An unobtrusive approach to modelling team cohesion and collaboration in ecological classroom settings

Cohesion and collaboration, particularly in K-12 settings, emerge as emergent phenomena, yet due to challenges in conducting classroom analytics studies in ecological settings, existing research mainly focuses on surveys. This calls for investigating cohesion in ecological settings to obtain insights directly applicable to students. To derive ecologically valid insights into the emergent processes of cohesion and collaboration, this study analyses engagement, turn-taking, member influence and participation imbalance (using weighted eigenvector centrality) exhibited in audio of student conversations at both individual and group levels, which allows for inter-group and intra-group comparisons. Participants were 16 school (K-12) students. Participants were randomly divided into four groups. High-frequency communication exchanges were recorded for each group using an analog audio recorder. The audio was transcribed and analysed using an adaptation of Social Network Analysis with segmented nodes. Consistent with findings in educational and organisational psychology literature on teamwork, the results indicate that task cohesion relates to group performance in terms of task completion. We find that social cohesion patterns are dynamic and reflect evolving group dynamics through variations in turn-taking, influence, engagement and disengagement. The study offers a conceptualisation of cohesion in ecological settings and demonstrates an approach to analysing cohesion and collaboration using audio data in authentic classrooms. • Proxy indicators were devised to analyse cohesion during face-to-face collaboration. • Groups with high task cohesion performed highly on task completion. • Social cohesion did not show a clear association with task completion. • High task completion corresponded with dynamic leader behaviors.