Analyzing the Influence of Belbin’s Roles on the Quality of Collaborative Learning for the Study of Business Fundamentals

Abstract

This work uses Belbin’s balanced group theory to analyze whether the formation of teams improved the performance of 21 groups formed by the 149 students of an Introduction to Business class in a collaborative learning environment in Higher Education. The analysis is based on a comparison of two types of groups: balanced groups (according to Belbin’s role theory) and those that are not so balanced. The analysis techniques used to determine any significant differences in student grade scores were the student average comparison and the Chi homogeneity tests. The relevance of the different roles that students can acquire when forming work groups was derived from multiple regression in the exams and practices punctuations, and the relevance of each student role was determined by discriminant analysis. The results indicate that balanced groups facilitate greater homogeneity in group grades, improving the performance of the group overall.

Keywords

• Belbin roles
• team building
• performance
• collaborative learning
• higher education