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EECE 571W

EECE 571W. Week 3 Groups. Paper Reviews. Goal : A paper is reviewed in order to understand situate evaluate in context of a group (e.g. the class, research group) a field (e.g. CSCW, …) a task (e.g. building a system). Review Structure (possible). Goals Why was the paper written?

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EECE 571W

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  1. EECE 571W Week 3 Groups

  2. Paper Reviews Goal: A paper is reviewed in order to • understand • situate • evaluate • in context of • a group (e.g. the class, research group) • a field (e.g. CSCW, …) • a task (e.g. building a system)

  3. Review Structure(possible) Goals • Why was the paper written? • What is it trying to demonstrate? Context • What field is it in? • What was the state of knowledge when it was written?

  4. Review Structure (cont’d) Summary • What does the author claim? • What hypotheses are tested or proposed? Analysis • Did the author succeed wrt. the goals? • Are the claims supported? • Are there things you didn’t understand? • Did you agree with authors conclusions?

  5. Today • 4 papers (+2) • 5 minute reviews • 20 minutes of summary etc. • rest of class: discussion

  6. McGrath 1984:Typology of Tasks Goals: • Provide a categorization of tasks performed in group settings that are: • mutually exclusive • exhaustive • logically related • useful

  7. McGrath 1984:Typology of Tasks Context: • Social psychology • Body of work that had observed and analysed task-oriented behaviour • Need to provide a means of organizing these findings to aid in understanding of task-oriented behaviours

  8. Typology of Tasks QI: Generate Cooperation 1. Planning 2. Creative 3. Intellective 8. Psycho-motor QII: Choose QIV: Execute 4. Decisions 7. Competitive 5. Cognitive Conflict Conflict 6. Mixed-motive QIII: Negotiate

  9. McGrath 1984:Typology of Tasks Analysis: • Useful model • Quadrants organized by processes • Subtypes make clear distinctions • Distinction between tasks that assume cooperation with tasks that recognize and resolve conflict is important.

  10. Suchman 1983:Office Procedure… Goals: • Provide work models that reflect actual practices • Provide framework for producing “office automation” systems

  11. Suchman 1983:Office Procedure… Context: • Social Anthropology • Office automation was focus of much development effort in ‘80s Goal: Provide tools that would increase productivity by introducing computers to traditional offices • Existing work based on procedural models

  12. Suchman 1983:Office Procedure… Summary: • Identifies problems w/procedural model • unable to handle informal activity • Proposes practical action model • focus on meaning of actions • how actions contribute to goals, tasks and groups • “What are procedures for practitioners of office work?”

  13. Suchman 1983:Office Procedure… Summary: • Observation of real workers on site • Analysis of conversations related to “Accounts Payable” • Problem to be solved • Outside of normal procedures • Characterize ways in which conversations serve the larger task

  14. Suchman 1983:Office Procedure… Findings: • Systems need to be designed so that communications and procedures can be modified to produce “smooth flow” in exceptional cases • Office automation is not a desirable goal • Systems should assist any work needed to reach goals

  15. Suchman 1983:Office Procedure… Analysis: • Place existing practice “under the microscope” • Probably better than designing systems to align users with restrictive assumptions of “best practices”

  16. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups Goals: • Develop theory of task-oriented group activities • Explore consequences of the theory • Analysis of patterns of behaviour • Implications for system designs

  17. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups Context: • Sociology • Most theories of small group behaviour come from lab-based studies • Social psychology • Simple, artificial tasks • Limited generalisability • New emphasis on dynamics of groups

  18. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups • Groups are complex social systems • Have relationships to (functions) • Organizations they are inside (production), • Their own members (member-support), and • The group itself (group well-being). • Have purpose in terms of shared goals • Partially nested • Complex membership relationships • Loosely coupled

  19. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups • Group actions have modes: • Inception (Goal choice) • Technical solution (Means choice) • Conflict resolution (Policy choice) • Execution (Goal attainment) • Modes are not fixed sequence, but kinds of activity to categorize particular actions of members

  20. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups • Group behaviours show temporal patterns, including: • Flow of work • Time-activity matching • Entrainment or synchronization

  21. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups • Collective action can be described by

  22. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups • Efficient workflow requires complex matching of activity bundles to periods of time • Social entrainment is useful for constructing temporal patterns

  23. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups • TIP Theory: Group interaction process refers to small scale flow of work in groups • TIP Theory: At any point, a group has a focal task • TIP Theory: Every action can be categorized as germane or not wrt. the current focal task

  24. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups • Acts have situated (not generic) meaning wrt. modes, functions and paths of group activity. • Aspects of work flow are reflected in different ways of aggregating acts.

  25. McGrath 1991:TIP: A Theory of Groups Analysis: • Seems like useful model • Emphasizes context and purpose of group activity • Flexible in a variety of situations • Does have some implications for how to think about design of systems

  26. Kraut 200x:Applying Social Psych… Goals: • Suggest ways in which social psychology can inform research toward CSCW goals: • Support distributed groups • Enhance work of collocated groups • Introduce theory of “production loss” • Show how knowledge can be applied to design of online groups

  27. Kraut 200x:Applying Social Psych… Context: • Social psychology • Mixture of motivations from engineers/CS and social theorists • Build on work of McGrath and others

  28. Kraut 200x:Applying Social Psych… Summary: • Build on Input-Process-Output models • Recognize that outcomes sometimes conflict: • Star communication model leads to better problem-solving but reduces group satisfaction • Skeptics in brainstorming groups improve performance but reduce satisfaction

  29. Kraut 200x:Applying Social Psych… Social loafing: “Group membership allows individuals to reduce their own effort towards group goals.” • Cultural phenomenon • Asians, women and children • Western, men and adults • Varies with task type and group composition • Individually valued tasks • Lack of trust in group • Own unique contribution

  30. Kraut 200x:Applying Social Psych… Production loss: Reasons groups don’t live up to aggregation effect • Social pressure • Social loafing • Production blocking

  31. Kraut 200x:Applying Social Psych… System Design Suggestions: • Analyse tasks in terms of production loss • Categorize in terms of three reasons • Use strategies that combat reasons for loss Example: • Effects of anonymity on three reasons: • anonymity reduces social pressure • anonymity enables social loafing • anonymity irrelevant to production blocking

  32. Kraut 200x:Applying Social Psych… Analysis: • Good application to online group design demonstrates usefulness of approach

  33. Kraut 200x:Applying Social Psych…

  34. Finholt & Sproull • Goals: • Compare “real” group with electronic groups (mailing lists) • Understand effect of DLs on organizational behaviour • Provide framework for evaluating group activity • Evaluate DLs in that context

  35. Finholt & Sproull • Context: • Organizational Behaviour • LANs uncommon in 1988 • Internet was largely built on Usenet and email • Electronic groups are seen to be having increasing influence on organizations

  36. Finholt & Sproull Summary: • Groups are more important than individuals within organizations • Assume that egroups should be considered as secondary preference for “natural” groupings • Observe that some egroups behave like “real” groups

  37. Finholt & Sproull Summary: • Restrict their interest to behaviours that only exist online • DLs used for variety of purposes: • social groups • required (organizational) groups • discretionary work groups

  38. Finholt & Sproull Summary: • Assume that all conversational acts can be categorized as: • Interaction • Influence attempts • Identity maintenance • Go through every message on DLs and classify them

  39. Finholt & Sproull Summary: • Evidence suggests that egroups can function as real groups

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