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SUMMARY: Virtual teams showed improvements in their teamwork over a period of six months after participating in experiential learning and virtual teaming programs. CITATION: Biseda, M., Featherstone, M., Priest, S., Klint, K.A., Gass, M.A., & Gillis, H.L. (in press) ____ link to come ____ PURPOSE: To track changes in teamwork over a year for virtual teams engaged in an experiential learning program. DESIGN: Three experimental groups (n=4, 6, and 9) who received the teambuilding program; and two control groups (n=7 and 8) who did not. TREATMENT: A four day (30 hr.) virtual teambuilding program conducted entirely online and composed of group problem solving tasks followed by debriefing discussions focused on building virtual teamwork. COMPANY: European Manufacturing Industry (many languages spoken, but primary work done in English) SUBJECTS: Members (n=34) of 5 new virtual teams located in 9 nations within the European Community. INSTRUMENTS: The "vTeamwork50" is a 50 item instrument with established validity and reliability that measures 6 teamwork subscales (trust, collaboration, communication, problem solving, decision making, and tasking) on interval responses from 0 (never) to 100 (always) for a series of self-reported behaviors. MEASUREMENT: The "vTeamwork50" was given six times (every two months over ten months) and the teambuilding programs were delivered between the second and third administration of the instrument. ANALYSIS: No significant differences were found among control groups or experimental groups using the nonparametric Kruskal Wallis Test. Therefore, the controls (n=15) and experimentals (n=19) were combined for the purpose of using the parametric two-way ANCOVA. After adjusting all groups to the same covariate initial testing outcomes, differences were sought between both groups and over test times. Post hocs were conducted by Scheffe Tests. FINDINGS: These graphs summarize changes in the 6 subscales and overall teamwork during the study.
Significant (p<0.05) changes in all subscales (and in overall teamwork) occured immediately following the virtual teambuilding program. However, all increases began to decay with time and without further followup programming. Nevertheless, overall post-test scores remained significantly greater than pre-test scores. CONCLUSIONS: This virtual teambuilding program was effective at raising teamwork by 27 on a 100 point scale, but without followup programs to sustain those changes and fortify the virtual team, that gain ended up losing 5 points in the months that followed. We have a
commitment to support ongoing research by
faculty and students at several
universities around the world. To this
end, we share some of our recent research
results here and expect that other studies
will be added over time.
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