Small Group Processes Research Articles

Reflections on Another Day Older: a resource for ageism awareness and action

ABSTRACT We are all aging amid a cacophony of messages from the world around us as to what aging means. The challenge is that the significant portion of these aging messages are negative and incorrect. Negative attitudes based on chronological age are called ageism and they include prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination. They can be interpersonal and systemic, and many are internalized toward oneself. The consequences of ageism can include decreased quality of life, a shortened life span and increased mental, physical, social, and spiritual health challenges. Changing attitudes and behaviours about this universal life experience, aging, begins with awareness. Overcoming ageism is a life-long journey during which we have opportunity to reflect on our own implicit biases, name the cultural messages we have internalized, observe our interpersonal interactions, and find ways to disrupt the larger ageist systems around us. The resource Another Day Older provides a framework for a small group process of self-reflection, opening an awareness of the challenges of ageism and providing some tools to overcome it. The resource can be used in secular settings, but also includes opportunities to consider the topic using scripture from the Judeo-Christian traditions.

Community champions of ecosystem services: The role of local agency in protecting Indonesian coral reefs

The importance of communities is well recognized in the protection and enhancement of ecosystem services (ES), yet the influences of individuals within and on communities are often overlooked. Individual and community agency are pertinent in small-scale fisheries, given that livelihoods of many millions of these fishers worldwide depend on ES derived from coral reefs and seagrass beds. In eastern Indonesia the rapid spread of destructive fishing practices has serious impacts on these marine and coastal ecosystems. Policy is complex, with three levels of government involved, and communities also seeking to apply customary marine management and fishing rules. Effective deterrence and enforcement prove difficult for both communities and government, especially in remote places. Community-based marine protected areas, and government or aid-led educational programs, are attempted, but are insufficient against the pressures of well-organized illegal fishing supply chains. On Selayar Island, in South Sulawesi province, Indonesia, certain local “champions,” fishers and others exerting influence within their communities, and “island champions (IC),” individuals working at island level from local government and non-government roles, are developing their own—often unorthodox—strategies to mobilize social change to protect ES. Through in-depth interviews supported by participant observation we investigated how these individuals become motivated, and how they operate to protect local ecosystems such as coral reefs and seagrass meadows. We document what inspired them, what strategies they follow, their observations on barriers, and their key messages for others. Understanding these very unofficial, individual and small-group processes that occur outside conventional policy-making and ecosystem governance can allow sharing of effective strategies to encourage potential champions elsewhere, and support community agency in protecting marine ES.

The technology of «Learning in collaboration» in teaching world literature in higher education

This article discusses the interactive educational technology "Training in cooperation (cooperative learning)", presented in the innovative, author's method of the MHAT. The main idea of this technology is to create conditions for active joint activity of students in various educational situations, aimed at the development of critical thinking. The learning process in small academic groups relates to technologies of the humanistic direction in modern pedagogy.

Digital Mega-Studies as a New Research Paradigm: Governing the Health Research of the Future.

'Digital Mega-Studies' are entirely or extensively digitised, longitudinal, population-scale initiatives, collecting, storing, and making available individual-level research data of different types and from multiple sources, shaped by technological developments and unforeseeable risks over time. The Australian 'Gen V' project exemplifies this new research paradigm. In 2019, we undertook a multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder process to map Digital Mega-Studies' key characteristics, legal and governance challenges and likely solutions. We conducted large and small group processes within a one-day symposium and directed online synthesis and group prioritisation over subsequent weeks. We present our methods (including elicitation, affinity mapping and prioritisation processes) and findings, proposing six priority governance principles across three areas-data, participation, trust-to support future high-quality, large-scale digital research in health.

