Team learning and emotions during teamwork: a qualitative study

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study provides in depth understanding of the occurrence of team learning activities and social–emotional reactions within team meetings and their relationships by observing team meetings. In addition, the teams’ assessment regarding both their teamwork and emotions they experienced during their teamwork were investigated by conducting team discussions with two of the observed teams. The findings revealed that all of the team members of all teams engaged in different kinds of team learning activities such as sharing experiences and reflecting about work tasks. The researchers also observed various social-emotional reactions such as solidarity, cheerfulness and tension. They identified patterns of positive social-emotional reactions and team learning activities in the data. The findings of the analysis of the team discussions provided additional information about the interpretation of the teamwork as well as the emotions team members experienced during their teamwork. The present study highlights that the use of observations in combination with team discussions is appropriate to gain in depth understanding of team learning in relation to emotions during teamwork.