Performance in small student groups: Group personality, identity, and norms

Organisations rely heavily on small groups to achieve a wide range of goals (Devine, Clayton, Philips, Dunford, and Melner, 1999). As a result, research ers have increas ingly focused on the study of psycho lo gical factors that predis pose these groups to be effect ive (e.g., Guzzo and Dickson, 1996; Halfhill, Sundstrom, Lahner, Calderone, and Nielsen, 2005). In educa tion, academic curricula commonly include small­ group work, although research ers have focused consid­ er ably less on psycho lo gical factors that influ ence how these small student groups perform.