IMPACT OF GENDER DIFFERENCE ON TEAM WORK

“PSYCHOLOGY”

IMPACT OF GENDER DIFFERENCE ON TEAMWORK

PREPARED BY

Sheikh M. Sikandar

Impact of gender differences on

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

Related research

Summary


LITERATURE REVIEW

RESEARCH METHODS

Conceptual framework

RESULT

CONCLUSION

DISCUSSION

Recommendation

Limitation of the study

REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION

Boys or girls- Who are better or smarter? This is a well known worldwide phenomena and controversy when it comes to gender that is better in comparison since the beginning of the creation. Many debates and researches have under taken to answer this question but in end no one can conclude this. When it comes to competition the enthusiasm of winning is its peak in both genders.

This study is based upon a real effort experiment to test “The Impact of gender differences on teamwork”. The main idea behind conducting the experiment is to find out that who can perform better in teamwork boys or girls. We studied the competition between the teams and where the team with the highest performance will win the gift hamper.

Background of study:


Defining teamwork

Teamwork is defined in Webster's New World Dictionary as "a joint action by a group of people, in which each person subordinates his or her individual interests and opinions to the unity and efficiency of the group."

Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. ~Henry Ford

The importance of teamwork is increasing globally because it increases the productivity and enhances the collaborative learning.

When designing the experiment we were of the view that boys better perform as a team and they are more efficient in performing tasks like to find the clues and solving such intelligence based hints as compare to girls. Although the performance of boys and girls team also depends on the type of task given to them and there are many other factors that are physical, intelligence, and some environmental factors also behind their success.

Reasons to choose the experiment type

We choose the game for finding the clues to test teamwork because of no. of reason. Firstly this activity requires the full concentration and it is easy to check the coordination between the team members as well. Secondly for performing this task each member had to put the real efforts because they were supposed to solve the clue at the spot and in short span. Furthermore it becomes easy to us to measure the output exactly without any biasness.

Introduction to experiment

The experiment is conducted in Bahria university Karachi campus in a classroom environment. For the experiment, teams consisting only of boys and teams consisting only of girls were formed. The teams are required to find out the different hidden clues in a class room in a short span of time as compare to their opponents to win the game and their performance is measured on the basis of timing and observation that although everyone is putting effort equally or not and their coordination in a team.

Related research:

A research is conducted on Gender Differences in Team Work and Team Competition by Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel and Dorothea Kubler to investigate the relevance of gender for the optimal composition of a team and whether the composition of a team affects the performance under different incentive schemes. For the experiment, teams consisting only of men, teams


consisting only of women and mixed teams consisting of men and women are formed. So in order to test this participants had to solve the memory based games in a short span of time which is 15mins, there were two incentives for them one is team competition and second is revenue sharing. The results shows that men solve more games than women thus we can say that the gender affects the performance of team and performance is dependent on the team composition. While the incentive scheme does not affect the individual performance however it is actually the competition between the teams that affect their performance.

Hypothesis:

A no of studies have conducted in different fields to evaluate the gender differences and their behavior, cooperation, competitiveness between them as well as performing the intelligence and memory based tasks.

This study explores the issue that how boys can better perform in a team and why girls can not perform better in such type of games and previous researches also showed that boys perform better so we design the experiment to investigate the reasons and main factors behind this issue. Our view is based on the personal experience and as well as on the previous studies. So we postulate the following hypothesis of the above stated experiment is:

H0: Performance of Boys As a Team Is Not Surpassing As Compared To Girls.

H1: Performance of Boys As a Team Is Surpassing As Compared To Girls.OBJECTIVES:

The objectives of this research study are as follows:

Evaluate the Gender Differences in Team Work and Team Competition To undertake the primary research on boys & girls at Bahria University in order to

analyse the effect of the gender differences on their teamwork To conclude the impact of gender in the successes of teamwork


LITERATURE REVIEW

Recent studies find that women are less competitive than men. This gender difference in competitiveness has been suggested as one possible explanation for why men occupy the majority of top positions in many sectors. According to Schrage (1999), the innate differences of men and women are due to some factors; those could be biological ones, or there is a kind of competitiveness between men and women.

