Emurian_2011abstr

Behavior Analysis Of Team Performance:

A Case Study Of Membership Replacement

Henry H. Emurian

UMBC Baltimore, Maryland emurian@umbc.edu

Kip Canfield

UMBC Baltimore, Maryland

Joseph V. Brady

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, Maryland

Presented at the Annual Convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, Denver, CO, May 27-31, 2011.

ABSTRACT

A three-person team performance task (TPT) is described, and evaluative results are presented under conditions of individual fixed ratios required to complete a work component and a team fixed ratio required to complete a work component. After an initial team performed the task over four successive days, a member was replaced with a novitiate, and the newly formed team performed the task over four successive days thereafter. The results showed differences in performance metrics between the individual and team ratio conditions and between the original and the reformed teams. When communications among team members were permitted at the start of the last two sessions of the study, individual contributions by the three members to the team ratio requirement were equivalent during the final session. The results show the sensitivity of the task to individual and team performance requirements and to membership replacement. They also show the impact of tactical decision making on work distributions. The range of outcomes suggests the utility of this type of task to assess the status of a team and to act as a potential countermeasure to team fragmentation during long-duration missions beyond Earth orbit, such as a mission to Mars.

Keywords: Team performance, crew cohesion, behavioral health