Less is More: Analysing Communication in Teams of Strangers

Date
2021-01-05
Authors
Tan, Evelyn
Wade, Alex
Kokkinakis, Athanasios
Heyes , Georgia
Demediuk, Simon
Drachen, Anders
Contributor
Advisor
Department
Instructor
Depositor
Speaker
Researcher
Consultant
Interviewer
Annotator
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Volume
Number/Issue
Starting Page
2853
Ending Page
Alternative Title
Abstract
Teamwork is challenging in cooperative digital games, especially between strangers. In many online cooperative games, teams have a short-lived existence and ever-changing membership. Our study explores how short-lived ad hoc teams of strangers communicate and investigate its effect on team performance. We analysed 2256 text message instances produced by teams during a 45-minute interaction. Our findings show that team communication is negatively related to performance, and affects performance over and beyond prior experience. A content analysis shows that teams generally have higher task-related communication than socio-emotional communication. This pattern is consistent throughout the duration of the interaction period. The results are discussed in the context of previous research on team communication and performance, and we draw parallels with communication patterns in real-world groups such as aviation crews.
Description
Keywords
Games and Gaming, social play, team-based digital games, team communication, team dynamics
Citation
Extent
10 pages
Format
Geographic Location
Time Period
Related To
Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Table of Contents
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Rights Holder
Local Contexts
Collections
Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.