Group Potency and Its Implications for Team Effectiveness

Over time, the people in a group assess the group's potential more realistically. This text demonstrates that the potency of the group changes over time. As you read, be attentive to the literature review and background of the study. Also, pay attention to the discussion of the findings, which surprisingly found that group potency decreases over time. You may want to take note of the limitations of the research.

Materials and Methods

Participants and Procedure

This study was reviewed and approved by Western University's Non-Medical Research Ethics Board and participants provided written informed consent prior to participating. Participants were 337 first-year engineering students. The majority of participants (81%) were male, and ranged in age from 16 to 33 years (M = 18.5, SD = 1.9). Participants were randomly assigned to one of 77 project teams, which consisted of either four (62% of teams) or five (38%) members. Each team had two small design projects (taking place over 2 months each) and one large design project (taking place over 4 months) to complete over the course of an academic year. For the large design project, students were required to create a prototype of a device that individuals with a disability could use to improve their well-being.

Survey data were collected at five different time points throughout the academic year. Conscientiousness and extraversion data was collected on the first day of class before students were assigned into their project teams (i.e., Time 1). Group potency data was collected at three subsequent time points: 2 months (Time 2), 5 months (Time 3), and 8 months (Time 4) after the start of the semester. Grades on the large design project were collected at the conclusion of the semester (i.e., Time 5) and serve as our measure of team effectiveness.