Conflictological competence: Attitude component

It is substantiated the understanding of the conflict as a necessity of development, built into the educational process. It is proposed to interpret the conflict as an actualized collision of contradictions, in which the parties with different values, guidelines, motives cannot stay unchanged, and pose a threat and mutually determine, interact with each other. The «attitude» model of conflict competence of the teacher is presented as a tool for minimizing the destructive influence, with the possibility of constructive use of conflicts. There are presented the components of the «attitude» model of conflictological competence, which determine the readiness and ability of the teacher to implement knowledge and skills in conflictology (interact in a situation of threat to resolve contradictions, instead of avoiding, redirecting energy to less threatening objects): reflexivity, ability to establish interaction, time orientation, independence of values and behavior of the subject, adaptation, dominance, escapism, values of self-improvement and flexibility of behavior, selfsensitivity and spontaneity, self-esteem, self-acceptance (attitude towards yourself), attitude to other people, and interpersonal sensitivity. The term «subjective attitude» in the structure of teacher’s conflict competence is proposed to be understood as the latent mental potential of reactions, experiences, and human actions, which is actualized in the construction of the current communicative situation, in connection with the individual's evaluative perceptions of the environment and ownself. The development of conflictological competence of the working teacher is proposed to be studied in the context of socio-psychological conditions (processes) occurring among the teaching staff (small group): individual perception of the group, psychological microclimate, cohesion, and attitude to their role in a small group (teaching staff), subjective perception of management style, personality type of the head of an institution, the importance of work in the educational institution as the only source of satisfaction of material needs. There are given the results of empirical research of psychological processes in small groups and the attitude component of the conflict competence of the teacher, and there are established the connections of teachers’ attitudes with their subjective perception of the pedagogical staff. It is found that teachers mainly assess the socio-psychological climate as favorable, characterize the predominance of a high level of group cohesion in teams with a tendency to collectivist type of group perception and democratic management style. Respondents are characterized by an average level of reflexivity, increased selfperception (self-esteem and self-perception block), the desire for dominance with a slight decrease in adaptability, and lack of trust in the world around and other people. It is found a tendency in respondents to separate from the social environment, the expression of individualism as a factor of success in professional activities, which can contribute to the multiplication of contradictions, but blocking the willingness to recognize them. That is, the favorable socio-psychological working conditions for teachers and their orientation to collectivism set the framework of humanistic perception of a person as the basis of the subject and object in professional pedagogical activity. But teachers themselves show opposite tendencies: on the one hand, they give importance to collectivism, and find themselves as a part of the educational environment as such; on the other hand, their self-realization in professional activity is achieved under the condition of domination, individualism, and separation from the group, which testifies to the importance of self-authenticity for the teacher. There are identified approaches to the development of working teachers’ conflictological competence, taking into account the peculiarities of the small group processes

Teacher Scaffolding of Social and Intellectual Collaboration in Small Groups: A Comparative Case Study.

This comparative case study features two small groups of students engaging in collaborative dialog about social issues. Based on social constructivist theories, the two groups were compared across three major components of the small groups system: social dynamics, intellectual collaboration, and teacher scaffolding. Our goal was to holistically analyze these small group processes to understand why some small groups were highly successful while others were not, even within the same intervention and with the same teacher. Successful groups were those in which all students were able to access the conversational floor, many ideas were considered, students were able to share ideas and discuss collaboratively, and students were able to raise multiple forms of social reasoning to support and explain ideas. Change in social reasoning essay scores prior to and after the intervention were also considered as evidence of group success. Results show that teacher scaffolding and existing student processes served to amplify one another reciprocally. The teacher heightened productive social norms when they were present, which then served to encourage productive intellectual collaboration. However, when productive group norms were not present, the teacher took increasing control over the group, which further hampered productive social and intellectual interactions.

Digital device‐based active learning approach using virtual community classroom during the COVID‐19 pandemic

AbstractIn India, traditional learning approaches in universities follow passive learning and instruction‐based studies. The demand for evidence‐based instructional and interactive active learning processes increases with the advancement in technology. To improve the quality of teaching and student performance, Laureate International University network has taken a unique initiative by applying an iterative and evidence‐based active learning process in small groups at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun for the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice program. In this study, active learning processes with digital devices (mobile devices) and digital technologies (modeling tools, simulation, and online resources), having virtual small‐to‐medium strength classrooms are integrated into various scenarios with different levels of education. This has been found to be useful in improving student performance during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The proposed process applies both traditional and active learning processes with the provision to use mobile devices for digital content. This process also involves teachers attending a Bootcamp, over a 2‐month period, consisting of four modules in which they learn about and use digital content that will then be applied in their courses. Results show that the active learning process is of great benefit to students over traditional learning, and it provides a 30% improvement in student's grades. Further, it is observed that long‐term learning average marks increase by 66.9% in two engineering subjects. The simulation‐based experimentations are conducted to engage students and faculty members in active learning and simulation learning processes. It shows that the proposed approach (active learning) improves students' learning abilities as compared to the traditional approach.

