Effects of Team Development Intervention: A Field Experiment

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Abstract
A team development intervention was conducted with 22 three- and four-person work groups from an engineering survey course. For comparison purposes, 22 work groups from the surveying course served as controls and an additional 23 groups were observed to measure any possible Hawthorne effect. Random assignment of subjects to groups and groups to conditions resulted in a post-test-only control group experimental design. The major findings were: 1. Work groups experiencing team development did not perform better than controls. 2. Individuals in groups receiving team development perceived their group as being more effective and reported greater participation than members of control groups. 3. There was a nonsignificant tendency for individuals in groups receiving team development to express greater agreement on group goals. 4. There were no statistically significant differences between individuals in treatment and control groups in terms of: (a) perceived learning, (b) expressed satisfaction with group performance, or (c) expressed satisfaction with the group.