Expert Roles and Information Exchange during Discussion: The Importance of Knowing Who Knows What

Stasser, Garold; Stewart, Dennis D.; Wittenbaum, Gwen M.

doi:10.1006/jesp.1995.1012

Cited by 539 publications

(370 citation statements)

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“…Levine et al (1993) reviewed the effects that members' roles can have on the information processing of groups. Stasser, Stewart, and Wittenbaum (1995) indicated that the assignment of different roles to group members influences the types of information brought up during a discussion. The role of leader in a group can also influence how discussion proceeds.…”

Section: Processing Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The emerging conceptualization of groups as information processors.

Hinsz

Tindale²,

Vollrath³

1997

Psychological Bulletin

1,186

1,136

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A selective review of research highlights the emerging view of groups as information processors. In this review, the authors include research on processing objectives, attention, encoding, storage, retrieval, processing, response, feedback, and learning in small interacting task groups. The groups as information processors perspective underscores several characteristic dimensions of variability in group performance of cognitive tasks, namely, commonality-uniqueness of information, convergence-diversity of ideas, accentuation-attenuation of cognitive processes, and belongingnessdistinctiveness of members. A combination of contributions framework provides an additional conceptualization of information processing in groups. The authors also address implications, caveats, and questions for future research and theory regarding groups as information processors.In this information age, groups increasingly perform cognitive tasks (Galegher, Krant, & Egido, 1990;Salas, Dickinson, Converse, & Tannenbaum, 1992;Walsh & Ungson, 1991;Weick & Roberts, 1993 ). The nature of small-group research has changed correspondingly (see Bettenhausen, 199 l;Guzzo & Shea, 1992;Levine & Moreland, 1990; and Moreland, Hogg, & Halns, 1994, for reviews) to emphasize intellectual and cognitive tasks (e.g., Hinsz, 1990;Sniezek & Henry, 1989;Stasser, Taylor, & Hanna, 1989;Tindale, 1989;and Vollrath, Sheppard, Hinsz, & Davis, 1989). This change resembles a paradigm shift (Ktthn, 1970), albeit not as dramatic, perhaps because no one paradigm dominates small-group performance research (McGrath, 1993). The emerging view of groups as information processors extends methodological and theoretical developments in cognitive psychology to research in small-group performance. In this article, we selectively review relevant research to highlight how taskperforming groups process information. Rather than advocate that small-group research ought to examine groups as information processors, we document how research has already moved in that direction. To integrate our review, we identify several important dimensions of information processing in groups and

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Section: Processing Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The emerging conceptualization of groups as information processors.

Hinsz

Tindale²,

Vollrath³

1997

Psychological Bulletin

1,186

1,136

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Stereotypes thus shape a hierarchy based on attributed competence that streamlines the information elaboration process and thereby can enhance performance (cf. Bunderson, 2003;Halevy, Chou, & Galinsky, 2011;Stasser, Stewart, & Wittenbaum, 1995;van Dijk & van Engen, 2013). Moreover, because competence stereotypes differ per task, such competence stereotypes automatically lead to the emergence of a task-contingent heterarchy (Aime et al, 2014), which can enhance performance via the reduction of transition costs and increasing person-job fit across tasks.…”

Section: Positive Consequences Of Diversity and Stereotyping In Teamsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microdynamics in Diverse Teams: A Review and Integration of the Diversity and Stereotyping Literatures

Dijk

Meyer

Engen

et al. 2017

ANNALS

123

142

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Research on the consequences of diversity in teams continues to produce inconsistent results.We review the recent developments in diversity research and identify two shortcomings. First, an understanding of the microdynamics affecting processes and outcomes in diverse teams is lacking. Second, diversity research has tended to treat different social categories as equivalent and thus not considered how members' experiences may be affected by their social category membership. We address these shortcomings by reviewing research on stereotypes, which indicates that stereotypes initiate reinforcing microdynamics among (a) attributions of a target team member's warmth and competence, (b) perceiving members' behavior towards the target team member, and (c) the target team member's behavior. Our review suggests that perceivers' impression formation motivation is the key determinant of the extent to which perceivers continue to treat a target based on categorization. Based on our review, we provide an integrative perspective and corresponding model that outlines these microdynamics of diversity and stereotyping in teams and indicates how stereotyping can benefit as well as harm team functioning. We discuss how this integrative perspective on the microdynamics of diversity and stereotyping in teams relates to the social categorization and the information/decision-making perspective, set a research agenda, and discuss the managerial implications. KeywordsDiversity; Teams; Stereotypes; Microdynamics; Performance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 2 Page 2 of 101 Academy of Management Annals Microdynamics in Diverse Teams: A Review and Integration of the Diversity and Stereotyping LiteraturesGlobalization, demographic changes, and the increased use of teams in contemporary organizations have created a surge in research on the consequences of different team members working together . The many recent meta-analyses on the consequences of team diversity signify the considerable amount of attention that has gone to this field of study (e.g., Bell, 2007; Bell, Villado, Lukasik, Belau, & Briggs, 2011;Horwitz & Horwitz, 2007;Joshi & Roh, 2009;van Dijk, van Engen, & van Knippenberg, 2012). For the past two decades, diversity research has mainly relied on a dual theoretical approach where the social categorization and the information/decision-making perspectives inform answers to the questions why and how diversity affects team performance (Milliken & Martins, 1996; van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004;Williams & O'reilly, 1998). There is much that we have learned from these perspectives, but despite the fact that theories have been advanced and research models have become more sophisticated, so far the main conclusion that has been drawn is that research on the relationship between team diversity and team performance is inconclus...

