Empirical studies have proven the effectiveness of the knowledge and information awareness approach of Engelmann and colleagues for improving collaboration and collaborative problem-solving performance of spatially distributed group members. This approach informs group members about both their collaborators' knowledge structures and their…

The ability to address and solve problems in minimally familiar contexts is the core business of research mathematicians. Recent studies have identified key traits and techniques that individuals exhibit while problem solving, and revealed strategies and behaviours that are frequently invoked in the process. We studied advanced calculus students…

This study investigated communication patterns and behavior in problem-solving groups in a graduate online course. An inductive qualitative analysis method was employed to analyze 732 messages that were retrieved from small group forums. The current study identified a temporal pattern of group development was in comparison with existing…

The literature on the use of problem-based learning in K-12 settings has traditionally focused on gifted and average students. However, mainstreaming is placing increasing numbers of students with special needs in general education classrooms. This case study examined how members of a small group in a mainstreamed seventh grade science class…

This study investigates the relationship between creative personality composition, innovative team climate, and team innovation based on an input-process-output model. We measured personality with the Creative Person Profile, team climate with the Team Climate Inventory, and team innovation through team-member and supervisor reports of team…

We consider group decision-making on an optimal stopping problem, for which large and stable individual differences have previously been established. In the problem, people are presented with a sequence of five random numbers between 0 and 100, one at a time, and are required to choose the maximum of the sequence, without being allowed to return…

Examines the problem of assessing group process in a collaborative problem-solving situation. Results reveal that groups engaging in behaviors that facilitated collaboration obtained higher group and individual accuracy scores on a challenging problem set. Proposes that examining collaborative group process and outcomes offers a new direction in…

Studies on individual and group problem solving from the past 15 years are brought together in this volume. Four sections of the book consider individual problem solving and the search for a possible unique factor in creativity. The next four sections concern themselves with the various aspects of group problem solving, and a final part of the…

This annotated bibliography includes sources of information that are primarily concerned with problem solving, decision making, and processes of social influence in small groups, and secondarily deal with other aspects of communication and interaction in groups, such as conflict management and negotiation. The 57 entries, all dating from 1980…

The purposes of this study were: (1) to test several social decision schemes to obtain plausible explanations of different group processes in solving different disjunctive tasks; and (2) to study both dyads and tetrads solving a eureka and a non-eureka disjunctive task. Social decision schemes theory assumes that a group decision is a joint…

This study examines the impact of one important task characteristic for the process by which groups solve problems. The principal comparison is between a generative problem and a choice task, and whether or not the differences between these types of tasks affect the group's methods for arriving at a decision. Two types of analysis are conducted of…

An attempt was made to ascertain what type of verbal interaction behavior manifested by a group given a problem in curriculum development affects the quality of the product. Thirty ad hoc groups, selected randomly, were given curriculum development tasks to solve. Curriculum Guide Form (CGF) and Bales' Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) were used…

Attraction had its strongest impact on dyadic satisfaction, a nonperformance outcome of the experiment. Among the all-female dyads, racial composition of the dyad was significantly related to satisfaction: interracial dyads had higher levels of satisfaction than intraracial dyads. (Author/WI)

This article explores the dynamics of a creative problem solving meeting which frequently reaches impasse. Excerpts from the meeting transcript are presented to determine where and why the group gets off track in developing a method to evaluate sales training. Suggestions are offered for steering the group away from win/lose arguments and into…