1. Team Roles in an Electronic Collaborative Learning Environment Kathryn Stant, Kate Custer, Tom Treadwell, Donna Ashcraft Department of Psychology, West Chester University of Pennsylvania Purpose The purpose of the current study is to identify team roles in a collaborative online learning environment, compare and contrast these identified roles with those from previous team role research (Belbin, 1993; Benne & Sheats, 1948; Parker, 1996) and look at differences among perceived roles attributed to team members and their degree of posting on the web board. While most team role literature is focused on team roles in occupational settings, little has been done to address the function of team roles in electronic academic settings. Method Subjects Students enrolled in CORAL social psychology courses at West Chester University and Clarion University in Pennsylvania during the Spring 2009 semester (n=approximately 30). Procedure Team Roles do you mean team or individual roles? in an electronic collaborative learning environment will be identified and described. Proposed Team roles for the CORAL classroom will be compared with previous team role research (Benne & Sheats, 1948, Belbin, 1991, Parker, 1996). Differences between perceived roles and degree of posting on the web board will be found by means of team’s collaborative analysis paper which was submitted at week 10 (reflects posting during first 9 weeks of semester). Students record their teammate’s roles as they perceive them. These roles will be compared with each teammate’s total number of individual online discussion board posts from week to week as tracked by a Who-to-Whom chart. This chart is updated weekly by each team to help keep track of how many posts each team member is posting to their team on a weekly basis. How will the number of posts tell you what kind of team member they are? Results Discussion In this study, team roles were defined as found in an electronic collaborative learning environment. Differences between these roles and those previously cited in research (Benne & Sheats, 1948; Belbin, 1981; Parker, 1996) differ (I would say “occur” or something) mainly due to the electronic collaborative work environment in which they were found. However, with the increasing used (use) of technology and work groups, these additional roles should be considered by those who manage work groups. Also, results comparing perceived team roles and frequency of posting to the web board are on-going, as no definite conclusions can be made at this time based on the results; However, the trends found are promising. A lack of negative roles prescribed to team members suggests they may not want to hurt each other’s feelings by giving team members these particular roles. This might suggest a need for a more objective measure of these roles. Introduction Although team role research has a rather extensive gathering in work place applications, it tends to be scarce in educational settings where team work is also regularly employed. The goal of instructional design under constructivist learning theory is to create a learner-centered environment that enables students to discover knowledge for themselves through interactions with their environment (Neufeld & Haggarty, 2001). Collaborative learning has been found to work well along with web- based classrooms (Stacy, 1999). Collaborative Online Research and Learning (CORAL), uses the Internet as a collaborative tool linking university-level students in multiple disciplines and at various sites (Treadwell & Ashcraft, 2005). Team roles are considered an essential part of team performance and several conceptualizations are well documented in the literature (Benne & Sheats, 1948; Belbin, 1981; DuBrin, 1995; Parker, 1996). Figure 1. Bar graph of Total Number of Individual Posts from weeks 1-9 and perceived team member roles as noted in collaborative analysis paper. These results reflect posting trends for only four of the proposed roles. Figure 2. Line graph of Total Number of Individual Posts per week from weeks 1-9 and perceived team member roles as noted in collaborative analysis paper. These results reflect posting trends for only four of the proposed roles. References Belbin, M. (1981). Management teams: Why they succeed or fail. Oxford, England: Butterworth-Heinemann. Benne, K., & Sheats, P. (1948). Functional roles of group members. Journal of Social Issues, 4(2), 41-49. DuBrin. A. (1995). The breakthrough team player. New York: American Management Association. Neufeld, D., & Haggerty, N. (2001). Collaborative team learning in information systems: A pedagogy for developing team skills and high performance. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 42(1), 37. Parker, G. (1996). Team players and teamwork. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Treadwell, T., & Ashcraft, D. M. (2005). A pedagogy for collaborative on-line research and learning: The CORAL model. National Society for Experiential Education Quarterly. 30 (1), 10-17.