Group work: peer assessment and rewards distribution

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Group work: peer assessment and rewards distribution

Diana Bayazitova National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract

Purpose. The study examined the problem of rewards distribution in students' group work. To implement the satisfying evaluation system in education, especially in students' teamwork, one must take into account the contribution of each team member. Following study investigated the perception of members' contribution according to their roles in teamwork. The roles were based on Belbin's theory of team roles with addition of free-rider role in accordance with social loafing theory. Study design. The study had experimental design, however, the experiment was conducted through online questionnaire with virtual situations per each role: Executive (Action role), Idea generator (Thinking role), Socializer (Communicative role) and Free-rider. Participants were 186 students who distributed rewards among all the members including themselves considering the project inputs of each member. Finding. The received results give us the review of the perception of each member contribution with particular role in the teamwork. The study also examined which team role is perceived as an important team member, how free riders allocate the common rewards among the team, what they expect to receive from other members. Value of the results. The results of the study might be useful in compensation and benefit system development, contribution assessment system in group work.

Keywords: rewards distribution, students' group, team work, team roles, free-rider.

Аннотация

Статья посвящена проблеме распределения вознаграждения в студенческой командной работе в зависимости от вклада каждого участника этой команды. В качестве критерия для распределения вознаграждения выступали командные роли, основанные на теории Р.М. Белбина, дополнительно была использована роль Фрирайдера в рамках теории социальной ленности. Дизайн. Исследование выполнено с использованием экспериментального дизайна, но процедура исследования включала в себя электронный опросник с виртуальными ситуациями для каждой роли: Исполнителя, Генератора идей, Коммуникатора и ФрирайдераФрирайдер (англ. freerider) -- здесь: человек, который рассчитывает, не прилагая никаких усилий, воспользоваться плодами усилий других. Прим. ред..

Кроме того, была использована контрольная группа (без роли) для проверки функционирования инструкций. Выборка состояла из 186 студентов 24,3, SD = 2,87). Результаты. Полученные результаты отразили восприятие вклада каждой командной роли в групповую работу. Генератор идей получил наибольшее количество вознаграждения, Фрирайдер -- наименьшее, но не минимальное. Результаты исследования также показали, что люди в ситуации распределения вознаграждения в первую очередь думают о своей роли, о своем вкладе в групповую работу, и соответственно, распределяют награду в зависимости от своей роли. Таким образом, Фрирайдер переоценивает свой вклад в групповую работу. Ценность результатов. Результаты исследования могут быть использованы в разработке системы поощрения в организациях, а также непосредственно в студенческих командных работах для оценивания вклада каждого студента.

Ключевые слова: распределение вознаграждения, командные роли, групповая работа, фрирайдер.

Introduction

Nowadays rewards distribution is actual theme in social psychology especially talking about group work. It might be important to take into account the individuals' contribution to the teamwork and perception of what have been done by all the members of team. Thereby, unequal rewards and unfair assessment can lead to different types of conflicts in team or even personal level of relationships. This study examines the perception of members' contribution in accordance with their roles in team.

As a relevance of the study, it can be noted that there is the focus on teamwork rather than individual work on projects. Such wise, the rewards distribution system is needed in accordance with individuals' performance. M. J. Cissell notes “A reward system should, for purposes of equity, clearly relate to a performance measure or measures” (Gissell, 1987, p. 137). Unequal rewards distribution can cause conflicts in-group in relationships of its members. Moreover, rewards distribution influences on performance (if it is consistent) as well as perception of team members and their contribution (Hamilton, Nickerson, Owan, 2003). Thereby, tutors and teachers should take into account the individuals' work in team, in its turn leaders and managers should think about fair distribution to make all members of teamwork satisfied.

Talking about problem statement we consider that variety of studies are dedicated to the rewards distribution system in organizations (Ex: ORD model by Blau, 1964; Pearce, Peters, 1985), distribution as a choice in economic psychology (Alos-Ferrer et al., 2018; Cetre et al., 2019). In the sphere of social psychology, rewards distribution in team was mentioned as a voting or somebody's decision (Schmitt, 1998), without any context of team role or contribution. In addition, among studies based on role theory and team roles (Belbin, 1981; Horwitz, Horwitz, 2007 etc.), lack of researches were devoted to examining the roles' and contribution perception in teamwork (only Team Role SelfPerception Inventory by Belbin). Moreover, well-functioning teamwork has frequently been linked to increased work satisfaction and performance (Ruch et al., 2016). Moreover, some authors conducted similar studies trying to find out the interrelation between performance and rewards allocation (for instance: Lane, Messe, 1971), however, it was used dyadic teams with chooser (of rewards allocation) and receiver, the performance was evaluated as high or low level without context.

