Mitigating Social Loafing in Team-Based Learning

ABSTRACT

Team-based learning (TBL) is becoming increasingly present in higher education hospitality classes. There are many advantages to TBL but instructors should be aware of social loafing, or withholding of individual effort, that is frequently associated with TBL. This paper explores the theoretical accounts of social loafing in a two-stage quasi-experimental study on three undergraduate sections of Organization and Management in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry (HTM 212). Methods of peer evaluation were used to control for the evaluation-potential thought to mitigate social loafing. Evidence was found that evaluation-potential does play a role in reducing social loafing but might be operationalized through fellow team members rather than the instructor, as the literature suggests.

Key Words:

• Team-based learning
• higher education
• social loafing
• peer evaluation
• evaluation-potential
• identifiableness