Margarete Boos

Enhancing Mutual Understanding in Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication by Training Trade-Offs in Judgmental Tasks

Ineffective use of text-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC), that is, chats, may affect the quality of communicative exchange compared to effective use and to face-to-face (FtF) communication. Especially in groups making decisions in equivocal judgmental tasks, inappropriate use of the CMC medium often impairs performance. Users need high communication and media competencies to overcome the negative effects brought about by the technology. Without intervention, mutual understanding and satisfaction with the group process are reduced in computer-mediated decision groups. Training that helps participants adapt to the medium should provide them with the needed competencies. The authors found a complex pattern of process and outcome effects with the best performance scores in the FtF condition, performance scores in CMC with training approximating those of the FtF condition, and lowest performance scores in CMC without training.

Attitude Change in Computer-Mediated Communication: Effects of Anonymity and Category Norms

The current research compared the effect of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and direct communication on attitude change. The social identity model of deindividuation effects (Spears & Lea, 1994) predicts that CMC results in behavior that is more in line with the salient level of self-categorization (compared to non-anonymous communication): in CMC salient social identity should lead to conformity to group norms whereas salient personal identity was expected to result in behavior that fits individual goals. Two experiments showed that when personal identity was salient and when social identity was salient and a category norm was explicitly given, CMC led to the predicted effects, whereas the lack of a social category norm led to lower attitude change in CMC compared to direct communication.

Positive impact of crisis resource management training on no-flow time and team member verbalisations during simulated cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a randomised controlled trial.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the impact of video-based interactive crisis resource management (CRM) training on no-flow time (NFT) and on proportions of team member verbalisations (TMV) during simulated cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Further, to investigate the link between team leader verbalisation accuracy and NFT. METHODS The randomised controlled study was embedded in the obligatory advanced life support (ALS) course for final-year medical students. Students (176; 25.35±1.03 years, 63% female) were alphabetically assigned to 44 four-person teams that were then randomly (computer-generated) assigned to either CRM intervention (n=26), receiving interactive video-based CRM-training, or to control intervention (n=18), receiving an additional ALS-training. Primary outcomes were NFT and proportions of TMV, which were subdivided into eight categories: four team leader verbalisations (TLV) with different accuracy levels and four follower verbalisation categories (FV). Measurements were made of all groups administering simulated adult CPR. RESULTS NFT rates were significantly lower in the CRM-training group (31.4±6.1% vs. 36.3±6.6%, p=0.014). Proportions of all TLV categories were higher in the CRM-training group (p<0.001). Differences in FV were only found for one category (unsolicited information) (p=0.012). The highest correlation with NFT was found for high accuracy TLV (direct orders) (p=0.06). CONCLUSIONS The inclusion of CRM training in undergraduate medical education reduces NFT in simulated CPR and improves TLV proportions during simulated CPR. Further research will test how these results translate into clinical performance and patient outcome.

Coordination in human and primate groups

Part I Theoretical Approaches to Group Coordination.- Coordination in Human and Nonhuman Primate Groups: Why Compare and How?.- An Inclusive Model of Group Coordination.- Coordination of Group Movements in Nonhuman Primates.- Dimensions of Group Coordination: Applicability Test of the Coordination Mechanism Circumplex Model.- The Role of Coordination in Preventing Harm in Healthcare Groups: Research Examples from Anesthesia and an Integrated Model of Coordination for Action Teams in Health Care.- Developing Observational Categories for Group Process Research Based on Task and Coordination Requirement Analysis: Examples from Research on Medical Emergency-Driven Teams.- Part II Assessing Coordination in Human Groups - Concepts and Methods Part.- Assessing Coordination in Human Groups: Concepts and Methods.- Measurement of Team Knowledge in the Field: Methodological Advantages and Limitations.- An Observation-Based Method for Measuring the Sharedness of Mental Models in Teams.- Effective Coordination in Human Group Decision Making: MICRO-CO: A Micro-analytical Taxonomy for Analyzing Explicit Coordination Mechanisms in Decision-Making Groups.- Part III Primatological Approaches to the Conceptualisation and Measurement of Group Coordination.- Primatological Approaches to the Study of Group Coordination.- Communicative and Cognitive Underpinnings of Animal Group Movement.- Communicative Cues Among and Between Human and Nonhuman Primates: Attending to Specificity in Triadic Gestural Interactions.- Coordination in Primate Mixed-Species Groups.

Effects of team coordination during cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a systematic review of the literature.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate to what extent the literature on team coordination during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) empirically confirms its positive effect on clinically relevant medical outcome. MATERIAL AND METHODS A systematic literature search in PubMed, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and CENTRAL databases was performed for articles published in the last 30 years. RESULTS A total of 63 articles were included in the review. Planning, leadership, and communication as the three main interlinked coordination mechanisms were found to have effect on several CPR performance markers. A psychological theory-based integrative model was expanded upon to explain linkages between the three coordination mechanisms. CONCLUSIONS Planning is an essential element of leadership behavior and is primarily accomplished by a designated team leader. Communication affects medical performance, serving as the vehicle for the transmission of information and directions between team members. Our findings also suggest teams providing CPR must continuously verbalize their coordination plan in order to effectively structure allocation of subtasks and optimize success.