Collaborative Creative Processes That Challenge Us as "Anomaly", and Affirm Our Indigeneity and Enact Our Sovereignty

Collaborative Creative Processes That Challenge Us as "Anomaly", and Affirm Our Indigeneity and Enact Our Sovereignty

Creating Reflective Space for Reflective and "Unreflective" Medical Students: Exploring Seminal Moments in a Large-Group Writing Session.

Reflection is a critical skill for all physicians, but some busy medical students describe themselves as "unreflective." The authors sought to provide all third-year medical students at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) with opportunities to explore seminal clinical and personal moments through reflective writing during workshops on preparing a personal statement for the Electronic Residency Application Service. The authors developed and facilitated semiannual 1.5- to 2-hour sessions (January and June) for MCW third-year medical students (about 200 per class), pairing information on personal statements with reflective writing and group reflection activities. Students wrote reflectively but were not required to share their writing with peers or faculty. They discussed insights gleaned during the writing process in small groups and with the class. They completed pre- and postsession questions on an anonymous questionnaire. Eight all-class sessions were held between January 2015 and June 2018. Students completed 1,139 of 1,600 questionnaires (completion rate of approximately 71%). They misperceived their peers' views of reflective activities. Twice as many students agreed their peers felt writing, reflective, and narrative exercises were a waste of time as they themselves did (39% vs 19%). While 42% entered the session comfortable with creative writing, 57% were surprised by the amount, quality, and/or insight of their writing during the session and 77% agreed the session helped them think more clearly about clinical encounters. Students who believed reflective writing was a waste of time were more likely to believe their peers felt that also, and they were less likely to believe the session helped them reflect on clinical experiences. Most written comments were positive. To expose students to narrative medicine techniques, the authors added a close-reading exercise and shortened the reflective writing activity in 2019, hoping this would better equip all students for their journeys.

Nonlinear models of distribution of talking in small groups

This paper develops a mathematical model of the distribution over time of talking in discussion groups. Researchers of small group processes and social inequality have long recognized that interaction in small discussion groups is usually not equally distributed and that being a person who talks more than others is associated with having higher status outside the group and greater prestige and influence within the group. There is also a history of mathematical approaches to describing this phenomenon. As an addition to this literature, here a nonlinear dynamical system model is presented and used to develop computer simulations that are compared with data from a laboratory study of real four-person discussion groups. The model is based on theoretical assumptions about group processes including individual differences in volubility, status generalization, deference hierarchies and norms of taking turns and of fairness. While none of these alone make predictions that match the data, when they are all combined simulations are produced that closely match the data in both changes over time and differentiation among members. The dynamical system using the parameters as estimated for these data reaches a fixed point, which may help understand how groups structures become stable under some conditions but not others.

Developing Effective Top Management Team at Vietnamese SMEs

Developing Effective Top Management Team at Vietnamese SMEs

MP27: Designing team success - an engineering solution to avoid chest tube equipment chaos using best available evidence, consensus and prototyping

