Interpersonal affect dynamics in groupwork: Investigating their relational and collaborative function
Year: 2022
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Higher education institutions worldwide face increasing demand from industry to deliver graduates with advanced collaboration skills.Although the pedagogical practice of groupwork is largely assumed to fulfill this function, employer data suggests that this is often not the case.Interpersonal affect is pervasive in groupwork, however due to its hidden in plain sight nature, its important function in the inherently relational context of collaboration is largely overlooked.This thesis addresses a gap in research on interpersonal affect dynamics as they actually manifest and unfold in real time in the interdependent behaviours of participants in group interaction.Taking an ecological perspective of groups as complex dynamic systems across three studies, affect in face-to-face groupwork was examined as interpersonal (i.e., relational), social (interactive), and dynamic (temporally unfolding) visible phenomena.The aim was to shed light on the interpersonal affect present in the microprocesses of social interaction, its relational function, and its role in realising the collaborative affordances that emerge in faceto-face groupwork contexts.The first study entailed a narrative literature review which synthesised methodological approaches to research that has undertaken observations to open the black box of affect dynamics in face-to-face tertiary education and workplace groups.The findings showed that observational studies that have investigated the innately relational (i.e., interpersonal) nature of affect in collaborative situations were rare, despite voluminous team conflict research that suggests such studies are needed to better understand affect dynamics in groupwork.A wide range of visible indicators of interpersonal affect was identified, highlighting those which were common across the literature.The review also emphasised the importance of self-report data in providing critical insights beyond observational purview, and for revealing the extent to which the observations of researchers and the perceptions of participants align.Building on findings from this review, a theoretically grounded coding scheme was developed, aimed at identifying and parsing visible interpersonal affect phenomena in the second study.This study was a comparative case analysis tracing the sociodynamic evolution of interpersonal affect with two groups of first year university students who were in the same introductory science class, yet had reported starkly contrasting experiences regarding their semester groupwork.Observations enabled interpersonal affect to be investigated in five labs over one semester as unfolding in real time, visibly expressed collective phenomena, and interviews provided data on affect as the felt experiences and perceptions of participants.The study followed the affect dynamics through the natural ebb and flow of each group's socially-focused (off-task) and task-focused Appendix E. Study 3: Embodied interaffectivity in the emergence and maintenance of group cohesion .............
Author: Jones, Cheryl
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7029110885