Running head: SOCIAL LOAFING IN GROUP DISCUSSION

Social Loafing in Group Discussion

Group is a combination of at least 2 or more people that are classified together.
During tutorial sessions, it is commonly seen that students were classified into groups by
their tutor. The aim of group work was to help students achieve a higher level of learning
than individual learning (Hiltz, Coppola, Rotter, & Turoff, 1999). In fact, group work
presents a set of problems for students (Becker & Dwyer, 1998). This phenomenon can be
explained by social loafing, which is the tendency to reduce individual effort when doing
group work (Williams & Karau, 1991).
In tutorial, the students discussed on the connection between social loafing and
perceived fairness. My group came out with the definition of perceived fairness as the
perception of an individual on a group members effort. The negative perception on other
group members efforts will decrease an individuals motivation and might produce social
loafing.
The second tutorial activity is the formation of a contract to ensure that social loafing
does not occur in group work. Firstly, my group suggested to clarify each members role
and responsibility. Next, an appropriate group size was recommended as large group size
increases the difficulty in assessing each individual's contribution to the group work.
Similarly, individual task visibility must be ensured. This is because decrease in visibility
of each member's effort will increase the likelihood to the engage in social loafing. Lastly,
penalties are suggested for uncooperative member. Comparatively, other groups came out
with presences of leader and strict punishments such as double-work or expel the social
loafing member from the group. During discussion, the tutor stressed on the realistic
function of each contract details of different groups.
In conclusion, I learned the relationship of social loafing and perceived fairness. I also
learned several methods to overcome social loafing in group work: (1) clarified roles and
responsibility, (2) limit group size, (3) individual task visibility and (4) penalty and
punishment.

SOCIAL LOAFING IN GROUP DISCUSSION

References
Becker, D., & Dwyer, M. (1998). The impact of student verbal/visual learning style
preference on implementing groupware in the classroom. Journal of Asynchronous
Learning Networks, 2(2), 61-69.
Hiltz, S.R., Coppola, N., Rotter, N., & Turoff, M. (1999). Measuring the importance of
collaborative learning for the effectiveness of ALN: A multi-measure, multi-method
approach. Journal of A synchronous Learning Networks, 4(2), 103-125.
Williams, K. D., & Karau, S. J. (1991). Social loafing and social compensation: the
effects of expectations of co-worker performance. Journal of personality and social
psychology, 61(4), 570.