Group Development

As the previous sub-section suggested, many processes of collaborative and cooperative learning are dependent on the ability of a group of people to work together. When designing a new course or a learning programme, it is important to understand that a group of people who start working with each other for the first time will work differently from a group that has worked together before. Established groups will be able to handle new topics and assignments quickly and efficiently, whereas newly formed groups will have to struggle through developmental phases in order to recognise their strengths and weaknesses and to discover the best methods of work for themselves.

Learning groups are sometimes referred to as learning communities. Learning community is a concept that differs from the similar sounding concept of “community learning” by the fact that in a learning community participants learn together and learning occurs horizontally, whereas in community learning, learning is gained both horizontally and

vertically. Thus, in the latter, it is not only the participants that learn, but also the community, or the organisation, which learns to work together and make the most of its members’ skills and knowledge. These terms are another way to look at social constructive learning, in which learners learn as individuals, but at the same time they learn to become a part of a community or a group.

According to the categorisation of group development theories by Arrow et al. (2004) there are five major types of group formation theories: 1) sequential stage models, 2) repeating cycle models, 3) robust equilibrium models, 4) punctuated equilibrium models and 5) adaptive response models.

According to the sequential stage model, there are four or five classic group formation phases that have been researched extensively. The first four stages are sometimes referred to as forming, storming, norming and performing. Corbitt, Gardiner and Wright (2004: 3) explain that in the forming stage, the group members get to know each other and each others’ weaknesses and strengths. In the following stage, storming, individual differences start to surface and conflicts arise. It is generally believed that no group can bypass the storming phase and it is considered important for the group members to address their differences and the issues that might keep them apart. After the storming stage, the group enters the norming stage where they develop common understandings and common processes to handle conflicts and tasks. The fourth stage is performing and it is in this stage that the productivity of the group is at its highest. The optional fifth stage of group development is the termination, which may cause disruption and conflict but also positive feelings (e.g. Mann et al., 1967; Lundgren & Knight, 1978). Over their lifespan, groups generally move up this ladder of stages, but this development may be arrested or may regress because of external disruption or membership change, or the group may skip some of the early stages if some members have worked together previously.

Repeating cycle models posit that whereas change is an intrinsic part of group development, there is no sequential progression between different stages. Worchel (1994) lists six stages through which groups cycle. In the discontent stage, group members feel separated from each other and their participation in the group activities is low. A precipitating event gets the group past this stage as they have to work together and find common ground to respond to this event. This process brings the group to the group

identification stage where the group defines or redefines its boundaries and group membership becomes an important part of the lives of its members. A group productivity stage follows in which the group works hard to reach a common goal. With the achievement of the goal, the group enters an individuation stage in which members demand recognition for their contribution to the group effort. This focus on the individual causes the group to decay and the group returns to the discontent stage. (Worchel, 1994.)

According to Arrow et al. (2004), in robust equilibrium models, group development is seen in terms of two major stages: early and late stage, or beginning and established state.

It is believed that once the group has gotten past the initial social processes of becoming a group (trying on different roles and working methods), the group will be maintained through a process of self-regulation that alleviates or withstands outside disruptions (e.g.

Gersick & Hackman, 1990). Groups vary in the length of time that it takes for them to reach the established state, but after it has been reached, external intervention may be needed to change it further.

The punctuated equilibrium model, proposed by Gersick (1988), posits that group behaviour is characterised by lengthy periods of stasis (or very slow change), interrupted by short periods of radical change when the group attempts to improve itself in order to respond to new challenges. In his study of eight naturally occurring teams, Gersick (ibid.) noted that groups developed quickly to a stable stage in which they remained until the midpoint of their existence when the groups reorganised their structures. In Gersick’s (1988) words, “groups develop through the sudden formation, maintenance, and sudden revision of a framework for performance; the developmental process is punctuated by equilibrium” (p. 32). The periods of change can be triggered by internal or external forces, while the stability is maintained by the groups’ internal processes, namely self-regulation.

The last classification of group development models, which are called adaptive response models, conceive that change and continuity in groups is guided by their response to environmental opportunities and constraints (Arrow, 1997). Arrow (ibid., p.78) posits that as groups encounter operating constraints, such as changes in work environment, tools and communication media, they will respond by adjusting their structure. She continues that group and the environmental demands determine how quickly the group may adjust to new situations. Gersick and Hackman (1990) proposed that groups that have encountered many

situations requiring change will eventually develop specific meta-level strategies to help them switch between different frameworks. The need for the group to observe the changes in their environment requiring their own restructuring, as well as the need for them to plan and carry out this process, requires that the group members, and the learning community in itself, have a high degree of self-regulatory abilities.

Considering the differences in performance between established groups and emerging groups, Gersick and Hackman (1990) note that established groups are likely to have created norms for member support and group well-being, as well as processing norms for working on assignments and tasks. When such a group is given a routine task to perform, they will reapply their established working processes and are more likely to move directly to execution and spend little time on problem solving and conflict resolution. McGrath and Hollingshead (1993) further note that as groups become more established, they “are likely to become able to carry out all their functions, at least for routine projects, with much less rich information exchanges” (p. 95). This increased experience and accumulation of shared norms will interact and the group members will gradually turn into a learning community.

The lessening of information exchanges may be due to the fact that the group members need to use simpler and shorter messages to achieve the same level of mutual understanding than a beginning group would have to use.

On the other hand, Dennis and Valacich (1999) state that newly formed groups will not have as many established norms as older groups and they are likely to spend more time in inception, technical problem solving and conflict resolution, as they strive to perform while also attending to group well-being and member support (ibid: 8). They also suggest that various newly formed groups may have quite different focuses on task-performance and social activities. In some groups the focus may be on member support and well-being activities while in others the focus will be more on the learning task. Earlier research suggests that early meetings between new group members will be more socially focussed than task focussed (e.g. McGrath, 1991) and that this social focus is important for the participants to have a better understanding of each other.

In the present study, the last two models presented above seem to offer the most useful framework for the analysis of the development of online learning groups as they take into account the importance of group members’ own self-regulation. Rather than seeing the

development of groups as an automatic process going through specific stages that can scarcely be influenced by the participants, the last two models view the group members as active agents responsible of their own growth and development. On the other hand, the first models pay more attention to the social processes of dealing with conflict situations which often do take place in learning communities, whereas the latter models merely take them as given, and as evidence of self-regulatory processes.