The generic skills used by individuals and teams when engaging in high-bandwidth information communication technology. Our investigations focused on the generic skills used by individuals and teams when engaging with high bandwidth ICT.
Research Aims
One of the most important manifestations in the construction industry is a shift from teamwork in shared workspaces to teamwork in virtual spaces using increasingly sophisticated electronic media. There are significant differences when working in shared and virtual spaces (see section 5.2.4) and it is imperative that those working in new e-environments adapt and 'retool' their skills to address the challenges that these new environments present.
Research Objectives
Literature Review: Research Context
A framework of common generic skills is presented as a basis for the creation of a generic skills coding scheme for design teams. Possible impact of the virtual environment on these generic skills is analyzed and used as a platform to draw conclusions from the results of this study.
Teamwork
Definition of Operational and Project Teams
This review was compiled to inform the creation of a generic skills coding scheme for collaborative design teams and also to highlight potential areas of virtual grouping that may influence the generic skills of design participants.
Project Team Lifecycle and Processes
Each of the construction phases, as defined by Cornick and Mather, 1999, can be compared to the project life cycle phases of Lipnack and Stamps (2000), as shown in Table 5.1. Tender No equivalent phase in the Lipnack and Stamps model due to the specificity of the construction domain process.
Composition and Nature of Teams
- Definition of Co-located Teams
- Definition of Virtual Teams
- Definition of Global Teams
- Comparison between Co-located and Virtual Teams
- Advantages of Working in a Virtual Team
- Challenges Faced by those in Virtual Teams
Most definitions of global virtual teams suggest that they are temporary in nature with a. However, co-located teams are always synchronous, while virtual teams can be both synchronous and asynchronous.
Issues of Generic Skills Arising from a Virtual Context
Core Generic Skills in a Virtual Context
- Adaptability
- Shared situational awareness
- Performance monitoring and feedback
- Team management
- Interpersonal relations
- Co-ordination
- Communication
- Decision Making
Virtual team management is strongly based on an ability to set clear goals for team members. It is through this skill that team members' beliefs and assumptions, which form a team's culture, are learned (Gay and Lentini 1995).
Collaborative Design Activity
Issues Impeding Design Team Collaboration
One of the strongest barriers to open and effective collaboration is the perception of professional stereotypes (Gil et al. 2001, Muir 1995). Increasing the cost effectiveness of design procedures (Muir 1995) Collaboration in design teams presents a complex set of variables that require management by a design team manager to achieve the best results.
The Generic Skills which Support Design Collaboration
- Leadership
- Co-ordination
- Feedback
- Communication
- Interpersonal relations
In this regard, Williams and Cowdroy (2002) note that the use of analogies is easier in the early design phases when team members have previously worked together. The way team members work together during the early design phases can impact a team's performance.
Collaborative Technology Facilitators
Summary
The next section documents the development of a framework for analyzing design team activity. It is used as a basis for performing protocol analyzes of video data from design collaboration.
Behavioural Markers
Creating Behavioural Markers
The key to creating effective behavioral markers is obtaining feedback from multiple sources (Fletcher et al. 2003, Klampfer et al. 2001). Fletcher et al (2003) outline in Figure 6.1 a specific timeline for generating behavioral markers.
Behavioural Marker Systems
This research project aims to identify the factors that contribute to performance and lead to a positive or negative outcome (Klampfer et al. 2001).
Content Analysis
- Quantitative Content Analysis
- Qualitative Content Analysis
- A Comparison between Quantitative and Qualitative Content Analysis
- Protocol Analysis: A Segmented Process
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Protocol Analysis
Quantitative content analysis methods include Interaction Process Analysis [Bales, 1951], Bettman-Park Typology [Bettman and Park, 1979], Evaluative Statement Analysis [Osgood, 1956], The General Inquirer [Stone, 1962, Golesstchalk, 1962] Typology [Gottschalk, 1974] and Frequency and Concordance Analysis [Pool, 1959] (Wallace 1987). This comparison of quantitative and qualitative content analysis is based on their respective techniques, results, and reliability.
![Table 6.2 The major differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Content Analysis [adapted from Mostyn (1987)]](https://thumb-ap.123doks.com/thumbv2/5docco/10476609.0/42.892.124.771.531.792/table-differences-quantitative-qualitative-content-analysis-adapted-mostyn.webp)
Bales Interaction Process Analysis (IPA)
Studies which have used Bales’s IPA to study Computer Mediated
Following the work of Rice and Love (1987), Pena added two additional categories which represented the giving and asking of socio-emotional questions such as 'How old are you?'. However, it was also observed that SE communication increased team members' alertness, especially negative SE communication such as “disagree”.
