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Social Loafers, Free-Riders, or Diligent Isolates: Self-Perceptions in Teamwork
Social Loafers, Free-Riders, or Diligent Isolates: Self-Perceptions in Teamwork
DOI 10.1007/s11293-012-9333-3
ANTHOLOGY
Mikhail Kouliavtsev
M. Kouliavtsev (*)
Department of Economics and Finance, Stephen F. Austin State University, 1936 North St.,
Nacogdoches, TX 75962, USA
e-mail: kouliavtms@sfasu.edu
438 M. Kouliavtsev
names was 3.45 for an average success rate s (proportion of the group accurately
named) of 84 %. I also calculated an adjusted success rate as s×group size/4, which
resulted in a slightly higher mean of 86.3 %. The range of answers here is 1.5 names
(observed in a group of 5) to 5.
Finally, it is interesting if the group’s performance on the project—i.e., their grade—is
in any way related to how its members perceived their workload contributions. I
calculated simple correlations between the (group) project grade and the following
measures: 1) own reported percentage contribution, 2) total (i.e., sum) of all reported
percentages for the group, 3) average of members’ contributions for the given group, and
4) percent correct of teammates’ names. All four correlation coefficients turned out
negative. A simple t-test for the significance of the estimated ρ, given by
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
n2
t¼r
1 r2
where r is estimated correlation and n042, indicates that only two correlations are
significant (at α00.01): between grade and sum of group reported percentages
(−0.45) and between grade and average (within group) reported percentage (−0.64).
In other words, it appears as though students in groups with lower grades on their
project tend to report doing the greatest share of work, both individually—as indi-
cated by the average—and as a group. One possible explanation is that students who
put more time and effort into the group project have a better grasp of the scope and
volume of work completed and are better able to assess the portion they did
themselves, while students whose groups did little work are not as good at estimating
their share of the contribution.
If the results reported here are indicative of a larger phenomenon—students in groups
systematically and substantially overstate their own contribution to a group project—
anyone interested in understanding group dynamics in teamwork would benefit from
such a study. This would be the next step: to extend the same experiment to larger
populations (in future terms).
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