Positive psychology paid a deep attention to positive conditions and outcomes of teamwork, where role of inputs and outputs had been discussed profoundly (Henry, 2004; Turner, 2002). Many researchers discovered the contribution of team members' strengths at work as an integral part of it (Harzer, Ruch, 2015, 2014; Peterson, Seligman, 2014). If the teamwork is functioning good enough, it can lead to autonomy perception, this psychological phenomenon might be increased (Griffin et al, 2001), as well as job satisfaction (Wilson et al, 2004; Henry, 2004), and effectiveness of performance in general (Hamilton, 2003). Working in groups creates more ideas and productiveness in this case is increasing (Wuchty et al, 2007). Accordingly, the teamwork in education has the same issues: students' teams are used as a learning type as common as individual learning.

free-rider team role reward

1. Team roles conception and free-riding effect

The structure of team plays important role in effectiveness of performance in a teamwork (Horwitz, Horwitz 2007). R. Belbin (1981) suggested the idea of differentiation of roles in teams. Therefore, different roles should be balanced in team to make the performance optimal. According to R. Belbin conception, we can describe team role as a specific behavioral pattern, which is formed by the influence of personal traits, motivations, learning, abilities and the main point, context. R. Belbin developed the roles theory, which states about eight types of team roles: Completer-finisher, implementer, shaper, coordinator, plant, specialist, monitor-evaluator, resource investigator, and team worker. Every role has its own advantages and disadvantages, strong and weak sides. VIA Institute on Character in 2013 proposed seven team roles (Table 1). These roles supposed to be particular and comprehensive for majority of teams.

Table 1. Team roles and their description (VIA Institute on Character, 2013)

According to the Table 1, above-mentioned roles might be integrated into three main aspects in conformity with R. Belbin's theory (Batenburg et al., 2013):

Thinking

- Monitor Evaluator

- Plant

- Specialist

Action

- Implementer

- Shaper

- Completer / Finisher

People

- Coordinator

- Resource Investigator

- Team worker

Besides all researches about teamwork, some literature and practical experience present some negative effects connected with working in teams. The main famous effect is called «free-riding», when working in teams influence on opportunity to do nothing useful. From the educational perspective, the effect of free-riding is described as a problem when some team member use the benefits of all the group without any or little cost to herself / himself (Morris, Heyes, 1997). Most researchers compare free-riding with concerning development. If the students are not prepared for classes or meeting and try to make benefits with other students without any efforts, should be called to report for their particular behavior. If it will not happen, the significance of team-learning will not occur. Many authors refer this effect to the work in teams, to this system of studying in general.

We overviewed different aspects and theories of team roles, including the free riding effect of the teamwork and conditions under which it can appear. Generally all the roles might be defined as three main types: the team member who will be responsible for creating the ideas, the person who can implement all of suggested ideas into real life project, and the one who will coordinate the process of communication among all the members. Certainly, it is not full list of team role that might be emphasized in teamwork; nevertheless, we can use these types as main features. In our case, we called these roles as Idea's generator, Executive and Socializer.

2. Reward distribution

The main thing in human relations is the way of organizing their work so that the performance will be productive. One the common external motivation is the rewards system; in education sphere, we can call it evaluating system. The point is how the rewards should be distributed among all the team members in order to increase the total effort. Many researchers define rewards distribution as systematical, objective and equitable, and it should not be based on prejudices, biases or stereotypes (Hegtvedt, 1987; Lane, Messe, 1971). M.J. Cissel considered reward system as a system based on performance measures, comparing inputs and outputs (Cissell, 1987). In addition, E.E. Lawler noted that appraisal system should include the correlation between the results of performance and reward system especially in organizations (Lawler, 2003; Stroebe et al., 1996).

