Foreword...
This essay is spurred by an opportunity that I had this year to mentor three research teams in the RCHS Biotechnology Experimental Design Class, due to my participation in the program in my junior year of high school. During the process of mentoring, I was able to observe the three different team dynamics and catalogue the healthy and unhealthy habits that each team created during their time as co-researchers. The following essay is an argument for the creation of check-in based, bias-prevention teamwork grades that control for controlling and abusive habits that impact team members' motivation and passion for research sciences.
An Argument for the Importance of Teamwork Grades: Adverse Behavior Reduction
The RCHS Biotechnology Experimental Design class, a class that I was honored to be a part of in the 2020-2021 school year, conducts research on a team basis. Each team consists of 3-4 individuals that collaborate on a single research question for approximately 9 months to conduct research and produce a professional research paper on their findings. The class includes a loosely-defined three-pillar curriculum that aims to develop skills in the following areas: Experimental Design/Lab Skills, the Academic Presentation of Information, and Professional Collaboration/Teamwork. Each pillar corresponds to a different facet of the professional research landscape—it can also be argued that each is relatively equal in importance. However, the current grade evaluation system that the Experimental Design class employs lacks the reflection of the importance of professional teamwork/collaboration skills. The following evidence-based essay uses a case study from a RCHS Biotechnology Experimental Design group as well as supplementary research to argue for the implementation of a new grading category in the Experimental Design class that revolves around the development of teamwork skills. This would function as a negative reinforcement mechanism to promote productive teamwork behaviors and reduce adverse behaviors that have been consistently observed in the class.
Context-Defining Adverse Behavior and the Case Study
Adverse behavior will be used to represent any of the following behaviors: Lack of communication, lack of task completion relative to other team members, lack of respect for other team members/mentors, damaging lack of professionalism with other team members/mentors, low-level verbal abuse, low-level emotional abuse, bullying behaviors, overly controlling behaviors, and any behavior that reduces the productivity, emotional well-being, or satisfaction of the team in a significant way.
The Experimental Design group described in this case study is not the only case of adverse behaviors developing among teammates, with adverse behaviors having appeared in both years that the class has been observed. However, this group has the largest amount of evidence for adverse behavior and the highest severity of adverse behavior observed. The Experimental Design group, whose names will remain anonymous, had the following characteristics. Team members A and B were the perpetrators of the adverse behavior, and team member C was the receiver of the adverse behavior. The two Biotechnology Capstone class mentors will be classified as mentor A (female) and mentor B (male). Team members A, B, and C were part of an external peer group prior to the Experimental Design class. The adverse behavior began in November, 2021, and consisted of external communication about team member C between team members A and B, a consistent lack of proper communication between team members A/B and C, and the dismissal of ideas from team member C (controlling behavior). Team member C began dating mentor B during December, 2021, immediately after which mentor B's influence was diluted significantly due to the standard procedure of bias elimination. From that point on, the adverse behavior escalated to small-scale verbal attacks on team member C and the shifting of workload percentages towards team member C. In late February, mentor A identified a pattern of behavior by team members A and B towards C that they characterized as "borderline bullying". Mentor B supplemented mentor A's hypothesis with additional evidence of the emotional impacts on team member C due to adverse behavior, and mentor A suggested a conversation with the Experimental Design teacher might be necessary. The Experimental Design teacher suggested a mediated conversation between team members A, B, and C by mentors A and B could help resolve some of the teamwork issues that were occurring. Mentor A pulled out each team member individually to talk to them about what they were experiencing in the order of A, C, and B. During the 15 minute conversation between mentor A and team member C, team members A and B discussed their stance among themselves. During the mediated conversation that took place shortly after, team members A and B denied allegations of adverse behavior and questioned the bias and motives of mentor B. After mentors A and B left for lunch hour, team members A and B appeared to cause emotional distress to team member C, as denoted by symptoms consistent with emotional distress (crying, self-soothing behaviors, etc.). At team members A and B's request, mentor B was then removed as a mentor from the team. Team members A and B's adverse behavior escalated after this attempted intervention. In addition to the continuation of the adverse behaviors described above, team members A and B began to engage in the following behaviors: rumor-spreading, frequent verbal harassment, a near-total lack of professional communication, a lack of work participation, problem fabrication, and secretive work submission. This behavior continued to the present day.
