Poster Title
An Investigation of Key Team Interaction Behaviors that Relate to Cohesion and Performance
Faculty Sponsor, if applicable
Suzanne Bell
Project Abstract
Teams have the potential for diverse skills, expertise, and perspectives that allow them to address complex problems. Yet, several barriers exist that may inhibit teams from realizing their benefits. In the current research, we take a deep dive to investigate how key team behaviors and interactions affect decision making performance and team cohesion. Data were collected from 9, 4-person teams who participated in the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) at Johnson Space Center where crews engaged in a series of decision making and relational tasks. Even descriptively, behaviors during these tasks reveal an initial understanding of crew interactions and trends of high performing and cohesive crews. Multilevel analyses demonstrate that high performing teams engage in more conversation (b=.29, p<.05) and express more disagreements (b=.26, p<.05) and cohesive teams express fewer rejections (b=.31, p<.05). Together, these results might suggest that reactions to shared information are critical and teams need effective disagreement without rejection to achieve both high performance and cohesion. Ultimately, this work suggests interaction coding is a fruitful avenue for understanding crew performance and cohesion and can have implications for monitoring and measuring team health and training interpersonal and team dynamics.
Type of Research
Doctoral-Undergraduate Opportunity for Scholarship (DUOS)
Preview
Presentation Year
5-17-2021