The performance of men and women should not be different if they both are equally skillful and rewards are same for both the groups. However, it is observed that men perform better than women. Differences in performance between women and men depend on the specific task. Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel and Dorothea Kübler(2005) conducted an experiment in which memory task reveals a clear asymmetry in that men solve on average more games than women. According to Canaray and Dindia (2006) Researchers typically report that men are more likely to appear as leaders, to be directive and hierarchical, to dominate in groups by talking more and interrupting more. In contrast, women are found to be more expressive, sympathetic, facilitative, open, and cooperative than men, and to focus more on relationships and share more personally with others. From this explanation of the difference between men and women, it was clear that women convey their ideas and feelings and cooperate more than men who want to be the leaders and to direct.

In Nowell and Tinkler.s (1994) study of public good games, all-female groups are slightly more cooperative than all-male groups and mixed groups. In Niederle and Vesterlund (2005) there is no difference between the performance of men and women in a competitive environment, but when given the choice, women prefer not to compete.According to Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel and Dorothea Kübler(2005) female and male performance vary most in mixed teams, as men put in notably more effort than women. The data also point out that women perform best when competing in pure female teams against male teams whereas men perform best when women are present or in a competitive environment.

According to Dr Andrew J. Martin(2002) There are gender differences in achievement, engagement and motivation. Many of these show that boys perform more poorly than girls like in literacy, achievement, school completion, and motivation. There are, however, areas in which boys are not underperforming girls like in numeracy.


According to (Niederle and Vesterlund 2007) men compete more than what is best for them while women compete less and it has also been observed that women tend to prefer the non-competitive setting even when there is no gender gap in performance in the competitive setting.

According to Remy Melina (September 2011) Outside of group scenarios, the researchers noted that some differences between men and women surfaced. Men were found to be more cooperative with other men than women were during same-gender interactions. When interacting with the opposite gender, women were more cooperative than men, the analysis found.

Beverly Keyes Taylor wrote in an article, for men, teamwork generally means that each player on the team has specific talents or things that they are good at and together as a team they make up a whole. There generally is no switching around from one position to another and each person's duties are specific and exact and that person/team player can be counted on to do their specific duty to their best whereas for women, teamwork generally means all the people/team players share all of the responsibilities. Everyone usually works together on a more collaborative level and things are generally not as strict or rigid. Things generally flow, and people work harmoniously, helping one another and filling in wherever necessary.

COMPETITIVE

COOPERATION

DEDICATION

TEAMWORKBOYS


CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

From the above literature review we can conclude that teamwork is the outcome of dedication, coordination and skills and it is mostly found in boys as a team. It differs from team to team depending on its nature; whether it is of same-gender or opposite-gender. Many researchers conducted experiments to check the performance of boys when working as a team and at the same time performance of girls in a team. It is found in most of the related researches that boys can perform better when working in a team as compare to girls’ team. The reason which was mentioned as to why boys surpass girls is that they are more dedicated, enthusiastic and coordinated than girls. But again it depends on the nature of the task which can drive the motivation in an individual to perform it efficiently. Other variables also affect the teamwork; environment, nature of the task and rewards.

All-male teams were expected to perform more accurately than all-female teams. In general, all-male members performed more effectively than all-female teams on quantitative tasks (Wood, 1987) and are more task oriented (Jackson et al. 1995). While women are associated with higher social/facilitative skills, this task does not require agreement or negotiation. After reviewing the literature, we come up with the hypothesis that performance of boys as a team is surpassing as compared to girls.


RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In order to test for gender and incentive effects in an appropriate environment, participants worked on a real task they had to solve various memory based hints likewise the treasure hunt. We prepared various clues for the participants in which riddles were mentioned and they had to come up with the solution of it in order to reach to their next clue and likewise five clues were given to the participants within the time limits assigned to each group based on the fact the one who performs in the shortest span of time will be considered the winner of the game and will be rewarded. Each clue consists of a riddle and each team consists of 5 members but unfortunately girls were four which may have affected their performance.

As our hypothesis lies on the fact that boys are more efficient in performance of tasks in a team due to their skills, abilities and enthusiasm as compare to the girls, what we assumed was right boys were more effectively performing rather than girls. While conducting this experiment we had to pass through various difficulties.

Firstly no availability of rooms Permission issues Finally when the set up was done class started so we failed to conduct it the very first

time

The second time we were able to conduct the experiment successfully. As the experiment began first the girls were given the chance to perform, they tried their level best to get the answer to the questions that were mentioned in the form of clues but they lack a little bit of coordination and were not as much as active in comparison to the boys, what they lack was a sense of corporation among them and seemed to a bit lethargic may be because we conducted the experiment after the classes got over or may be due to any other reason. Another difficulty which we faced during selection of girls team was that since it was the off time many girls left and then we had to call girls from other section. May be this factor also affected the girls performance because they were unknown to each other so they didn’t had that level of corporation amongst them.

