience back in my undergrad when I was working with my friends, in that case there was consensus in the way that we shouted at each other and we fought a lot because we were friends first of all, and a group second of all, so it was fine, you could be as aggressive as you can but the result of it, this is going to sound a bit bad but because you're not trying to be nice and this whole consensus and compromise and politeness thing isn't in the middle, you actually express yourself and that way you come to a consensus. Whereas here, it’s mostly usually one person who is like more assertive than the other and the other just steps back, that’s not a consensus.”

In her opinion, “a compromise where you just shut up”, “where one person is like more assertive … and the other just steps back”, as she described group discussion in the UK university, should not be considered a consensus (Example 3.5c). In contrast, reaching a consensus was achieved in a different way in a “really good” group work experience like the ones she had before. It meant being able to shout and argue “because we were friends first of all”. Her previous experience with her co-national group members involved this different style of interaction, which was much less focused on maintaining a harmonious relationship in the group. Ivanka perceived directness and openness as advantages, and “this politeness thing” as a disadvantage. She emphasised that with friends it was possible to “actually express yourself”, which recalls what another participant, Jaime, described in Example 3.1b. She reported that when she became familiar with her group members it meant “getting to express yourself a bit more honestly”. Both these students adjusted their communication strategies based on the relationship they had with their groupmates.

From the above examples, two reasons emerge as to why students found reaching consensus difficult in MGW. Firstly, students had different understandings of what a consensus is: compromising to reach a solution in order to move forward is different from actually agreeing with each other after discussing different perspectives on the matter. Secondly, after clarifying the shared definition of consensus within the group, reaching a consensus requires students to actively observe the interaction and adjust their communication strategies. They would need to understand what other group members mean first, then employ a way of communication that could actually allow the message to be understood, either an

155 agreement or a disagreement. If students were under time pressure and a heavy workload, they might not have enough time and energy to invest in observing how other group members function and actively adjust how they communicate with each other. Not being able to understand how to reach a consensus might have a negative impact on the group discussions and on how the members interact within the group, thus possibly forming a vicious circle of communication. Understanding why students consider reaching consensus to be difficult could be helpful in providing them with communication skills support to help them understand that the time saved on not learning how others communicate could actually make group discussion more difficult than it needs to be.