Implications For Team Training Research Articles

When team member familiarity affects transactive memory and skills: a simulation-based training among police teams

The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of team member familiarity on both technical and non-technical skills of police officers and to examine the mediating role of transactive memory components (specialization, coordination and credibility). Student police officers (N = 150) carried out professional simulation sessions in groups of three, with either familiar (n = 22 teams) or unfamiliar (n = 28 teams) team members, followed by a skills evaluation exercise. Professional instructors evaluated skills through direct observation of team member behaviours. The results revealed that training in familiar teams improved police officers’ technical and non-technical skills and transactive memory system. The effect of team familiarity on skills was mediated by transactive memory and specifically by the tacit coordination component. The findings are discussed in relation to the literature on the effects of team member familiarity on team performance, and implications for team training and staffing (turnover of personnel) in actions teams.Practitioner Summary: This study examined the effect of team member familiarity on both the technical and non-technical skills of police officers. Training in familiar teams improved skills and transactive memory. The positive effect of team member familiarity on skills was mediated by the coordination facet of transactive memory.

Communication and Performance in Co-Located and Distributed Teams: An Issue of Shared Mental Models of Team Members?

The aim of the present study was to test whether the shared mental models of team members have an effect on team performance, communication, and physical arousal in two distributed teams in pursuit of a common goal. A sample (N = 15) of newly formed navy teams was compared with a sample (N = 13) of seasoned navy teams. The results showed that familiar teams displayed higher performance levels, faster reaction times, more accuracy, and greater mission success compared to unfamiliar teams. A significant shift in communication strategy and physiological response (heart rate) was observed between the teams and from baseline to low workload. Implications for team training are discussed.

Differentiating Knowledge in Teams: The Effect of Shared Declarative and Procedural Knowledge on Team Performance.

The relative effect of sharing mental models (typically defined as declarative knowledge structures) and sharing procedural knowledge on team process and performance were assessed. Forty-eight students completed a series of missions as two person teams using a PC based tank simulation. The results showed some support for earlier findings that shared and accurate mental models of the task were related to team process which was related to team performance. In contrast, shared procedural knowledge was negatively related to team performance. Accurate procedural knowledge was positively related to team performance. Results are discussed in terms of the effect of sharing knowledge in teams on performance, and the implications for team training. Shared knowledge and team performance 3 Differentiating knowledge in teams: The effect of shared declarative and procedural knowledge on team performance

Safeguarding Patients

Serious events within healthcare occur daily exposing the failure of the system to safeguard patient and providers. The complex nature of healthcare contributes to myriad ambiguities affecting quality nursing care and patient outcomes. Leaders in healthcare organizations are looking outside the industry for ways to improve care because of the slow rates of improvement in patient safety and insufficient application of evidenced-based research in practice. Military and aviation industry strategies are recognized by clinicians in high-risk care settings such as the operating room, emergency departments, and intensive care units as having great potential to create safe and effective systems of care. Complexity science forms the basis for high reliability teams to recognize even the most minor variances in expected outcomes and take strong action to prevent serious error from occurring. Cultural and system barriers to achieving high reliability performance within healthcare and implications for team training are discussed.

Measuring Team Knowledge During Skill Acquisition of a Complex Task

The design of team training programs and other team interventions could benefit from an understanding of team cognition. The research presented in this article evaluates methods for eliciting and assessing team knowledge during acquisition of a complex task. Knowledge measures are evaluated in terms of their ability to predict team performance and also in terms of how they reflect skill acquisition. The study was conducted in the context of a synthetic 3-person team task that involved operating an uninhabited air vehicle (UAV). Eleven teams of 3 Air Force ROTC cadets participated in 3 experimental sessions lasting from 3 to 6 hr. During these sessions, teams were trained on the task and were observed as they performed ten 40-min missions. During the missions, team performance and team process behaviors were measured, as well as the fleeting team knowledge associated with situation awareness. In addition, long-term team knowledge regarding both taskwork and teamwork were measured offline in four sessions. Results indicated that teams reached asymptotic performance on this task after 1.5 hr of individual training and four 40-min team missions. This skill acquisition was paralleled by improvements in team situation models, teamwork knowledge, and, to a lesser extent, team process behaviors. Taskwork relatedness ratings measured at both the individual and team level were good predictors of team performance and indicated that high performing teams had more knowledge of the task from the perspective of other team members, as opposed to lower performing teams. These measures help reveal the knowledge underlying team behavior and thus have implications for team training and other interventions.

Does CRM Training Improve Teamwork Skills in the Cockpit?: Two Evaluation Studies

Crew resource management (CRM) has been the most widely used instructional strategy to enhance teamwork skills within aviation. However, few studies have provided empirical evidence that this strategy results in increased use of teamwork behaviors. The current paper describes 2 evaluation studies of CRM training that were conducted with 96 naval aviators and followed a multiple assessment approach. Results indicated that highly experienced aviators benefited from the training, which focused on increasing the use of several critical teamwork skills. These rare evaluation data suggest that CRM training is a viable strategy for improving teamwork in the cockpit. Implications for team training are discussed.

Assessing Team Shared Knowledge: A Field Test and Implications for Team Training

Assessing Team Shared Knowledge: A Field Test and Implications for Team Training

Treatment Teams that Work (and those that don't): An Application of Hackman's Group Effectiveness Model to Interdisciplinary Teams in Psychiatric Hospitals

Recent studies of small work groups emphasize comprehensive models of team effectiveness. A survey-based operationalization of one such model, Hackman `s Model of Group Effectiveness (Hackman, 1987, 1990), is applied to 15 interdisciplinary treatment teams working in three public psychiatric hospitals. Mental health professionals answered a self-administered questionnaire I developed (N = 98, response rate = 91%). Analysis was conducted at three levels: (a) by all respondents; (b) by team; and (c) by organizational characteristics and professional discipline, and their interaction. Through use of a structural equation model, particular initial and enabling conditions successfully predict teams' meeting standards of the required task teams' cohesion, and members' personal well-being; standards met and cohesion of team also predict overall team effectiveness. These findings emphasize the importance of measuring the various types of organizational and group factors contributing to team effectiveness, as well as the specific aspects of team effectiveness. Implications for team training are discussed.