EFFECTS OF TASK STRUCTURE ON GROUP PROBLEM SOLVING
Gbemisola Abimbola · UWSpace (University of Waterloo) · 2006
I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii This thesis investigates the effect of problem structure on performance and behavioural variety in group problem solving. In addition, it examines the effects of problem solving strategy in group problem solving. Previous researchers have focused their efforts on individual problem solving with minimal reference to groups. This is due to difficulties such as the presence of distributed information, the coordination of people and the large scale of work that typified group problems. Specifically, the effect of problem structure in group problems has been rarely studied due to the absence of an encompassing theory. In this thesis, the effect of problem structure on group performance is studied using the fundamental characteristics of structure such as detour, redundancy, abstraction and