Grades degrade group coordination: deteriorated interactions and performance in a cooperative motor task

At school, pupils often cooperate on common projects and must coordinate their different individual actions. However, grades are pervasively used even in cooperative situations, which make the pupils' differences in achievement and their relative rank salient and may reduce their inclination to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of psychology of education 2017-01, Vol.32 (1), p.97-112
Main Authors: Hayek, Anne-Sophie, Toma, Claudia, Guidotti, Sofia, Oberlé, Dominique, Butera, Fabrizio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic achievement
Behavior Patterns
Behavior Problems
Cognitive Development
Communication (Thought Transfer)
Cooperation
Cooperative Learning
Coordination
Education
Educational Psychology
Elementary Education
Elementary school students
Elementary Schools
Eye Movements
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grades (Scholastic)
Group Activities
Group Behavior
Group Dynamics
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hypothesis Testing
Interpersonal Competence
Pedagogic Psychology
Performance Factors
Psychology
Psychomotor Skills
Self Concept
Student Behavior
Task Analysis
Teaching Methods
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Summary:At school, pupils often cooperate on common projects and must coordinate their different individual actions. However, grades are pervasively used even in cooperative situations, which make the pupils' differences in achievement and their relative rank salient and may reduce their inclination to work constructively with others. Thus, we hypothesized that grades would elicit disruptive interactions and reduce performance in a cooperative cognitive-motor task necessitating inter-individual coordination of members. In a study with 5th graders, grades (vs. a neutral concept) were primed at the onset of a cooperative group interaction. Results showed that, although pupils were set to work cooperatively, priming grades (vs. neutral concepts) harmed inter-individual coordination by eliciting more negative dominant behaviours among pupils during interactions, which decreased group performance.
ISSN:0256-2928
1878-5174
DOI:10.1007/s10212-016-0286-9