Now comes the turn for the boys they were very active during their performance and well coordinated. They scattered in the room immediately to find the clues and one by one quickly they found all the clues they just spend more time on the last clue because they weren’t


getting the hint correctly but then one of the boys identified that clue as well. As we are all aware of the fact that boys consists of more leadership qualities than girls so they showed those factors which we expected from the boys.

Each member of the boys team were finding their best possible way to find the clue and they all were very dedicated towards their task and a feeling of achieving success existed among them. The boys proved themselves and completed their task in less time as compare to the girls. Girls completed their task in 14 mins where as the boys in 7 mins approx so as our hypothesis proved to be true. Ultimately boys were the winners.


RESULT

This part of the research study includes discussions on the experiment in context of the literature review. These findings and analyses services grounds for answering the research question and future recommendations.

The findings of our research study reveal that boys are more intellectual in problem in problem solving and prompt decisions. Several experiments have been conducted which resulted the same that boys are quicker than girls in intellectual competitions like riddles and puzzle solving. Another empirical research by Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel and Dorothea Kübler(2005) also reveals that memory task reveals a clear asymmetry in that men solve on average more games than women. Our objective was to determine the gender’s impact on team, research study shows that boys are more elegant and enthusiastic in teams as they have general tendency to articulate and perform well in groups and teams. They combine their different skills to complete task therefore they are more successful in work that are divided. Moreover the quality of being dominant over others is somehow innate in boys. They like to rule the game and show leading behavior over others to prove their involvement and affirm to be the figurehead to get the maximum reward. This might be due to some natural factors. According to Schrage (1999), the innate differences of men and women are due to some factors; those could be biological ones, or there is a kind of competitiveness between men and women.


CONCLUSION

The final chapter of this research study concludes the findings of the research and discuss about the attainment of aim explained in the discussion of the research and how three set objectives have been achieved to reach the conclusion of the research. All three objectives are elaborated in this conclusion under separate headings.

The evaluation of the research is to project the details about various things that have been dealt by the researcher while beginning research. This research experiment has its limitation as it is based on observation and high generalizability and the findings are only limited to current experiment. This last part can assist other researchers to carry out research in more depth.

Objective 1:

Evaluate the Gender Differences in Team Work and Team Competition

There are various types of impacts that are prevailing in the team as identified by Carol (2009) as the researcher suggested out of 100% of boys 75% boys have a strong motivation to perform collectively whereas girls participants are more eager to work on individual basis. In our research the results are indicating that gender has an immense role while constituting or forming multi-gender teams. Furthermore, we have evident that boys are more vigorous and cooperative in teams and has strong urge to develop mutual trust and confidence therefore in their respective groups they are more adequate and rightly directed towards their respective goals. Cooper and Marshall (1976) also identified as the theory suggests that competence are core in team work and highly rely on different types of gender’s responsiveness.

According to Mike and Simpsons (2003) feminine and masculine performance differs especially in teams that are constituted on mixed grounds. Our findings have also considered both girls and boys for this research as important component to show the brightest aspect of gender based attitude on mixed grounds. Mike and Simpsons (2003) revealed that the data collected has the vital aspect of men performs at a better level than women and our findings are also alike to this. Though the findings of Radosveta are unlike our findings they have stressed on the part that women are more dynamic as compare to men in a team but our findings strongly suggest that boys are not static in team work.

Objective 2:To undertake the primary research on boys & girls at Bahria University in order to

analyse the effect of the gender differences on their teamwork


The primary research conducted at Bahria University in order to analyze the effect of gender differences on their respective performances in team and we can conclude on the basis of our primary findings that there is strong impact of gender differences on the actual performance of teamwork. In our research we have closely examined that boys are more enthusiastic willing and competent and our findings are identical to Dr James J. Andrew (2001) There are gender differences in achievement, engagement and motivation. Many of these show that boys perform more collectively than girls like in works that requires combine efforts whereas girls are more competent in literacy, achievement, school completion, and motivation.

