Horvath's Theory of Participation in Group Discussions

Abstract

Horvath's theory of participation in discussion groups is compared to data from several studies. Both visual evidence of graphs of the parameter space and tests of significance indicate to us that the theory is weak in its description of the proportion of acts initiated by members of the group. This failure is important since the theory was apparently developed to explain this aspect of group discussions. In 1951, Bales, Strodtbeck, Mills and Roseborough reported the collection of a large amount of data from task-oriented group discussions. Among the analyses, Bales et al. ranked the participants in each group according to the number of acts performed, added the number of acts performed by persons of the same rank in all groups of a given size, and proportionalized the aggregates. The resulting proportions were at first thought to be described by a harmonic function, but this notion was rejected. In 1952, using a slightly different unit of observation, but the same method of data analysis, Stephan and Mishler suggested that the data they had gathered from students in class discussions could be described by an exponential function