Forming Working Groups Research Articles

Exploring the Formation of Groups: Students Choose Their Own Fate

Objective: The objective of this exercise is to teach students about group formation using group concepts and theory. It also provides a unique way to form work groups for class projects Courses: Any communication course requiring the use of project groups

Counseling Psychology in South Africa:

Counseling psychology in South Africa is undergoing significant changes, much like the country itself. The authors examine the state of counseling psychology in South Africa through discussion of both its racial history and present-day positions. The history of psychology cannot be devoid of its politicized past, and remnants of its history are found today, though much has changed. Current issues such as HIV/AIDS, educational legacies, and mistrust by the majority population now influence counseling psychology's direction and focus. Training issues become important in a country undergoing such changes, and counseling psychology's relationship to educational psychology and clinical psychology is addressed, along with its role within the indigenous community. Counseling psychology in South Africa is a microcosm for many of the struggles that U.S. counseling psychology faces. It is recommended that counseling psychologists in South Africa become more proactive to be further recognized as a useful entity and better serve community needs. Recognition can be accomplished by better alignment with medicine, forming working groups, becoming more politicized, and emphasizing the rich cultural diversity that exists in the country through training and outreach.

Methods for assigning students to groups: a study of alternative objective functions

This paper describes the problem of forming work groups. The motivating problem is often described as maximizing the diversity of members within groups, and also as minimizing the differences among groups. We review the formulations of this problem in the literature, paying particular attention to the different criteria that have been suggested. We compare the various criteria by solving a number of test problems using standard techniques and then examining the possibility that using one criterion will produce a result that is desirable on other criteria. Ultimately, we recommend a composite procedure for solving large versions of the group formation problem.

Decision making in professional associations

Processes for decision making by large groups such as professional associations have not adapted rapidly to the growing complexity of the situations those associations face. This paper describes a ten-step procedure which has enabled professional bodies to engage a large sample of their constituency in extensive planning exercises. These planning workshops addressed a wide range of complex issues, many of which were sensitive and threatening. The steps comprised identifying the problems, collating the agenda, analysis of the issues raised, deriving a structured sequence of tasks, pre-circulating papers, forming working groups, providing adequate time and facilities in a suitable setting for effective workshop activity, ensuring communication among groups within the workshop, managing the plenary reporting and consensus seeking, plus recording and circulating the report back to members. Groups worked cooperatively and constructively without evidence of intragroup competition, which reflects both the homogeneity of purpose within those professions and the effect of strong task structuring.