Literature Review: Ethnic Diversity And Teams Building Processes
Not only is group work believed to be important in a work environment, but have also been shown to have positive outcomes in an academic setting. Oetzel, et al. (2012) and Wegelius (2013) underline their group work help students a lot to better retain learned information, explore a diversity of opinions and handle effectively projects too large to tackle successfully on an individual basis. Group work has also been shown to boost student’s confidence levels.
Sağ, et al. (2016) aver that ethnically diverse teams have the to record better performance in complex and turbulent settings, where the cultural and ethnic diversity of the group members acts as a drive for flexibility as well as adopt the conflict /issues and environmental change, according to Umans, et al. (2008) and Stahl, et al. (2010). Ethnic and cultural diversity in teams and groups and teams leads to a relatively high quality of ideas and decisions. Umans, et al. (2008) explains that this positive stems from a wide range of attitude offered by change in cultural backgrounds, which consequently speaks to the quality and significance of ethnically diverse groups over ethnically homogeneous teams or groups.
Ethnicity has long been established as one of the important team’s character dimensions, as argued by Alesina and La Ferrara (2005). Ethnic diversity describes heterogeneity in religions, mother tongues, cultures, and races. Commonly measured based on an individual’s country of birth, ethnic diversity is consistent with a wide range of information, norms, ability, and knowledge levels (Morgan & Vardy, 2009). This variety, according to Van Praag and Hoogendoorn (2012) and Sağ, et al. (2016), influences the creation and performance of a team. Ethnic diversity would work to the advantage of team building performance because of a more diverse pool of knowledge and skills that are important to mutual learning). As illustrated in figure 1 below, learning opportunities and complementaries, for instance, account for high levels of creativity and innovation in ethnically diverse teams.
The costs associated with these teams, on the other hand, would be linked to more challenging communication, time-consuming decision-making processes and coordination. To this end, this study sought to complement the above studies by examining the impact of ethnic and cultural diversity on student group work processes and performance.
Students’ attitudes towards Teamwork
Studies have examined, over the recent past, the relationship between individual student attitudes and characteristics towards team or group work. Focusing on comfort and equity, Theobald, et al. , (2017), for example, conducted a study to determine students’ perception towards group dynamics. The researchers found that student valued team and/or group work because of its positive contribution to individual performance. They then concluded that group activities that include turn taking and depend on positive interdependence while simultaneously having clear prompts for learners to explain their reasoning help in reducing the negative effects of unequal groups. In the same spirit, Beigi and Shirmohammadi (2012) sought to determine whether Iranian students have favorable or unfavorable attitudes towards teamwork. Their results confirmed that Iranian students have moderate positive attitudes towards teamwork against the prevalent argument that they are not interested in working as a team. Beigi and Shirmohammadi (2012) and Theobald, et al. , (2017) agree that students’ attitudes about teamwork and preferred instructional methods appear to differ systematically with their learning styles. Drawing upon this background, this study sought to compliment these lines of thought by examining students’ attitudes towards group work in multicultural and ethnically diverse groups.
Factors Predicting Students’ Participation in Teamwork
Beigi and Shirmohammadi (2012) also examined various variables that influence students’ attitudes toward teamwork, including concerns about age, teamwork training, major, educational level, and gender, perceptions of the teamwork environment and teamwork evaluation and Grade Point Average (GPA). Teamwork and/or collaborative learning is seen as group members working together to achieve a shared goal. Here, the critical insight, according to Chien, et al. (2012) and Beigi and Shirmohammadi (2012), team members should possess a mutual awareness such as shared perceptions about work pressure, communication, and work climate and safety culture. This allows them to interact freely, anticipate each other’s needs and actions while simultaneously carrying out team processes like coordination.
