Towards a Dual-Level Framework to Describe Teamwork in Introductory Laboratories

Research on student teams in physics classes typically focuses on individual students in the teams or on the actions of the team as a single unit. Yet the ways that teams work together involve the coordination of both levels: to successfully complete a team assignment, individuals must organize so that all the tasks required for the success of the team are achieved while attending to their own needs and preferences. We propose that questions about how teams work together or what makes certain teams more effective may be best answered by considering both levels. Our work uses several case studies of triads working on introductory laboratory activities to establish a dual-level framework to characterize the ways effective teams function. Using evidence from video observations of groups and from individual interviews, we will show how effective teams switch back and forth between cooperative and collaborative states, highlight variations of group and individual processes within each of those states across different teams, and explore the ways that students talk about their own negotiation between these levels.