Impact of Team Monitoring
· Effects if Supervisory Monitoring on Productivity and Quality of Performance (Brewer & Ridgway, 1998)
o Main findings:
§ If a subject is doing 2 tasks, the performance (in terms of quantity and sometimes quantity) of the monitored one improves but that of the non-monitored one decrease.
· Overall performance (both tasks) may decrease
§ The effect is even more pronounced if the monitoring explicitly emphasizes quantity
o Performance monitoring is a key element of supervisory process
§ Feedback (positive or negative) and remedial measures
o Effect of social facilitator (Guerin 93) (i.e. supervisory monitoring for short period of time, and comparison of the work when done alone or in the presence of a supervisor)
§ For simple well learnt task, performance goes up (or skilled performers)
§ For complex un-learnt task (or unskilled performers), performance goes down (Guerin 1993)
§ (this is called the dominant response emission)
o For electronic monitoring (continuous), or at least when the subjects believe that they’re being monitored, the same applies (Aiello & Kolb, Shao, Svec 95, 93)
o Important to distinguish between quantity (speed) and quality (accuracy) of the response.
o Mechanisms of effects of social facilitation (Guerin 93)
§ Mere presence
§ Evaluation apprehension
§ Objective self awareness
§ Self-presentation
§ Distraction/conflicts accounts
o Group monitoring vs. individual monitoring (Larson, Callahan 1990, Brewer 1995) found that if subjects are doing 2 tasks and monitored individually, ppl feel that their performances are being compared and the performance of the monitored task increases at the expense of the other one. This phenomena *does not* take place if the monitoring is at a group level
· Computerized performance monitoring systems: use and abuse (Irving, Higgins, & Safayeni, 1986)
Reference
Brewer, N., & Ridgway, T. (1998). Effects if Supervisory Monitoring on Productivity and Quality of Performance Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 4(3), 211-227.
Irving, R. H., Higgins, C. A., & Safayeni, F. R. (1986). Computerized performance monitoring systems: use and abuse. Commun. ACM, 29(8), 794-801.