Learning teams in higher education executing a collaborative assignment are not always effective. To remedy this, there is a need to determine and understand the variables that influence team effectiveness. This study aimed at developing a conceptual framework, based on research in various contexts on team effectiveness and specifically team and task awareness. Core aspects of the framework were tested to establish its value for future experiments on influencing team effectiveness. Results confirmed the importance of shared mental models, and to some extent mutual performance monitoring for learning teams to become effective, but also of interpersonal trust as being conditional for building adequate shared mental models. Apart from the importance of team and task awareness for team effectiveness it showed that learning teams in higher education tend to be pragmatic by focusing primarily on task aspects of performance and not team aspects. Further steps have to be taken to validate this conceptual framework on team effectiveness.
There is a wealth of research on computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) that is neglected in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) research. CSCW research is concerned with contextual factors, however, that may strongly influence collaborative learning processes as well, such as task characteristics, team formation, team members’ abilities and characteristics, and role assignment within a team. Building on a critical analysis of the degree to which research on CSCW translates to CSCL, this article discusses the mediating variables of teamwork processes and the dynamics of learning-teams. Based on work-team effectiveness models, it presents a framework with key variables mediating learning-team effectiveness in either face-to-face or online settings within the perspective of learning-team development.
Using a multi-wave, multi-level design, this study unravels the impact of subjective (dis)similarities in teams on team effectiveness. Based on optimal distinctiveness theory and the social inclusion model, we assume combined effects of individual and shared perceptions of supplementary and complementary person–team fit on affective and performance-based outcomes. Furthermore, at the team level, we expect this relationship to be mediated by team cohesion. In a sample of 121 participants (across 30 teams), we found that teams in which members share perceptions of high supplementary as well as high complementary fit outperform those in which they do not. In addition, members of such teams report higher levels of team satisfaction and viability. Both of these occur through positive effects on the cohesion within the team. Thereby, our results support the central tenet of the social inclusion model. At the individual level, this enhancing effect of the interaction was not supported, providing additional evidence for considering perceived person–team fit as a collective construct.
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