Situational Awareness Support to Enhance Teamwork in Collaborative Environments

Modern collaborative environments often provide an overwhelming amount of visual information on multiple displays. The multitude of personal and shared interaction devices leads to lack of awareness of team members on ongoing activities, and awareness of who is in control of shared artefacts. This research addresses the situational awareness (SA) support of multidisciplinary teams in co-located collaborative environments. This work aims at getting insights into design and evaluation of large displays systems that afford SA and effective teamwork

A study of team cohesion and player satisfaction in two face-to-face games

In this paper we investigate the link between game rules, team cohesion and players’ satisfaction with their teams within face-to-face team-based games. To measure team cohesion, rules from two games were analysed from the perspective of Social Identity Theory in order to form a hypothesis as to which game would be more likely to lead to more cohesive teams, where team cohesion is measured by the extent to which each player identifies with their team. Player satisfaction was measured by looking at three factors: communication within the team, player outcome versus team outcome, and fairness. Significant differences were found in the team cohesion measure suggesting that, as predicted by Social Identity Theory, team cohesion can be fostered by game rules. Team cohesion also correlated positively with player satisfaction. Taken together, this suggests that for games in which team cohesion is an important part, game designers can incorporate game rules in such as a way as to increase the likelihood of both team cohesion and player satisfaction

Cooperative Learning: Value-Added To Operations Management

Integrating cooperative learning techniques with information technology and applying it to the field of Production and Operations Management (P/OM) will help to investigate how Computer-Supported Cooperative Learning (CSCL) can enhance learning performance of students.  Research in CSCL provides evidence that collaborative communication technology can be a better mechanism to add value to education.  Most studies, however, have examined learning performance only during the middle and end of the learning process.  Thus, it is not clear how information technology can continuously facilitate and improve student performance and learning experience over time. The purpose of this research is to examine how information technology, when applied to communication medium, can facilitate the learning process in the field of production and operations management. This study compared traditional, face-to-face cooperative learning environments to computer-supported cooperative learning environments for differences in students’ learning performance and group member satisfaction

Exploring the Role of Team based Reward in the performance of Outsourced ISD projects: A Social Interdependence Perspective

Vendor project teams can greatly facilitate the successful implementation of client ISD projects. We examined the effects of team performance based reward structure on ISD project performance. A total of 194 responses were solicited, obtained, and analyzed. The results indicated that reward based on team performance can enhance the level of task cohesion which in turn facilitates increased information utilization. Both task cohesion and information utilization improve project performance. Directions for management practice and future research are discussed

Computer-supported collaborative learning performance and satisfaction: A muiti-stage study

Research in computer-supported cooperative learning provides evidence that collaborative technology can enhance learning performance and increase affective experiences in the context of cooperative learning. Most studies, however, have examined the learning performance only during the middle and end of the process. It is not clear how information technology continuously facilitates and improves student performance and learning experience over time. By employing a multidisciplinary approach, the research presented in this article drew research findings in the fields of communication, information systems, and education to examine cooperative learning processes with a continuous, longitudinal study. Based on a descriptive model of computer-supported cooperative learning, this research examined the effect of a collaborative technology on the accumulation of learning performance and learning satisfaction on group members. Three sets of hypotheses regarding learning performance, perceived learning performance, and group member satisfaction are examined

Can Lean Media Enhance Large Group Learning? An Empirical Investigation of Mobile Information and Communication Technology

A mobile information and communication technology, namely the Mobile Interactive Learning System (MILS), was used to enhance large group learning in a university setting. Expectations concerning learning outcomes, based on the social construction perspective of media richness and constructivist pedagogical principles, were supported. Under similar study conditions, learners with the MILS system demonstrated better (perceived) understanding than those without. Furthermore, learning satisfaction among MILS users was significantly higher. The results were drawn from an empirical evaluation of a structural equation model, and from analyses of variance between the two users groups (with versus without MILS). The results support our hypotheses concerning the impact on understanding and satisfaction. They also suggest that mobile technology affects the learning process, leading to more individual practice and peer influenced learning

Online learning negotiation: Native-speaker versus nonnative speaker teachers and Vietnamese EFL learners

Online English language teaching can now be facilitated by communication technology, which allows easy access to interaction with native speakers. Nevertheless, this industry subscribes to an assumption that native speaker English teachers (NESTs) are the gold standard of language whereas the non-native speaker English teachers (NNESTs) are inferior educators (Walkinshaw & Duong, 2014). Rare research has provided evidence of the negotiation produced by NESTs versus NNESTs with EFL learners online and its impact on the learners’ output. Thus, the current study narrows this empirical gap. Drawing upon a database of 30 five-minute interaction sessions between 30 teachers (15 NESTs and 15 NNESTs) and 30 basic level Vietnamese EFL adult learners, the study revealed similar negotiation of meaning functions as reported in previous research. However, the NESTs used more elaboration while the NNESTs used more confirmation checks, clarification requests, and reply clarification. Qualitative analysis further indicated that the NNESTs provided more productive support, encouraging the learners’ output, than the NESTs did. This implies that although online voice interaction creates an environment for EFL learners to practice, language educators and teachers, regardless of status, should heed how to handle it so that online learners can benefit from both comprehensible input and opportunities for pushed output

Videoconferencing Perceptions: A Survey of University of North Carolina Faculty and Staff

A survey of 150 UNC-Chapel Hill faculty and staff members was processed to determine their perceptions of videoconferencing as a form of effective communication. Previous studies have determined that videoconferencing can save time and travel costs for large corporations. This study examines perceptions of three types of videoconferencing: group system videoconferencing, videophones, and desktop videoconferencing. The purpose of the study is to identify the possible motivations for adoption and usage of videoconferencing equipment in a university setting