Background: Chest tube insertion is a time and safety critical procedure with a significant complication rate (up to 30%). Industry routinely uses Lean and ergonomic methodology to improve systems. This process improvement study used best evidence review, small group consensus, process mapping and prototyping in order to design a lean and ergonomically mindful equipment solution. Aim Statement: By simplifying and reorganising chest tube equipment, we aim to provide users with adequate equipment, reduce equipment waste, and wasted effort locating equipment. Measures & Design: The study was conducted between March 2018 and November 2018. An initial list of process steps from the best available evidence was produced. This list was then augmented by multispecialty team consensus (3 Emergency Physicians, 1 Thoracic Surgeon, 1 medical student, 2 EM nurses). Necessary equipment was identified. Next, two prototyping phases were conducted using a task trainer and a realistic interprofessional team (1 EM Physician, 1 ER Nurse, 1 Medical student) to refine the equipment list and packaging. A final equipment storage system was produced and evaluated by an interprofessional team during cadaver training using a survey and Likert scales. Evaluation/Results: There were 47 equipment items in the pre-intervention ED chest tube tray. After prototyping 21 items were removed while nine critical items were added. The nine items missing from the original design were found in four different locations in the department. Six physicians and seven RNs participated in cadaver testing and completed an evaluation survey of the new layout. Participants preferred the new storage design (Likert median 5, IQR of 1) over the current storage design (median of 1, IQR of 1). Discussion/Impact: The results suggest that the lean equipment storage is preferred by ED staff compared to the current set-up, may reduce time finding missing equipment, and will reduce waste. Future simulation work will quantitatively understand compliance with safety critical steps, user stress, wasted user time and cost.

Dynamic reactions to opinion deviance: The role of social identity formation

When someone expresses a morally deviant opinion, this person is likely to face derogation by their group. We examined whether people reacted more positively to opinion deviance when social identity was induced from individual expressions, rather than deduced from ingroup similarities. Participants (n = 155 divided over 41 groups) engaged in small-group conversations. We manipulated social identity formation (induction vs. deduction) and the presence of deviance (vs. agreement), without using confederates. We directly compared reactions to opinion deviance for both normative positions (i.e., for the deviant and the normative group members). Questionnaires assessed group-members' belongingness and personal value to the group. Innovatively, we also tracked moment-to moment levels of belongingness throughout the conversation. We tested whether the responses of the deviant compared to normative group members differed depending on social identity formation. Overall, deviants experienced lower belongingness after opinion deviance than normative group members. However, the trajectories over time suggest that deviants began to recover their belongingness in inductively formed groups, but not in deductively formed groups. Furthermore, in inductively formed groups deviants were perceived to be more valuable to the group, than they were in deductively formed groups. Exploratory analyses on the effect of social identity formation on normative group members' trajectories of belongingness further suggest that being normative may be particularly beneficial when social identity is deduced. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical implications and the value of dynamic tracking as a methodology to examine small group processes.

In Defense of Discomfort: The Role of Challenging Emotions in the Growth Toward Self-Authorship on a Weekend Retreat

This article explores the experiences of undergraduate students participating in a retreat providing guidance toward self-authorship. In post-retreat interviews, participants discussed their experiences of discomfort during the retreat and its importance to their personal growth. Sources of discomfort included inhabiting unfamiliar environments and roles, participating in small group processes, and experiencing unpleasant emotions. Following the retreat, participants linked these experiences with greater capacity for introspection and greater ability to assert themselves. Implications for fostering students’ self-authorship are discussed, including the need for greater engagement with students’ emotions and for college educators to reconsider their own relationship with discomfort.

The manifestation of cultural factors and group processes in the work of a multicultural team

The relevance of the work is due to an increase in the number of multicultural teams, multicultural collectives, interactions between workers and learners, which are representatives of different nations. The globalization of the economy has led to the expansion of international relations, which means that a clash of different cultures is becoming more common, affecting different spheres of life. It is important to study the characteristics of national values and small group processes for organizing the work of a multicultural team. To this end, the study was conducted that uses and includes measurements of culture and group processes to explain the work of such teams. The results of the study confirm that culture measurements: individualism, collectivism, power distance and communication, conflict management impact on team member satisfaction. The results of this study shed light on the theoretical and practical aspects of managing multicultural teams in modern conditions and conclusions regarding their impact on team work.

