“Hurry up and do some work” – an exploration of teasing to address norm violations in student group work

Hendry, G (Gillian)
University of the West of Scotland, School of Media, Culture and Society, Room L244, Elles Building East, PA1 2BE, Paisley

 

Submission type

Poster only

Scheduled

Poster Sessions 1 (15:15-15:45), 25-09-2019, 15:15 - 15:45

Keywords

student group interaction, PBL, teasing, norms, social psychology

Summary

Teasing is a difficult concept to define: what one person may regard as playful goading, another may treat as insulting or bullying, and as such, there is no universal agreement as to what it is. Research, therefore, tends to focus more so on its impact: when it is studied ‘in situ’, we learn more about its functions in interaction. The current paper demonstrates how teasing can be used to address student group norm violations, detailing instances where group members have done too much or too little work than what was expected. Data come from a corpus of 85 hours of naturally-occurring student group interactions from two UK HE institutions, analysed using discursive psychology and conversation analysis, where groups were engaged in problem-based learning (PBL). As a student-led approach to learning and teaching, in PBL often there is no tutor present, and so groups have to themselves manage issues like accountability for completing work. Teasing as a way of addressing norm violations is not a new finding, but when applied to the student group environment, we can obtain an insight into a number of the processes that underpin group learning such as social loafing, social compensation and group cohesion.

Auteurs