Measuring group behaviour

Abstract

In the summer of 1971 I found myself on a London‐bound train wondering why on earth I had said goodbye to my wife in order to spend a week on a DES course in group teaching methods at the Polytechnic of Central London. Didn't I have a research project to attend to? And what about those lecture notes? Could I really afford this week of eating too much food and talking to people I would probably never meet again! On arrival my mind was firmly made up — I could not afford the time, but it was too late to do anything about it. The reception at PCL eased my conscience a little but my first impressions of some of the course members dampened my spirits yet further. Surely I can't put up with a week of their company! And when I looked at the programme my feelings were reinforced. Who on earth was this fellow Rackham, down to talk about measuring behaviour on the first day? I hoped he would be some uninspiring unknown who would further reinforce my rapidly solidifying attitudes against the course. But Monday was a very different day. From the moment Neil Rackham was introduced I experienced an awful guilty feeling, for I realised that what he was going to talk about was so relevant to my own work. More importantly, what he actually did talk about was relevant, too. All those points about factual scoring, tally marks, ratio analysis of behavioural items, observed frequencies — why, was I not trying to do the same thing with my DMS students? Were not my colleagues and I doing group type activities on residential courses, and were we not always meeting to discuss ways of observing group behaviour and feeding back the information?

Citation

BENNETT, R. (1973), "Measuring group behaviour", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 190-194. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb003308