B. Gummer concentrated on rewards allocation in organizations as a main motivator of effective performance (Gummer, 1993). He mentioned that mostly rewards distribution is not the choice of participants or employees, thus unequal or unfair payment can lead to different negative consequences as conflicts, job dissatisfaction etc. Similarly, there is problem of students' evaluation in the teamwork. The current study is examining now students in teamwork prefer to distribute the rewards among themselves in accordance with their own role.

The aim of the current study is setting the relations between group roles in project work and rewards distribution among group members playing those roles. In the other words, we check how the perception of participant's role and other roles influence on rewards distribution among all the group members. To reach abovementioned goals we are going to check following hypotheses.

Hypotheses

H1. The amount of rewards (conventional units) will be different in accordance with the roles participants are playing in project work.

H1.1. Executive will receive the largest number of conventional units.

H1.2. Idea generator will receive less conventional units than executive but more than socializer.

H1.3. Socializer will receive less conventional units than idea's generator but more than freerider.

H1.4. Free-rider will receive the least number of conventional units.

H2. Participant's role and roles of others will influence on rewards distribution (What is for me and what is for others).

3. Method

Participants

Participants were 186 students of high school of Moscow, Russia (74 males and 112 females) aged 17-35 years old (M = 24,3; SD = 2,87) recruited through the link with different instructions. All the participants were differentiated by the main instructions in accordance with particular role (Executives, Idea Generators, Socializers, Free-riders and Control group).

Procedure

To define the role description, we conducted pretest (N = 29) where participants were asked about activity of each role in fictional project. The sample strategy was snow-ball. Respondents answered what activities could be done by particular role. In accordance with received description we defined the role descriptions in the project for main case in our study.

Afterwards (pretest) experimental group (with roles) was given a case with project description, particular role and conditions where he/she will have to distribute the rewards (160) between all the roles including himself/herself. In addition, they answered the questions about fairness in particular situation and preference of distribution. The example of case instructions is below:

«You are the part of the team that carries out the project. The purpose of the project is attraction people to the blood donation. The team consists of you and three more participants: N, M and Q. Each member of group engaged in various activities on the preparation of the project, but in general, you are responsible for it all together.

Participant N proposes the idea for the project came up with ways and methods of work in order to attract people for blood donation.

You responsibly approach to carry out the project and decided to implement the proposed idea. You performed the work according to plan, completed the task step by step to achieve the result.

Participant M performs a communicative role, focusing within the team, he / she can maintain a positive emotional background, to establish contacts and negotiate.

Apparently participant Q is not particularly involved in the work, but formally he belongs to your team. He/she can perform small tasks, though he avoids the execution duties.

Your project is estimated at 160 conventional units. At the end of the project you have the opportunity to distribute these rewards among all participants.

How many conventional units will you distribute yourself?

How many conventional units will you distribute participant N?

How many conventional units will you distribute participant M?

How many conventional units will you distribute participant Q?

The control group was given a case without any roles, they only had to distribute the rewards (also 160). They also answered the questions about fairness in particular situation and preference of distribution.

In general, we used different types of statistical analysis. Firstly, we used content analysis for pretest to define the instructions per each team role in project. To analyze the collected data, we used SPSS v.20 and JASP 0.7.5. Beta2. (Normality tests, descriptive statistics, ANOVA, Post Hoc Tests, Paired Sample T-Test).

Results

Descriptive statistics for rewards per each role and questions about fairness and preference of distribution is on the Table 2.

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics

Going back to our first hypothesis (H1), we used T-Test (Table 3) paired comparison to check whether there are some differences in rewards distribution (number of conventional units). Table 3 demonstrates us the differences in rewards allocation. Correlating received results with first main hypothesis and particular hypotheses, we accept the main hypothesis that there are differences in rewards distribution among the roles. Nevertheless, our particular hypotheses were accepted partially. Idea's generator received the largest number of conventional units, instead of executives. This result is quietly unpredicted, because in business psychology it was noted that the executive is main character of team, the success of project depends on the role of executive, or «realizer» (Batenburg et al., 2013). Then, it was also surprising that executive and socializer received the same number of conventional units. Last, free-rider received the least number of conventional units, as it was predicted in Hypothesis H1.4. This is logic result, because social loafing is not required in teamwork (Stroebe et al., 1996).

Table 3. Significant differences between rewards distribution for different roles

Note. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

We have two control variables, that might be differentiated somehow among all the roles (How fair the decision is, usually I distribute rewards contribution/participation). We compared these variables using ANOVA according to roles and found no significant differences (see Table 4).