Adaptive coordination development in student anaesthesia teams: a longitudinal study

Although adaptive coordination has been highlighted by several studies, research dealing with how adaptive coordination develops is still rare. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the development of coordination mechanisms and their task-related adaptation in a longitudinal observation of medical simulation-based training of final year students. We recorded six anaesthesia teams during a sequence of four task scenarios, and each scenario comprised of a routine and a complication phase. After trained observers rated sub-tasks within each scenario for explicit and implicit coordination, statistical analysis revealed a statistically significant effect of previous scenarios on coordination development in the routine phases. While the amount of explicit coordination decreased, implicit coordination increased, revealing adaptive coordination as a skill developed through repeated group interaction. We conclude that anaesthesia training should consider cost- and patient safety-benefits of implicit and explicit coordination and focus on adaptive coordination. Practitioner Summary: Group coordination is crucial to anaesthesia team performance. Results of this longitudinal observation of six anaesthesia teams during four medical simulation-based training scenarios document that teams develop adaptive patterns of coordination. This study also demonstrates that adaptive coordination is a trainable skill within crisis resource management training.

An Inclusive Model of Group Coordination

The need for a cross-disciplinary inclusive model to analyse the coordination of human and non-human groups is based on observations that (1) group coordination is a fundamental and complex everyday phenomenon in both human and non-human primate groups that (2) largely impacts the functioning of these groups and (3) continues to be fragmentarily studied across disciplines. We formulate an overview of the basic group challenge (group task) of coordination and describe how the context of the group task regulates the group’s functions (effectiveness criteria) for achieving their task. We explain the basic entities that have to be coordinated and therefore analysed, illustrate the concept of coordination process mechanisms by which the entities can be coordinated, and finally argue that these mechanisms have finite characteristics of explicitness or implicitness and can and do occur before and after the core coordination process. We then go into further detail by showing how patterns emerge from the various coordination dynamics, and end with a discussion of how the various coordination levels at which coordination operates also need to be analysed with a separate IPO (input–process–outcome) ‘lens’ that revolves around the basic analytical model, ensuring that multiple perspectives as well as levels of dissolution (macro, meso, micro) are analysed. In our final section, we review the components of contemporary small group theory and integrate these components into our inclusive functions–entities–mechanisms–patterns (FEMPipo) model of human and non-human primate small group coordination.

Optimal sharedness of mental models for effective group performance

This comment refers to two central concepts of Badke-Schaub et al.s lead paper, the functionality of mental models for coping with the complexity of reality and sharedness as a prerequisite of group performance. For both ideas, a trade-off perspective is introduced. Major functionalities of mental models, e.g. organization of knowledge, not only provide benefits but also costs, e.g. oversimplification of a problem. The degree to what individual mental models in a team need to be shared in order to manage a task depends on multiple factors, e.g. the nature of the task and the developmental stage of the team. Related to the specific tasks of design teams, the idea of optimal sharedness is elaborated and conclusions on task-oriented processes in design teams are drawn.

Effective Coordination in Human Group Decision Making: MICRO-CO: A Micro-analytical Taxonomy for Analysing Explicit Coordination Mechanisms in Decision-Making Groups

In this chapter we present a taxonomy we have developed for assessing coordination mechanisms during group decision-making discussions (MICRO-CO). Since there is a convincing number of findings on poor-quality outcomes of human group decisions and tragic examples found in politics (e.g. Bay of Pig invasion of Cuba), there is an escalating need to foster quality group decision making, particularly with regard to group coordination. Especially for ordinary, daily work-group decision processes (e.g. in project teams; during personnel selection), the current state of scientific research does not offer conclusive explanations of how group members communicate in order to coordinate information exchange and decision making. This research question seems interesting given the growing number of decision-making guidebooks for practical use. In recognition of this need, we have developed MICRO-CO, applying theoretical as well as data-driven methods in order to more decisively study the effectiveness of coordination mechanisms for group decision making. It consists of 30 categories organised in three main and four medium levels, with inter-rater reliability testing resulting in substantial to very good agreement. We also report initial experiences using MICRO-CO and discuss its limitations and benefits.

Social Validation of Shared and Nonvalidation of Unshared Information in Group Discussions

Research on information sharing within groups confirms a favoring of shared compared to unshared information. Social validation is considered to be the primary psychological mechanism explaining this group bias (Wittenbaum, Hubbell, & Zuckerman, 1999). Our focus here is on a process-related measurement of the social validation of shared information, as well as the social nonvalidation of unshared information in the discussion protocols of 31 decision-making groups. Results confirmed that mentioning shared information evoked social validations, whereas mentioning unshared information evoked nonvalidations (H1). Contrary to our expectation that social validation would encourage the repetition of shared information and social nonvalidation would discourage the repetition of nonshared information (H2), we found that nonvalidation of information enhanced the probability of repetition. We conclude that the need for social validation found in face-to-face groups can be overcome in a more task-oriented, goal-focused, and depersonalized media-based communication setting such as the one in this study.