DECISÕES CORPORATIVAS EM GRUPO: UMA ABORDAGEM COMPORTAMENTAL

Important organizational decisions are commonly made within groups. Within financial institutions, it is not rare for credit concessions to be decided by committees. In the government sphere, fundamental decisions, such as defining the economy’s primary interest rate, are also made in collegiate. In large private companies, the board of directors is at the top of the organizational hierarchy and has the final word on investment strategies, financing, and mergers and acquisitions. However, the peculiarities of the group decision process are widely ignored in finance literature, which usually considers the group as if it were an individual. For example, studies in the field of behavioral corporate finance emphasize the cognitive processes and biases of the individual decision maker, but pay little attention to how these processes interact to make a group decision (For a literature review, see Baker & Wurgler, 2013). In this essay, I present, in a concise, selective manner, the current state of the emerging multidisciplinary discussion on the decision process in small groups and emphasize its behavioral aspects. First, I cover the advantages and difficulties of the group decision compared with the individual decision. Then, I present recent contributions indicating that the quality of group decisions depends on the context and on how small changes in the decision environment can have important consequences.

The polarizing effects of group discussion in a negative normative context: Integrating societal-, group-, and individual-level factors.

In this research, we investigate how a negative (or hostile) norm regarding minorities at the societal level can fuel polarization between majority subgroups at the local level. We hypothesize that rapid social change in the form of polarization results from the interplay between small group processes and perceptions of society at large. By employing a novel analytic approach that uses variances to capture non‐linear societal change, we were able to study polarization processes. In three studies among high school and university students (N = 347), we manipulated the majority norm about a minority category (positive vs. negative). Subsequently, participants read about a minority member's ambiguous behaviour and evaluated this target. All studies used a similar paradigm, but they varied in whether or not participants discussed the ambiguous behaviour within local groups. Results showed that the majority norm at the societal level affected perceptions of the minority member's behaviour when people discussed this behaviour in a local majority group but not when they reflected on it individually. Specifically, group discussions led to polarization between local groups within a broader social category, but only in the context of a negative majority norm. This effect was predicted by the a priori perception of the local group norm. Results are discussed in terms of the integration of society‐ and group‐level processes when studying the development of intergroup attitudes and practical implications for the coarsening climate of the societal debate about current societal issues.

Ethnic diversity and value sharing: A longitudinal social network perspective on interactive group processes.

People often collaborate in groups that are increasingly diverse. As research predominantly investigated effects of diversity, the processes behind these effects remain understudied. We follow recent research that shows creating shared values is important for group functioning but seems hindered in high diversity groups - and use longitudinal social network analyses to study two interpersonal processes behind value sharing: creating relations between members or 'social bonding' (network tie formation and homophily) and sharing values - potentially through these relationships - or 'social norming' (network convergence and influence). We investigate these processes in small interactive groups with low and high ethnic diversity as they collaborate over time. In both low and high diversity groups, members showed social bonding and this creation of relations between members was not organized along ethnic lines. Low diversity groups also showed social norming: Members adjusted their relational values to others they liked and achievement values converged regardless of liking. In high diversity groups, however, there was no evidence for social norming. Thus, ethnic diversity seems to especially affect processes of social norming in groups, suggesting that targeted interventions should focus on facilitating social norming to stimulate value sharing in high diversity groups.

Equipping Members for Ministry through Small Groups

There are many questions that are still yet to be explored regarding small group ministry among these questions this article addresses how small groups equip group members for ministry. This article argues that ultimately it is through the learning process in small groups, with the goal of attaining Christlikeness, that group members are equipped for ministry. This article will examine how various learning constructs support the equipping of small group members, and then recommend two propositions for improving small group ministry efforts to equip group members for ministry.

Predictors of mental health care use in patients with somatoform disorders

The proper design of a public participation process relies on a clear understanding of the fundamental components and how to activate them. The three fundamental components are the feedback or Evaluation Strategy, the problem Representation method, and the strategy for incorporating, or Modeling the resulting feedback. There are a wide variety of Evaluation Strategies, ranging from small group processes to very large surveys, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses vis-a-vis the QICE criteria and the specific project context. These strategies must be selected with a mind to uncovering differential information about the participants and their values and preferences as they relate to the project. The public can provide projective “what-if” responses that will help professionals improve their plans, as well as nuanced preferences regarding proposed alternatives, if the process is well-designed.