What is an effective group?

Effective working groups are extremely powerful instruments for getting things done. However, the stress is on the word ‘effective’. Things can go horribly wrong (see FAQ 6), leaving teachers disappointed and students thinking it was a waste of time.

When planning group activities for your students you should consider their previous experience of group work, their attitude towards it, and their level of group skills. You may well find that part of your task will be to facilitate the development of your students’ group skills.

Most commentators would probably agree that for a group to work successfully the following characteristics are essential (see Maughan & Webb 2005:86):

• membership – two or more individuals join together to achieve a goal they are unable to achieve by themselves
• common purpose – a commitment to shared aims, goals
• interdependence – each member will succeed only if all others succeed – “we sink or swim together”
• social organisation – a group is a social unit with norms, differentiated roles, status, power, emotional relationships
• interaction – face-to-face communication and otherwise; the sense of ‘group’ exists even when members are not together
• mutual influence – each member influences and is influenced by the other members
• collective consciousness – members perceive themselves as belonging to a group
• mutual trust – members feel comfortable and emotionally secure
• involvement – all members participate and decisions are made by consensus
• synergy – the collective output is greater than the sum of the individual contributions

Nigel Nicholson sums this up nicely (2000:86) :

If you ask people what is characteristic of the best groups they have ever been members of, the same traits keep being mentioned – small, informal, egalitarian, inspired by shared goals, the knowledge that what they do is recognised and valued. They report that the group does its work in a spirit of energised sharing, with much constructive self examination. Individual members seem to know exactly what their distinctive contribution is, but at the same time they have a feeling of ‘losing’ their egos in the group. The group takes on a life of its own.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010