![Figure 6.3 Interactions present within teams [adapted from Bales (1951)].](https://thumb-ap.123doks.com/thumbv2/5docco/10476609.0/47.1263.178.917.213.708/figure-6-interactions-present-teams-adapted-bales-1951.webp)
Systemic Functional Linguistics
Exchange Structure Analysis
All interactions are based on requesting and providing information or goods and services. Thus, synoptic movements are used when communication of information is smooth, while dynamic movements are needed when communication fails.
Mood and Modality
Therefore, the roles of primary knower (the person who has the information/goods) and secondary knower (the person to whom the information/goods are given) can be assumed by each participant during different exchanges. The language choice that participants make during the information exchange depends on the context of the situation.
Reliability and Validity
Reliability
Furthermore, when dealing with team members from different cultures, the directness or firmness of expressions can be of additional relevance in team building (for example, Chinese people tend to be less direct in their speech than Australians to avoid embarrassment – Mason & Murray 1999). Intra-judge (scorer): This is suitable when a large amount of data has been collected and the consistency of measures needs to be examined.
Validity
Summary
The aim is to discover whether the generic skills used by design team participants are influenced by the virtuality of the design process. Also included is an examination of the issues and techniques involved in video recording design teams and some technologies that facilitate this process.
Video Data Collection
The final issue raised by Guerlain et al (2004) relates to the ability of researchers to successfully deploy and use video recording technology.
Pilot Methodology
- Pilot Study Participants
- Pilot Research Design for Generic Skills Framework
- Description of Generic Skills
- Pilot Participant Methodology
- Reliability Analysis
When team members have compatible mental models of the environment inside and outside their team. Data collected for the pilot study were analyzed to determine the reliability of the coding methods.
Experimental Methodology
- Experimental Participants
- Participants Methodology
- Experimental Coding Scheme
- Reliability Testing
Research on behavioral markers suggests that communication is such an important part of these non-technical skills that the nature of the analysis dictates that communication cannot be separated from these skills (Fletcher et al. 2004). Point-to-point agreement was 81% and 80% for frequency of coding strings and frequency and sequence of coding strings, respectively.
Additional Frameworks
Bales’s Interaction Process Analysis (IPA)
Complete descriptions and observable behavior for the modified ANTS coding scheme (Final Generic Skill Coding Scheme) can be seen in Table 13.3. Intra-rater reliability was established for the generic skill coding scheme on a 30-minute face-to-face session using Noldus Observer Pro.
Systemic Functional Linguistics
The analysis of politeness markers (the second method) was used to investigate the relationships established between co-workers at the three levels of the ICT configuration. An analysis of politeness markers shows how different levels of ICT affect the communication used to establish and develop these relationships.
Coding Design Team Observations: Noldus Observer Pro Video Analysis
It therefore indicates aspects of communication that hinder or facilitate team building within specific contexts. These coding strings appear in the 'event log' in the lower left corner of Figure 7.2.
Generic Skills in Relation to Information and Communication Technology
One of the available outputs is a list of encoded strings as shown in Table 7.8.
Summary
Data Analysis
Statistical Tests
Generic Skills
Shared Situational Awareness
Decision Making
Task Management and Team Working
Observable Behaviours
- Outlines and Describes the Plan/Brief for the Design (A11)
- Gives Updates and Reports Key Events (B21)
- States Case for Order and Gives Justification (B33)
- Asks for Documents and/or Information Regarding an Idea or Design
- Discusses Design Options with Clients/Other Designers (D11)
The decrease in B33 for the transition from the 'groupboard to 3D virtual' world condition was found to approach significance (F p = .098), thus suggesting that the overall significance is driven by this move. The observable behavior 'asking for documents and/or information regarding an idea or design (C11)' was found to increase significantly (F p < .05) as the design process moved from low to high bandwidth (see Figure 8.2).