Objective 3:To conclude the impact of gender in the successes of teamwork

To conclude our research few of the supporting evidences are the previous empirical researches of scholars like Menzel, Leath and Folkman The theory of John and Menzel (1999) suggest that there are mainly two types of gender found in teams and they have varying capacity of performing their task particularly because of the physical structures, educational backgrounds and different experiences. Boys have shown more energy in task that required physical functioning and furthermore they are quicker in solving riddles and puzzles. The findings of Menzel are also similar that men are more actively participating in activities that require physical and mental abilities whereas women are not as quicker in solving problems as men in a group.

The work of leath (2002) and our findings are similar that in a combine group of boys and girls men are more dominating as compare to girls. Folkman (2004) has strongly argued that men are by nature dominating in groups whereas women are usually followers. We have also to some extent found that men are more active and dominating in group activities.

Though our findings suggest that boys are more cooperative and coordinate well in teamwork but this research is only limited to the class room of Bahria University, the results may differ and vary to some extent if conducted at another place or the sample size of the population is either changed or increased.


DISCUSSION

DISCUSSION BASED ON RESEARCH

For this research both the teams of opposite genders were provided with a same task to display their team efficiency, so that our hypothesis about boys can better perform than girls can be proved or disproved, however both teams didn’t respond in a similar manner, there were quiet differences in their ways of achieving their tasks. Following are the observations that were made.

OBSERVATION PRIOR TO THE EXPERIMENT

Following observations could be made before the experiment was started.

Initial response

The participants of both genders got to know that they were about to play a game just before the game was about to get started, when this news was revealed at that time girls showed a little hesitation whereas the boys got excited and were totally relaxed about whatever they were about to do, even when they didn’t knew what it was. Hence the initial confidence of boys was better than girls.

Revelation of the game

Both the teams were quiet excited when they got to know that the game they were about to play was an interesting game of finding the clues, teams of both genders were very much eager to play that game.

OBSERVATION DURING THE EXPERIMENT

During the experiment when it was high time for the participants to show their team work as it was instructed to them, following observations were found.

Performance of both the teams

The characteristics that turn out to be productive in making individuals work like a team includes good communication, active participation, commitment with the task, team members motivation level, therefore these characteristics were mainly observed while participants were performing their task. Following observations were made,


Communication level: We were expecting that as this game was based on solving the clues, some really good communication would be seen among the members of both the teams, but the resulting communication level was not so good from boy’s team, every individual was trying to think for the clues on its own rather than discussing with other team members. However, the girls did show some satisfactory communication, still there were some weak points in their communication as well.

Participation: As it was a team work based task, every individual was required to contribute in achieving the goal which was solving clues and show their presence in the team, members from both teams did participated well but there were some points in time when the enthusiasm of few participants was not up to the mark. Still for boys it was better as compared to girls, in girls team few of the participants did started actively but with time their activeness had gone and they failed to make their presence felt.

Commitment, It was clearly observed that boys were more committed to their task as compared to girls, boys did put in more efforts to achieve their desired goal as soon as they can. Girls also did show commitment to their tasks but their shyness made them lack behind, they were quiet hesitant at some points and even asked the experimenters for permission if they wanted to search for a clue somewhere, whereas boys didn’t bothered to ask for permissions. It was clearly observed that at that time all that the boys knew was that they have to finish the game as soon as possible.

Motivation level, Both the teams were themselves motivated in completing their tasks as they knew that they will only win if they managed to complete their task before the team of their opposite gender dose. But especially for girls the motivation level went down when they couldn’t manage to solve the clue sooner and rose again as they managed to finally solve the clue, for girls this story continues with all clues, whereas for boys, their motivation level was up throughout the game and it can be concluded that this was the reason that leaded them towards their success.

OBSERVATIONS AFTER THE EXPERIMENT

After the experiment, the winner team was not immediately revealed, although both the teams showed their curiousness in knowing that who was actually the winner, both the teams really appreciated what they had done and even praised the researchers for their efforts, but here also one thing was noticeable that even after the game had finished the motivation level of the boys was far better than girls and even before knowing the results they were very much confident about their success and even declared themselves as winners.


REVELATION OF RESULTS

When results were revealed and it was finally declared that boys have won the game which they were very confident about, a mixed feeling of joy, enthusiasm and excitement was observed from winner’s side which showed that not only did they knew how to play the game well but also had the ability to celebrate their success, the winners sooner got overjoyed when they were rewarded with that most awaited box of chocolates. However, girls on the other hand also took their failure very sportingly and congratulated the winning team wholeheartedly, yet a little disappointment was there from the girl’s side which was but natural.