The following risk factors contributed to team member C being susceptible to the adverse behavior by team members A and B: low mentor and teacher involvement, low self-esteem from team member C, low self-advocacy skills from team member C, external relationships between team members A, B, and C, and external relationships between team member A and mentor A, in addition to team member C and mentor B. The mere presence of low-level adverse behavior between teammates is not an unexpected occurrence, and occurred in some capacity with at least one other group during the 2021-2022 school year without impacting teamwork or emotional health. The escalation, frequency, and length of the adverse behavior observed between team members A, B, and C were the main reasons for team member C's emotional distress. The lack of a standard, emphasized procedure for dealing with adverse behavior helped contribute to all three of these factors. It is worthy of note that the lack of teacher involvement within the groups only became problematic when Mentor A and B's roles became diluted throughout the year—Mentor A's influence was toned down for unknown reasons (hypothesis: other classwork), and Mentor B's role was removed through allegations of bias. The existence of adverse behavior, when taken to the extreme as in this case study, impacts the motivation, productivity, and mental health of the target(s).
Impacts of Adverse Behavior
Low-level verbal and emotional aggression in the school impacts three major markers of successful work—motivation, productivity, and mental health. Concerning motivation, it has been documented that emotional exhaustion is a key predictor of burnout (a condition in which motivation and emotional resilience related to a specific task both drop significantly). Receivers of such aggression frequently endure words and actions that cause the emotions of fear and anger, in addition to significantly increasing anxiety (Grandey et al., 2007). The psychological arousal caused by the continual induction of fear and anger without resolution is the pathway by which aggression-specific adverse behavior contributes to the burnout described above. It has also been documented that peer/coworker aggression contributes to severely lowered work satisfaction. Long-term aggression sourced from peers and coworkers has a much stronger impact than single incidents. These factors all contribute to the slow loss of motivation by the receiver—motivation to continue working, and motivation to try to fight the adverse behavior (Merecz et al., 2009). This was observed in team member C in April, when they were questioning whether or not they wanted to continue in the research path based solely on the fact that team members A and B would be present in the higher levels of the research pathway. Concerning productivity, the literature states that adverse behavior by peers in workplace/school environments are key predictors of lowered job performance and productivity, once again due to the component of burnout that comes with the emotional exhaustion developed by the receiver (Anjum et al., 2018). Organization support of the receiver and incentivizing the reduction of adverse behavior are strategies associated with the reestablishment of project success, but a lack of those installments threatens the timelines and conclusions of long-term workplace/school projects (Wang et al., 2020). This once again was observed with the stalling of research progress in March with a lack of additional problem-solving research, during one of the peaks of adverse behavior (directly after the mediated conversation). Lastly, concerning mental health impacts, burnout is once again the most prevalent impact of continual peer harassment on projects (Wang et al., 2020). Burnout impacts all areas of a person's life, decreasing motivation in other classes as well as the class containing the project. A pattern of decreased motivation and increased stress related to school performance characterized team member C's actions for most of March and April, severely increasing the prevalence of emotional distress to the point of parental concern.
Other types of non-aggressive/passive-aggressive adverse behavior also have an impact on team productivity and performance. A lack of communication between team members fosters an environment of disharmony, leading to unnecessary tasks being completed, necessary tasks being forgotten, and team member animosity. A lack of task completion relative to other team members has the obvious effect of stalling team progress and fostering anger towards team members perceived to be slacking off. A lack of respect for other team members/mentors slowly erodes the interpersonal relationships within the team and with their support systems, causing a lack of support that lowers the quality of work. A damaging lack of professionalism with other team members/mentors has a similar effect. Lastly, overly controlling behaviors lead to the stunted development of critical skills in other team members, reducing the impact of the class on other areas of team members’ lives. Solvable adverse behavior that impacts motivation, productivity, emotional well-being, and inhibits learning has no place in the Biotechnology Department.
Recommended Solution
The following changes to the grade evaluation system in Experimental Design are recommendations for the beginning of a low-level adverse behavior prevention incentive program in the Experimental Design class. Currently, the scope of teamwork-based grading is limited to a communication grade, which is mostly based on the communication of team members between their mentors/teacher. The evident reasoning behind the lack of a teamwork-based grade evaluation is the problematic system of evaluating teamwork skills within groups—currently, all issues with teamwork stop at the year three mentors. Team members who are receiving adverse behavior are also less likely to speak out against behavior more than once—in the case of team member C, the initial accusation of adverse behavior yielded no positive results with team members A and B, increasing the level of adverse behavior and discouraging future attempts of self-advocacy. The following outline below is an attempt to come up with an unbiased system for reporting teamwork efficacy through year-three mentors and evidence-based negative reinforcement.
