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Educational Psychology

ISSN: 0144-3410 (Print) 1469-5820 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cedp20

Social Loafing in a Co-operative Classroom Task

Adrian C. North , P. Alex Linley & David J. Hargreaves

To cite this article: Adrian C. North , P. Alex Linley & David J. Hargreaves (2000) Social Loafing in a Co-operative Classroom Task, Educational Psychology, 20:4, 389-392, DOI: 10.1080/01443410020016635

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410020016635

Published online: 01 Jul 2010.

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Educational Psychology, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2000

Social Loa® ng in a Co-operative Classroom Task

ADRIAN C. NORTH & P. ALEX LINLEY, School of Psychology, University of

Leicester, UK

DAVID J. HARGREAVES, Roehampton Institute, Digby Stuart College, London, UK

ABSTRACT Social loa® ng refers to the tendency for individuals to reduce their own personal

input when performing as part of group. This phenomenon may be problematic if it exists in

educational contexts, given a current emphasis on group collaborative classroom activities. The

present study investigated whether social loa® ng existed in a collaborative educational task,

employing groups of three and eight participants. The results indicated that individuals

working within the smaller groups were more productive than those working in larger groups,

consistent with the social loa® ng hypothesis. Future research should determine whether the

detrimental effects on students’ collaborative performance attributable to social loa® ng are

justi® able in terms of gains accrued in other (e.g. interpersonal) domains.

Social loa® ng refers to the tendency for individuals to progressively reduce their personal input to a collaborative task as group size increases. The concept has been employed in explanations of phenomena as diverse as the creative musical output of Lennon and McCartney (Jackson & Padgett, 1982) and competitive swimming perfor- mances (Everett et al., 1992). More generally, social loa® ng pervades several cultures (e.g. Gabrenya et al., 1983; but also Earley, 1989; Gabrenya et al., 1985), and has been demonstrated in a range of cognitive tasks (e.g. Pratarelli & McIntyre, 1994); be- havioural tasks (e.g. Anshel, 1995); and participant groups (e.g. Karau & Williams, 1993). Others, however, have argued that the effects of social loa® ng might be mitigated by social facilitation effects (see, e.g. Bartis et al., 1988; Harkins, 1987; Jackson & Williams, 1985), such that larger groups can sometimes perform at a higher level than do smaller groups.

Several explanations and interpretations of social loa® ng have been put forward. These include the withholding of effort because others are perceived as doing so also, such that one does not wish to be perceived as the ª suckerº (Robbins, 1995); lack of motivation owing to the low value one attaches to one’ s individual contribution

ISSN 0144-3410 print; ISSN 1469-5820 online/00/040389-04 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/01443410020016635

390 A. C. North et al.

(Shepperd, 1993); expectations of the performance of one’ s co-workers (Williams & Karau, 1991); reward incentives (Shepperd & Wright, 1989); and a diffusion of individual responsibility for subsequent outcomes (Weldon & Gargano, 1988).

The present study was designed to assess the potential impact of group size on social loa® ng in the context of an educational task. Current educational policy in the UK emphasises the importance of group collaboration as a means of (a) developing a variety of transferable interpersonal skills; and (b) assisting the development of less able students (see, e.g. Topping, 1992). The implications of social loa® ng for this policy are very real: an emphasis on collaborative exercises may well promote, for instance, interpersonal skills, but might also inspire social loa® ng on the part of individual group members. In short, the educational gains accrued through collaborative classroom activities may come at the expense of individual attainment on the speci® c task at hand.

Therefore, while debate may still continue regarding the existence of and precise mechanisms underlying social loa® ng, the phenomenon may have potential implica- tions for educational practice. The present study concerned these potential implica- tions. During the course of a timetabled lecture, university undergraduates were asked to engage in a collaborative word-generation task, which they were told was to illustrate a point to be made later in the lecture. Participants completed the task in groups of either three or eight, and it was predicted that individuals working in the smaller groups would generate more words per person than would individuals working in larger groups.

Method

Participants

One hundred and ten ® rst-year psychology undergraduates (55 males, 55 females) took part in the experiment. Their mean age was 19.24 years (SD 5 1.90 years). Participants were attending a compulsory lecture.

Design

Participants were assigned to either one of 10 groups consisting of eight people or one of 10 groups consisting of three people. Males and females were represented equally within each of these two situations, and sex distribution was also equal within each group of eight participants, mathematical impossibility precluding such a distribution within the groups of three.

Procedure

Upon arrival in a compulsory timetabled lecture, participants were arranged into groups of either three or eight. It was explained that this was so they could take part in a task that would illustrate an important point to be made later as part of the lecture. Participants were instructed that they had 15 minutes to generate as many words as possible which contained the letters T-O-N. Participants were informed that these letters had to occur in the order stated, but that other letters could be interspersed between them. Proper nouns were ineligible. The letters T-O-N were selected given the very large number of eligible words that participants could nominate. Participants were also advised that the illustrative utility of the task was in no way contingent upon the

Social Loa® ng in the Classroom 391

number of words generated. One participant in each group was responsible for keeping count of the number of words generated, but was also allowed to generate words. Participants were then instructed to retire from the lecture hall, and ® nd a location where they would be able to work together without disturbance: they were asked to begin their return journey to the lecture theatre precisely 15 minutes after beginning the task.

Results and Discussion

The mean number of words generated by each participant in each group was calculated as the total number of words produced by the group divided by the number of people in that group. These means indicated the productivity of individuals within each group. An independent t-test was then carried out to test for differences in these values between the groups of three participants and the groups of eight participants. The result of this was signi® cant [t (18) 5 7.27, p , 0.001]. The mean number of words produced by individual participants working in a group of three was 13.86 words (SD 5 2.62 words), and the corresponding value for individual participants working in groups of eight was 6.75 words (SD 5 1.64).

The results indicate the existence of social loa® ng in the larger groups of participants, offering support for the experimental hypothesis. On face value this seems to suggest that students should not be encouraged to participate in collaborative tasks in the classroom. However, the present results do not support this simplistic conclusion. Put simply, they suggest merely that there are disadvantages as well as advantages to classroom collaborative activities: they do not demonstrate that the detrimental effects on productivity attributable to social loa® ng are greater than the positive effects on students attributable to the development of e.g. interpersonal skills during the course of the task. Future research should also examine the extent to which the present results could be replicated following variations in (a) the type of task in which participants engage (e.g. cognitive, behavioural, or creative tasks); and (b) the size of the group in which the task is completed (since there may be optimum group sizes for different tasks). In conclusion, the present results indicate that social loa® ng does seem to occur in collaborative classroom activities, but future research should determine whether its detrimental effects on students’ performance are nevertheless worth incurring, and whether these effects obtain across a range of tasks and group sizes.

Correspondence: Adrian North, School of Psychology, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.

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