Exploring the Performance Benefits of Group Training: Transactive Memory or Improved Communication?

Abstract

Several experiments (see Hollingshead, 1998a; Moreland, 1999) have shown that groups perform tasks better if their members are trained together rather than apart. The performance benefits of group training have been attributed to the development of transactive memory systems. This experiment tested whether such benefits are due instead to improved communication among group members. The results indicated that they are not. Groups whose members were trained apart, with no chance to communicate with one another, performed well after receiving information about one another's skills. Their performance was comparable to that of groups whose members were trained together, and both types of groups performed significantly better than did groups whose members were trained apart. The relationship between transactive memory and communication processes was discussed briefly, along with the prospect of using feedback about workers' skills to create transactive memory systems in large organizations as well as in small groups.