Learning From Trainer Interventions in Small Groups

Abstract

Members of two unstructured small groups, serving as participants in one group and as observers in the other, rated all interventions by the trainer for contribution to their learning. Interventions were then grouped into conceptual dimensions and clusters according to a model developed by Kuriloff et al. (1984). Participants and observers had a similar learning profile, stressing the significance of the trainer as a teacher connecting conceptually ongoing group events to larger social and cultural phe nomena. Differences between the learning of participants and observers were found for clusters of interventions emphasizing trainer's authority, members'responsibility, and members' abstract (existential) versus concrete anxiety (about personal inade quacy and interpersonal intimacy). The unique contribution of the observational component in small group learning was particularly evident for highly "engaged" subjects, whose experience as participants was emotionally intense, inhibiting some potential learning attained by less engaged participants.