Team learning: building shared mental models

Abstract

To gain insight in the social processes that underlie knowledge sharing in teams, this article questions which team learning behaviors lead to the construction of a shared mental model. Additionally, it explores how the development of shared mental models mediates the relation between team learning behaviors and team effectiveness. Analyses were performed on student-teams engaged in a business simulation game. The measurement of shared mental models was based on cognitive mapping techniques. The results indicate that a team learning perspective provides insight in how people share knowledge. Particularly the team learning behaviors identified as co-construction and constructive conflict are related to the development of shared mental models. In addition, a shared mental model of the task environment in a team leads to improved performance. This underscores the importance of developing shared cognition in teamwork.

The Joint Influence of Intra- and Inter-Team Learning Processes on Team Performance: A Constructive or Destructive Combination?

“…Following Van den Bossche et al (2011), we adopt an interactional approach to team learning, in which team-level understanding and agreement should be reached through social interaction. This approach stresses that team learning emerges between individuals, rather than within individuals, and fits the notion that teams can come to ideas and solutions that go beyond the sum of the individual team members' activities and capacities (Paavola and Hakkarainen 2005;Van den Bossche et al 2011).…”

“…Team Learning To measure intra-team learning, we used the team learning questionnaire of Van den Bossche et al (2011). Because this questionnaire had not yet been used to explicitly distinguish between adaptive and transformative intra-team learning, we complemented it with items from other existing intra-team learning scales (De Groot et al 2012;Van Offenbeek 2001;Visschers-Pleijers et al 2005).…”

“…Teamwork has become a self-evident aspect of work in organizations (Kozlowski and Ilgen 2006). By means of team learning, teams build a shared conception of their tasks and how to execute them, which is crucial for team performance: the degree to which teams reach or transcend their goals (Antoni and Hertel 2009; Van den Bossche et al 2011). The first models on team learning mainly focussed on learning processes within the team (Edmondson 1999).…”

Concept mapping—An effective method for identifying diversity and congruity in cognitive style

“…We believe that the research on GCM could contribute not only to the cognitive style theoretical framework (KAI theory in particular), but also to a more fundamental discussion on the relationship between individual and shared (distributed) cognition (Salomon, 1997;Stahl, 2006, Van den Bossche, Gijselaers, Segers, Woltjer, & Kirschner, 2011. Our understanding is that it is not an either-or distinction.…”

“…It represents the shared cognition of the group (Salomon, 1997;Stahl, 2006;Van den Bossche, Gijselaers, Segers, Woltjer, & Kirschner, 2011). In this paper, we combine two research paradigms -(a) cognitive style, and (b) group concept mapping -to demonstrate how they could lead to mutually beneficial insights.…”