Groupand Individual Training

Abstract

Recent reviews suggest that the effectiveness of various training methods are contingent on team and individual competencies, task requirements, andfeatures of the work environment (Baldwin & Ford, 1988; Cannon-Bowers, Tannenbaum, Salas, & Volpe, 1995). Two experiments compared the effects oftaskpractice--as either individuals or in groups-on subsequent group and individual perfonnance on a complex cognitive task. Experiment I examined the effects of task practice on group performance, whereas Experiment 2 examined the effects of task practice on individual performance. In both studies, sets offour persons worked as individuals or in groups on two practice problems before theirfinal performance on a third problem. In general, the more members practiced as a group, the better they performed as a group. However, practicing individually or in groups did not have a significant effect on individual performance. Future research should address whether these findings are generalizable across training methods, tasks, types of groups, and work environments.