DISCUSSION BASED RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BOTH THE GENDERS

From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, boys do posses all the qualities that turns out to make them more productive and high achievers yet they need to improve their communication skills to achieve the desired results in a better way. For girls, to achieve their desired success they just need to lift up their confidence level and the other points which they lack behind in will automatically be raised

DISCUSSION BASED ON RELATED RESEARCHES

From literature review, the first research tells us that the innate differences of men and women are due to some factors such as competitiveness between men and women and our research also shows that yes there does exists a sense of competitiveness between both the genders.

Some other statements from literature review that supports our result and discussion show results such as Men perform better than women but the difference in their performance depends on the specific task. Men can solve more games than women. Men are more likely to appear as leaders, to be directive and hierarchical to dominate in groups. Men put in notably more effort than women. Men were found to be more cooperative with other men than women were during same-gender interactions. Men compete more than what is best for them. These were some statements that supported men’s success, However there were some neutral statements as well that had their own view points in support for both the genders, some researches even specified certain areas for the achievements of both the genders. The statements from researches supporting only girls were quiet less than those supporting boys.


Following is the division of researches from literature review supporting boys, girls and those of neutral statements.

50%

30%

20%

Previous Researches in SupportBoys Girls Neutral

VALIDITY OF OUR RESEARCH

Validity in terms of previous researchesAs most of the previous researches that were conducted based on the topic of gender difference in achieving success showed that boys are more high achievers and successful than girls which is same as the outcome of our research so we can say that in terms of previous researches our research is valid.

Validity in terms of HypothesisOur initial hypothesis had clearly depicted that boys can perform better than girls and this statement rightly goes with our results, therefore this research is valid in terms of what it was suppose to measure.

LIMITATIONS OF THIS RESEARCH

While conducting this research and trying to achieve satisfactory results, there were certain limitations that somehow played their role in making our research not a perfect one and therefore cannot be neglected.

The very first limitation that we actually faced while conducting this experimental research was unavailability of our desired location. As for this experiment we had to make the participants play a game of clues, so the location that we had planned for this experiment was suppose to


be more spacious, having different options that may contribute in making the clues more tricky for the participants to judge but we were only allowed to conduct this experiment within our university premises and that also in our classrooms. If this research was conducted in a larger area then we would have been able to provide this research with better evidence of team work.

It is a fact that managing a team of more members is difficult than of managing the less, our desired members were around 6 to 7 for each team but we only managed to get a total of four participant to play as the members of their girls and boys teams respectively, this research would have come up with more accurate results if a larger no of members had participated.

Another limitation for this research was our limited availability of time to conduct experiment. As planned, this experiment required a lot of time dedication as some difficult yet interesting clues were to be decided and hidden into their respective places for the participants to figure them out; clear instructions were to be provided to the participants and then after these preparations the real game had to begun, therefore the total time planned for this experiment was approximately one and a half hour but due the prevailing circumstances, this experiment was actually conducted in about half an hour.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In future if related researches are to be conducted, following recommendations can be made to achieve satisfactory results, or perhaps if we had considered the following recommendations it would had been more beneficial for our research.

The experiment for the research should be a single blind experiment where the participants actually don’t know what is being expected from them; all they should know is that they have to play a game. In this way more natural results regarding their behaviour can be obtained.

As we are trying to measure gender based team management and their success, therefore, the sample size i.e. the no of members in each group should be in greater no so that the team management skills can be clearly observed.

The task provided for both the genders to achieve should be a bit conceptual but not too much physical to eliminate the interference of gender difference (i.e. boys can naturally perform physical tasks better than girls) as it would be quiet unjustified for the girls.


REFERENCES

Beverly Keyes Taylor. Gender Brain Chemistry - Teamwork is Different For Men and Women

Canaray & Dindia.(2006) Sex Differences and Similarities in Communication

Dr Andrew J. Martin(2002) Improving the educational outcomes of boys. AJ Martin Research

Niederle, M. and Vesterlund, L. (2005). Do women shy away from competition?

Mimeo.

Nowell, C. and Tinkler, S. (1994). The influence of gender on the provision of a public good.

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 25, 25-36.

Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel and Dorothea Kübler(2005) Courtesy and idleness: gender

differences in team work and team competition

Remy Melina (September 2011) Article: Men are team players, too. LiveScience Staff Writer

Shrage. (1999) Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man? Retrieved October 16, 2006, from

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IMPACT OF GENDER DIFFERENCE ON TEAM WORK