Enhancing mental models for team effectiveness / by Marie-Eve Jobidon ... [et al.].: D68-4/202-2009E-PDF

The success of Canadian Forces operations relies on team members working cooperatively towards shared goals. It is commonly recognized that some form of shared knowledge contributes positively to team functioning, and as such the concept of team mental models (TMM) has been the focus of many research endeavours (e.g., Edwards et al., 2006; Marks et al., 2002; Mathieu et al., 2010). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether enhancing TMM, more specifically, task models (knowledge on task procedures and strategies, potential contingencies and environmental constraints) and team interaction models (knowledge about roles and responsibilities, role interdependencies, information flow, etc.), improved team processes and performance in dynamic situations. Fifty-four participants took part in this study, for a total of 27 two-person teams. C3Fire, a simulation of forest firefighting, was used as the task environment. Each team was assigned to one of three learning conditions meant to manipulate TMM: task (additional information on environmental dynamics pertinent to the firefighting task), team (additional information on the roles of each team member and possible interaction strategies) and control (no additional information). Task complexity was varied through transparency of courses of action (COA) to investigate whether it moderates the effect of TMM on team effectiveness. Measures of team performance and team processes were gathered. The results showed that the manipulation of task complexity was successful: better performance and coordination were observed in conditions with a more obvious COA. However, there was no significant effect of learning condition on team effectiveness. This study was a first attempt at investigating the effect of enhancing TMM on team effectiveness. Unfortunately, we can draw only limited conclusions as to the impact of additional pre-experimental information about the task or team interaction on team functioning. Future plans could include making task and team interaction conditions more distinctive, and adding a measure of team knowledge or mental models to gather valuable information on the content of TMM, and to allow a better assessment of any change in the models following the experimental manipulation.

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