The proposed system needs to have a significant enough impact on the grade of individual team members to incentivize the termination of adverse behavior. It is suggested that the teamwork grade be worth 30% of the overall class grade, as that percentage would severely impact a student's grade if it dropped below 70%. It is also suggested that individuals get one grade per quarter, as that will allow enough time for chronic behavior problems to drop the grade significantly enough to provide the correct magnitude of incentive.
The proposed methodology goes as follows. Each individual in the class starts out with 100 points in their teamwork grade (out of the maximum of 100). Correct behavior is not rewarded by adding points, but adverse behavior will be disincentivized through the removal of points for every incident of adverse behavior. This is called a variable interval reinforcement schedule, and it is proven to be the most effective method for promoting certain behaviors through a process called operant conditioning. The amount of points that are removed for each adverse incident would be determined by the teacher—however, those scales need to be in place before the beginning of the school year. This allows the teacher to share the scales for evaluating teamwork skills with all individuals in the class—a critical step for allowing individual students to identify and correct for already present adverse behavior patterns. This also functions to reduce the potential bias of year-three mentors and the teacher.
The system of evaluating the prevalence and occurrence of adverse behavior is proposed to be the following. 3-4 year-three mentors with minimal prior connections to the team members they are evaluating would be chosen to represent a team member from each group. No year-three would be evaluating two people from the same group, in order to reduce bias. On a bi-weekly basis, team members would report any adverse behavior problems to their assigned year-three mentor, as well as the severity of the issue. In order to reduce hyperbole, team members would be asked to produce evidence (if there is written evidence) of the allegation to account for the potential presence of false allegations in instances of severe adverse behavior. Once these adverse behaviors are documented and verified, the year three mentors would curate a quarter report for each of their team members and send it to the teacher for the grade evaluation. This system is meant to increase the self-advocacy of each team member in the Experimental Design class through the system of an assigned advocate. Additionally, this system allows for the individual students to observe and account for adverse behavior in their teammates, potentially increasing the likelihood that they themselves will recognize adverse behavior in their actions and correct for it.
Additionally, I recommend that in cases of sustained, unrelenting, severe cases of adverse behavior against team members, the team member(s) responsible for such behavior be disallowed from further continuation in the Biotechnology Program. This is the last ditch incentive to try to curb the behavior of individuals whose teamwork skills are so damaging to the people around them that in the event that they continue in the biotechnology program, it might prevent the affected team members from continuing in the Biotechnology Program on the grounds of emotional distress.
Conclusion
On the basis of the case study of team members A, B, and C, in addition to the supplementary research on the effects of adverse behavior in group projects, it is recommended that a check-in based, bias-prevention teamwork grades be implemented to control for controlling and abusive habits that impact team members' motivation and passion for research sciences.
Citations
Anjum, A., Ming, X., Siddiqi, A., & Rasool, S. (2018). An empirical study analyzing job productivity in toxic workplace environments. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(5), 1035. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15051035
Grandey, A. A., Kern, J. H., & Frone, M. R. (2007). Verbal abuse from outsiders versus insiders: Comparing frequency, impact on emotional exhaustion, and the role of emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12(1), 63–79. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.12.1.63
Merecz, D., Drabek, M., & Mościcka, A. (2009). Aggression at the workplace — psychological consequences of abusive encounters with coworkers and clients. International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health, 22(3). https://doi.org/10.2478/v10001-009-0027-2
Wang, Z., Zaman, S., Rasool, S. F., Zaman, Q., & Amin, A. (2020). Exploring the relationships between a toxic workplace environment, workplace stress, and project success with the moderating effect of organizational support: Empirical evidence from Pakistan. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, Volume 13, 1055–1067. https://doi.org/10.2147/rmhp.s256155
Bias Disclosure:
This argument essay was written by the specified mentor B (male), who is currently in a romantic relationship with the subject of the case study (team member C). Bias was partially controlled for through the independent verification of most allegations laid on team members A & B, through textual, visual, and auditory evidence. Rumor spreading was the only allegation backed solely by hearsay, from three other members of the Biotechnology Program. Bias through tone and omission of key evidence would have to be proven through the admission of more evidence unknown to mentor B.