Table 4. Significant differences for rewards distribution between different levels of decision fairness and preferable way of rewards distribution

Note. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

Afterwards we used ANOVA to find the differences in accordance to the role participant is playing, the results are on the Table 5.

Table 5. Significant differences of rewards distribution per each team role

Note. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

Using Test for Equality of Variances (Levene's) we made Post Hoc tests to find out which differences are relevant for each role. Table 6 demonstrates significant differences of rewards distribution per each role, in other words «if I am playing particular role, how do I allocate the rewards».

Table 6. Significant differences in accordance with particular role

Note. * p < .05. ** p < .01, 1 - Executive, 2 - Idea's Generator, 3 - Socializer, 4 - Free-rider

Clear and understandable results including the respondent's role and other roles are demonstrated on Table 7.

Table 7. «What is for me and what is for others»

4. Discussion

In general, there are significant differences in cases with roles (conditions) and control case (without any roles). It means that our instructions made any sense: students with no instructions distributed the rewards differently from participants with instructions.

There are significant differences in general rewards distribution in accordance with roles, but the main hypothesis was confirmed partially. Idea's generator received significantly largest number of conventional units. The numbers of conventional units between executive and socializer have no significant differences. Free-rider received significantly least number of conventional units. It can be interpreted as people have a tendency to evaluate the person who suggests the ideas firstly. The Executive and Socializer played the important part in teamwork, nevertheless they are on the second place. Eventually, Free-rider didn't make any contribution, so he/she was evaluated by the least number of conventional units, what is pretty logic.

N o significant differences in questions about «fairness of decision» and «preferable way ofrewards distribution». All the participants in general estimated their decisions in fair way and preferred the rewards distribution equal either according to contribution or participation. Considering that the question about fairness was very strict, it might be used some another way to measure this variable in future researches.

Executives evaluated their contribution more than others did. However, other roles gave them a smaller number of conventional units. Moreover, Free-riders gave them the least of all number of conventional units. It means that Executives tend to overestimate their contribution (in our study), and Free-riders underestimated the Executive's contribution at the expense overestimation of their contribution.

Idea's generators evaluated their contribution the same as others. In addition, they received the biggest number of conventional units. It means, that in this case Idea's generator was objectively estimated.

Socializers evaluated their contribution more than others did. Executives and Idea generators gave them a smaller number of conventional units, Free-riders evaluated them the same as they did. We assume that Free-riders accepted their absence of contribution and found some similarities with Socializers, in this case they estimated their contribution in the same way.

Free-riders evaluated their contribution more in half than others, but the others gave them the least rewards. The real-life situation: the ones who did not make anything useful try to find benefits at the expense of other ones.

Conclusion

This study allowed us to understand how people perceive different roles in teamwork and how they can distribute the rewards in accordance with that. We found out that ideas are important in project, people estimate ideas as the most significant point. Nevertheless, to conduct the work, to perform is also important, as communicate with people, organize the positive atmosphere in team, but these things are on the second place. However, if somebody decided to do nothing (perhaps you are not interested in, or you have another thing to do), it does not mean that he/she received nothing as a reward. This person received the least rewards, but it is more than nothing is.

In addition, people's role influences on their decision of rewards allocation for all the team members. For instance, the person, who organized all the process and performed in a good way thinks that he/she deserves more than others, at the same time, the team member, who did not do anything useful, does not distribute the first person a lot. Free-rider decided to receive the largest number of conventional units, allocating residuary rewards among others.

As a practical significance of the study, it can be noted that there are the focus on group work rather than individual work on projects, especially in educational sphere. Students often work in groups and teachers use different methods to evaluate them. Thereby the rewards distribution system is needed in accordance with performance. It is also important to think about fair distribution to make all members of group satisfied because well-functioning group work has frequently been linked to increased work satisfaction and performance. In addition, practical significance might be described in following approaches: on the one hand, such type of studies might be useful in balance of compensation and benefits (C&B) system in teamwork (equity-based compensation). On the other hand, it can be also useful in reward management that is concerned with the formulation and implementation of strategies and policies that aim to reward people fairly and equitably. Team leaders or managers can use the results of following study in conflict resolution connected with under- and overestimation of teamwork contribution.

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