باورهای خوداثربخشی جمعی در تیم های کار دانش آموزان: ارتباط با خوداثربخشی انسجام و عملکرد

A measure of collective efficacy was developed and administered to undergraduates working in project teams in engineering courses. Findings in each of two samples revealed that the measure contained a single factor and was related to ratings of team cohesion and personal efficacy. Collective efficacy was also found to relate to indicators of team performance at both individual and group levels of analysis. Consistent with social cognitive theory, collective efficacy was a stronger predictor of team performance than team members’ perceptions of their self-efficacy. We consider the implications of these findings for further research, theory, and practice on team functioning within occupational and educational settings.

Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986 and Bandura, 1997) is an influential approach to understanding the psychological and social processes involved in human motivation, self-regulation, choice, and performance. A large body of research has accumulated relating social cognitive variables, especially self-efficacy, to various aspects of educational and career behavior (e.g., Lent et al., 2002 and Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998). The focus of this literature has been on the relation of social cognitive variables to outcomes achieved by students and workers as individuals. Such a focus is understandable given that vocational and educational psychologists have traditionally been concerned with maximizing the development and remediating the problems of individuals, and that prevalent reward mechanisms in educational and work settings (e.g., grades, salaries) tend to be linked to the quality of individuals’ performance and achievement. However, group processes have been garnering increasing attention among educational and organizational scholars in recent years, reflecting the growing popularity of team approaches to learning and working (e.g., Stajkovic & Lee, 2001). Although research on social cognitive theory has emphasized individual-level mechanisms (e.g., self-efficacy) and outcomes, the theory is also concerned with how people work together within teams and other social units. For instance, collective efficacy, the group counterpart to self-efficacy, is a key social cognitive element that may help to explain how groups function more or less well together. Bandura (1997) defined collective efficacy as a “group’s shared beliefs in its conjoint capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainments” (p. 477). In contrast to self-efficacy, which involves a person’s beliefs about his or her ability to perform particular behaviors individually, collective efficacy refers to group members’ aggregate beliefs about how they can perform as a unit. The literature on collective efficacy has grown much more slowly than that of self-efficacy, but its research base has expanded considerably in recent years and it has proven to be a very flexible group-level explanatory construct, finding application to groups of diverse size, function, and organizational context ( Zaccaro, Blair, Peterson, & Zazanis, 1995). While effect sizes vary from study to study and not all studies have demonstrated impressive collective efficacy-criterion relations (e.g., Lee et al., 2002 and Riggs and Knight, 1994), collective efficacy has been reliably linked to (a) antecedent factors (e.g., prior group achievement, Goddard, 2001; training, Gibson, 2001; self-efficacy, Fernandez-Ballesteros, Diez-Nicolas, Caprara, Barbaranelli, & Bandura, 2002); (b) group process and environment factors (e.g., team cohesion, Paskevich, Brawley, Dorsch, & Widmeyer, 1999; leadership climate, Chen & Bliese, 2002); (c) affective outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, psychological strain, organizational commitment, Jex & Bliese, 1999); and (d) group performance (Gibson, 2001, Goddard, 2001 and Parker, 1994). Stajkovic and Lee (2001) recently reported a meta-analysis of collective efficacy-performance relations, involving data from 35 studies (including 67 correlation estimates and nearly 3000 groups with an average size of 3.8 members per group). They found an average correlation between collective efficacy and performance of .45. Thus, across the set of studies, collective efficacy accounts for roughly 20% of the variance in group performance, representing a moderately strong effect size. Consistent with expectations, task interdependence was found to moderate collective efficacy-group performance relations, with stronger relations under conditions where tasks require high versus low member coordination. Collective efficacy-performance relations did not differ substantially as a function of study design characteristics (e.g., experimental vs. correlational studies) or type of sample (student vs. managerial/professional groups). A separate meta-analysis by Gully, Incalcaterra, Joshi, and Beaubien (2002) reported similar relations of collective efficacy to performance (corrected mean correlation of .41). They also confirmed the finding that high-interdependence groups produce larger collective efficacy-performance relations than do low-interdependence groups. In addition to interdependence, Gully et al.’s meta-analysis tested level of analysis as an effect size moderator, finding that collective efficacy relates more highly to performance at the team than at the individual level of analysis. (In the individual level of analysis, individual team members’ ratings were correlated with performance; in the group level of analysis, team ratings were combined across team members to produce aggregate percepts of team capabilities.) Although collective efficacy has not yet been applied to the context of engineering education, there has been growing emphasis on student acquisition of team skills and experience in engineering education within recent years (ABET, 2000). Mirroring the importance of work teams in the engineering workplace, student project teams are designed to enhance the learning process by enabling students to develop skills at managing team interactions. Use of teams also allows students to work on more realistic engineering problems (e.g., design of a bridge vs. the sizing of one beam). However, team interpersonal dynamics often pose unique challenges for students and professors, such as how to handle inter-member conflicts and ensure that all students are contributing to, and profiting from, the team experience (Brannick et al., 1993 and Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 1997). Much is yet to be learned about what factors enhance team functioning and how such factors can be intentionally fostered by professors and team members. It therefore seems important to study group-level variables, such as collective efficacy, that may both shed light on project team functioning and suggest ways to assist teams to work together more effectively. In the present study, we sought to examine the factor structure, correlates, and predictive validity of a novel measure of collective efficacy within the context of student project teams in engineering. Specifically, we first developed a measure of collective efficacy beliefs linked to student team functioning and administered it, along with measures of self-efficacy and group process (team cohesion) to students enrolled in a freshman engineering course involving student project teams. Since it has been suggested that a team’s collective efficacy is likely to derive from such sources as the self-efficacy of its individual members (Bandura, 1997) and perceptions of team cohesion (Zaccaro et al., 1995), we expected individuals’ collective efficacy percepts to relate to their personal efficacy beliefs and team cohesion ratings. We also explored the relations of team members’ aggregate collective efficacy estimates to their ratings of self-efficacy, team cohesion, and performance, as well as to external (instructor) ratings of team performance. Based on theory and prior findings, we expected that collective efficacy beliefs would (a) be predicted by the combination of cohesion and self-efficacy, (b) be predictive of team performance as assessed both by team members and course instructors, and (c) serve as stronger predictors of team performance than do percepts of self-efficacy.