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Abstract
Student teams are routine in business education, yet instructors lack research-based strategies to promote personal learning in teams. Our study’s purpose therefore is to investigate how a dual emphasis on social identity and individual autonomy in teams may enhance students’ personal learning. In a study of 557 business undergrads in 215 teams, team self-selection and communication predicted social identity, and communication predicted autonomy. Team naming correlated with social identity but was not predictive in our multilevel model. Social identity mediated the relationship of team self-selection and communication to personal skill development; autonomy mediated the relationship of communication to personal learning. We discuss implications for student teams in business education.
Notes
1 These are variables measured at the individual level, Level 1, predicted by variables at the team level, Level 2.
2 In the current study, this is relevant for predicting out ultimate outcome variable, personal skill development.
3 To test mediation, we examined model direct effects and 95% CIs of the indirect effects of the predictors on personal skill development. To support mediation, predictor pathways must be related to social identity (pathways a1–a4 for H1) and task autonomy (pathways a5–a8 for H2), and social identity (pathway b1 for H1) and task autonomy (pathway b2 for H2) must be related to personal skill development when controlling for the predictors; the effect of the predictors (c′ pathways) on the dependent variable should be reduced to support partial mediation or be nonsignificant to support full mediation. Finally, the 95% CI for indirect effects must exclude zero to support mediation (Edwards & Lambert, Citation2007; Hayes & Preacher, Citation2014).