An example of team production from my own life that I think a lot of people experience is group projects. Many times these projects are dread in school as the group usually follows a typical make-up: the A-student, the slacker, the procrastinator, and the arguer. While there may be some variation to this make-up, there is usually some combination of these types of students. When all of these people are forced to come together to create an end product, the process does not always go over smoothly.
Below is a summary of how one of my experiences went in a group project.
A-student: does most of the tough research, writes the introduction and conclusion of the group papers, edits the entire paper, plans the group meetings
Slacker: shows up to group meetings but doesn't contribute, the A-student ends up doing their part for them
Procrastinator: Always has an "excuse" not to come to the group meetings, does their part of the project but not until the night before it's due
Arguer: Comes to the group meetings just to play the devils advocate, is an average student and does assigned work but harms the group harmony.
In the end, all of the work ends up getting done, and the group all receives the same grade. While all the students get the same grade, each student "type" may have a different reaction. The A-student may not want to share the grade with the other members because they feel they did more work. The Slacker may be happy with the grade because they got more than the effort they put in.
If the students were able to give input into the grade, I think it would follow more along the lines of the sharing concept discussed in the article "how to Get the Rich to Share the Marbles". The piece discusses an interesting scenario about 3-year-olds and sharing. In the first case where both 3-year-olds had to pull on the rope to get a marble, the babies "equalized the wealth" about 75% of the time. In the second case where the marbles were already in the cup and no work was needed, the babies only shared 5% of the time. And in the last case where only one baby was required to pull the rope to get a marble for themselves, they only shared 30% of the time. The conclusion that was drawn is that the "'share-the-spoils' button is not pressed by the mere existence of inequality. It is pressed when two or more people collaborated to produce a gain."
To get the A-Student to want to share the grade, the other students would have to put in equal effort. It's not about the output of each member, but more about the effort shown. People are more willing to share and be supportive if they see the other person is putting in effort.
One of the issues with group projects in school is that they often can be fully achieved by one student. The group work then becomes a matter of division of labor where the coordination aspect means less is produced per capita with the team than if one person did it all.
ReplyDeleteThere is then, as you suggest, that people have different levels of feeling responsible for project completion. Some are quite willing to free ride.
I will give you a different circumstance where other factors influence the sharing. This is on peer review of scholarly work. In economics, for the most part, it is single blind. The author of the piece doesn't know the referee, but the referee can see the author's name. In a referee report you decide one of three things, accept the paper, reject the paper, or ask for a rewrite and resubmisison. But you also can explain where you find fault with the paper an how it might be improved. The latter is not necessary, but might be viewed as sharing with the author. When I did a lot of refereeing, I was more prone to share like that with a newly minted PhD who was learning how to write papers like this, than I was with an experienced author.
I wonder if something like that has happened with you in your group work, whether a team member is freshman or alternatively whether the team member is a senior.
I'd also be curious about the case where there are multiple A-Students in the group. Do they share as you suggest or does one want to all the work anyway?
I haven't really been a part of many groups with mixed age groups. However, you bring up an interesting point about wanting to share knowledge with a younger group member.
ReplyDeleteThinking about your other point in which there are multiple A-students, I think this could also cause conflict. Each of these students may be afraid to give up responsibility to the other students for fear the work won't be sufficient.
I agree with what you said about the A-student being more willing to share the grade if they feel that the other students in the group were putting in effort. Like the article states, that makes the finished product a combined effort. One thing that I have noticed is that in situations like this where the grade is given equally no matter who did what work, other 'assets' are often still distributed according to who does the most effort. An example of this would be that often the A-student you mentioned is given more decision-making power than the Slacker student, or that other students may try to give the A-student credit for their hard work in comments to other people about the project or in a review about the group dynamic (if the teacher/professor has the group members fill one out).
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