Abstract
Prior work on videoconferencing shows that various design changes can have profound impacts on group dynamics. In order to further explore the available design space, we report on a qualitative study that compares behaviour of groups in two group-to-group videoconferencing environments and face-to-face communication during a complex social dilemma game. There are pronounced differences in participant behaviour between the two videoconferencing designs, indicating higher cooperative behaviour in one of the videoconferencing conditions. Based on qualitative analysis of the gameplay, we hypothesise that the decisive factor is a discrepancy in the type of group identity that develops during the game. Our results suggest that the differences in behaviour are due to differences in design of the two videoconferencing environments. In particular, the incorporation of personal displays and individualised videostreams likely contributed to these outcomes.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, more than half of our groups played a second round of the game “just for fun”.
- 2.
Initially, we have also looked at the amount of technical coordination connected to the game application used, social talk such as jokes or other remarks that were not directly connected to the game, and other similar concepts; however, none of these features differed substantially among the environments.
- 3.
Only one SVE group (SVE-6) had a similar idea suggested by a participant during gameplay, but was dismissed immediately. Actually, it was understood as a very good joke by the others: “< laughing > you mean that I’ll get the two chocolates for being the winner, and get even more from you? Yeah, I’d definitely take that.”
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Acknowledgments
We thank the participants in our study. We are also especially grateful to our technical team, in particular Milan Kabát and Lukáš Ručka, who made sure that the videoconferencing systems ran smoothly during the tests.
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Slovák, P., Novák, P., Troubil, P., Rusňák, V., Holub, P., Hofer, E.C. (2012). Exploring Collaboration in Group-to-Group Videoconferencing. In: Dugdale, J., Masclet, C., Grasso, M., Boujut, JF., Hassanaly, P. (eds) From Research to Practice in the Design of Cooperative Systems: Results and Open Challenges. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4093-1_16
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