Modern day teams, whether in the military or civilian workplace, have the ability to achieve goals that are otherwise unobtainable by individuals. The timing and characteristics of feedback that teams receive during training are critical. Though there is a solid foundation of research on optimal feedback, there is limited exploration of what constitutes ideal team feedback including addressing the individual team member versus the whole team and whether that feedback is public (visible to the entire team) or private (visible only to one member of the team). Previous research that studied the effect of feedback on team performance has yielded slightly different conclusions. For example, research focused on the privacy of feedback suggests that public feedback can have a motivational effect that improves performance. The aim of this work is to discover the most effective combination of the target and privacy of feedback. To accomplish this goal a modified version of the Multiple Errands Test (MET) was developed to evaluate the performance of three-member teams, the Team MET (TMET). The MET, normally used for evaluating cognitive processing, requires that specific rules be followed while completing multiple tasks within a time constraint. Participants performed the TMET while coordinating purchases in a virtual mall. In each of four timed shopping sessions, participants received feedback on their performance as an individual and team. Feedback was given in one of four conditions: individual private, team private, individual public, and team public. Task performance and rule errors were measured as dependent variables. Results did not yield a broadly significant effect of feedback condition on team or individual performance. However, the study did demonstrate the validity of the TMET as a platform for assessing a team's ability to perform under heavy cognitive load.
Evaluating Distributed Teams with the Team Multiple Errands Test
4 Views