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“…Like face-to-face groups, partners in computer-supported collaboration must avoid falling prey to the general tendency of discussing primarily such pieces of information that were known to all group members from the start (Stasser & Titus, 1985)---even more so in interdisciplinary collaboration where the relevant information is distributed between experts (Rummel & Spada, 2005a). Meta-knowledge about each others' knowledge bases and domains of expertise, i.e., a transactive memory system (Wegner, 1987), will facilitate the pooling of information (Larson & Christensen, 1993;Moreland & Myaskovsky, 2000;Stasser, Stewart & Wittenbaum, 1995). In this way, participants are able to use one another as a resource for problem solving and learning (Dillenbourg et al, 1995).…”

Section: Joint Information Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A rating scheme for assessing the quality of computer-supported collaboration processes

Meier

Spada

Rummel

2007

Computer Supported Learning

255

188

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Abstract:The analysis of the process of collaboration is a central topic in current CSCL research. However, defining process characteristics relevant for collaboration quality and developing instruments capable of assessing these characteristics are no trivial tasks. In the assessment method presented in this paper, nine qualitatively defined dimensions of collaboration are rated quantitatively: sustaining mutual understanding, dialogue management, information pooling, reaching consensus, task division, time management, technical coordination, reciprocal interaction, and individual task orientation.The data basis for the development of these dimensions was taken from a study in which students of psychology and medicine collaborated on a complex patient case via a desktop-videoconferencing system. A qualitative content analysis was performed on a sample of transcribed collaboration dialogue. The insights from this analysis were then integrated with theoretical considerations about the roles of communication, joint information processing, coordination, interpersonal relationship, and motivation in the collaboration process. The resulting rating scheme was applied to process data from a new sample of 40 collaborating dyads. Based on positive findings on inter-rater reliability, consistency, and validity from this evaluation, we argue that the new method can be recommended for use in different areas of CSCL.A rating scheme for assessing collaboration quality 3 The development of appropriate methods for analyzing interactive processes is a major research topic in CSCL. Numerous papers published in the proceedings of the CSCL 2005 conference as well as in this journal address this issue (e.g., Clark & Sampson, 2005;Dönmez, Rose, Stegmann, Weinberger, & Fischer, 2005;Kapur, Voiklis & Kinzer, 2005;Lee, Chan, & van Aalst, 2006;Spada, Meier, Rummel, Hauser, 2005; Zumbach, Schönemann & Reimann, 2005). These authors and other groups of CSCL researchers, often combining different fields of expertise, strive for insights into processes relevant for computer-supported collaborative learning and work, and for the development of assessment methods that are capable of capturing these aspects.There are several motivations for analyzing the collaboration process in CSCL. For example, specific challenges of collaborative learning and computer-supported communication have to be identified in order to find out where support is needed in the first place, and which aspects of the collaborative process are crucial for successful learning and problem-solving in CSCL (Rummel & Spada, 2005a). In the future, support measures may even be adaptive to real-time analyses of the interaction process, which can be either automated (Dönmez et al., 2005) or performed online by a human tutor (Zumbach et al., 2005). Assessment methods are further needed in order to evaluate the effects that computer support and instruction may have on learners' interactions as opposed to exclusively evaluating learning outcomes (e.g., Carell, Herrman, Kienle, & Menold,...

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Expert Roles and Information Exchange during Discussion: The Importance of Knowing Who Knows What

Cited by 539 publications

References 0 publications

The emerging conceptualization of groups as information processors.

The emerging conceptualization of groups as information processors.

Microdynamics in Diverse Teams: A Review and Integration of the Diversity and Stereotyping Literatures

A rating scheme for assessing the quality of computer-supported collaboration processes

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