Bales Interaction Process Analysis
Agrees
Gives Suggestion
Asks for Suggestion
Systemic Functional Linguistics
Exchange Structure Analysis
- Total units of information exchanged
- Synoptic and dynamic moves
- Synoptic moves: giving and receiving information
- Synoptic Moves: Exchanging action
- Requesting versus providing action
- Dynamic moves: Tracking and challenging moves
- Active repair of meaning versus feedback
- Naming and exclaiming moves
The frequency of dynamic movements was greater in the F2F table and group conditions than in the 3D session (Figure 8.5). There was a significant effect of condition in this category (p = 0.15), with the F2F condition generating the least and the WB the most (Figure 8.12).
Politeness Markers
- Politeness marker categories
Results for the G-SICT Questionnaire
Third, analysis of the exchange structure revealed a trend toward a significant amount of information exchanged, with the F2F and WB settings exchanging more than the 3D condition. There was a trend towards the importance of the influence of different settings on dynamic moves.
Generic Skills/Observable Behaviours
Shared Situational Awareness
For politeness markers, there was no significant effect of condition although a higher incidence was observed in the F2F setting.
Decision Making
Further Conclusions
Bales’s Interaction Process Analysis
Agrees
Gives Suggestion
Asks for Suggestion
Systemic Functional Linguistics
Exchange Structure Analysis
- Total units of information exchanged
- Synoptic and dynamic moves
- Synoptic moves: giving or receiving information
- Synoptic Moves: Exchanging action
- Dynamic moves: Tracking and challenging moves
- Active repair of meaning versus feedback
- Naming and exclaiming moves
Fewer challenging moves occurred in the two virtual conditions; this may indicate that team members may have felt more. The relatively low incidence of both types of dynamic movements in the 3D condition may seem surprising.
Politeness Markers
The use of these terms may indicate the casualness or formality of the interaction, and in this study, informality (and thus the frequency of these terms) may increase as team members get to know each other better (i.e., in a virtual setting). Thus, to avoid miscommunication in virtual environments, group members may have found it more efficient and appropriate to use more direct.
Limitations
Using fewer politeness markers can also be a way to control the interaction (Togher and Hand, 1998). It is difficult to hypothesize how a combination of, for example, relatively limited skills in English, little experience with technology and the effects of the technology itself would affect generic skills or the interaction that occurs.
Recommendations
- Recommendations for Design Collaborators
- Shared Situational Awareness
- Decision Making
- Recommendations arising from SFL analysis
- Exchange of information
- Ease of information exchange
- Giving and receiving information and action
- Providing feedback
- Naming and exclaiming
- Recommendations for Design Team Management
- Recommendations for Educational Development
- Directions for Future Research
This can only be possible as the technology or the experience of the technology team members improves. This report describes differences in the use of generic skills as the virtuality of design collaboration increases.
List of Recommendations
Research (Klampfer et al. 2001) • Team members ask questions to investigate and/or clarify current action plans. Interpersonal Relationships Assertiveness (Klampfer et al. 2001) • Team members reported critical information and/or solutions with persistence.
Frequency Based Reliability Analysis
This appendix provides results for a reliability test conducted on the initial (version 1) generic skill coding scheme. The video data used were from a recording of personal design participation using a generic skill and interaction coding scheme.
Frequency/Sequence Based Reliability Analysis
Due to manpower limitations, intra-rater reliability was sought to confirm that the coder was consistent in their coding and that codes were adequately defined. Two reliability analysis tests performed by Noldus Observer Pro ethnographic software were based on the frequency of coding strings and also on the frequency and order of the coding strings of two observations of the same video data.
Reliability Results: Initial Video Data Coding Scheme
However, upon investigation it was considered more appropriate as pilot data from which a coding system could be established.
Frequency Based Reliability Results: Initial Video Data Coding Scheme 160
Changes/Differences between Coding Schemes
Generic Skills Coding Scheme Changes
Speech Segment Changes
Reliability Results: Version 2 Initial Video Data Coding Scheme
Frequency Based Reliability Results: Version 2 Video Data Coding
Frequency/Sequence Based Reliability Results: Version 2 Video Data
The coding scheme was implemented for a full 30 minutes of a face-to-face video design session. The frequency-based reliability analysis revealed that the coding scheme produced a high percentage of agreement at 80% in Table 18.1.
Frequency/Sequence Based Reliability Results: Face-to-Face Video Data
This appendix contains the results of a reliability test performed on the FINAL generic skill coding scheme. This high percentage of agreement indicated that the coding scheme achieved a satisfactory level for intra-rater reliability.
