Team Performance in Real and Virtual Worlds: The Perceived Value of Second Life

Abstract

Various studies in the team cognition literature suggest the primacy of face-to-face interaction over various forms of electronically-mediated communication. Theories supporting distributed cognition and anchored perception indicate that select forms of communication media may create impoverished shared mental models that fail to transfer understanding across team members. Of particular interest in this study is the perceived value of a new virtual communication medium, Second Life, as compared to face-to-face or auditory teleconferencing in a team task. Team members perceived the face-to-face modality to better aid the team than Second Life or the auditory teleconferencing mode, yet the results show an experience-based bias toward face-to-face interaction. Team success was rated worst for the auditory condition. Discussion of these results are developed in terms of their impact on theory, practice, and applications. Additional data analyses are suggested that will yield in-depth understanding of Jasper team performance.