Week 2 - Group Formation
Week 2 - Group Formation
This week was the chance to start thinking about which of my fellow peers would be the best to form a group with. From talking to previous Masters students, it seemed like this was going to be a long, arduous process of picking members and as mentioned at the beginning - I was feeling doubtful about the process. The two things I would mainly looking out for in the videos was a passion for their competancies (regardless of my limited knowledge of said competancies) and someone who is open to reflection and taking risks with their work.
Video Analysis
After watching each of the 2 minute videos, I tabulated the details of the comptancies, weaknesses and my first thoughts for each peer. Despite the small class, it's only respectful to anonoymise other peers. The bold bullet-points are points of interest that I discuss further below:
MBTI Psychological Profiling
One famous model that has been used to give individuals the tools to understand their own personality types and that of others is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
It is an indicator (not a test) of someone's behaviour and instead of looking at competencies (like Vygotsky's Zones), it looks at normal behaviour and identifies preferences through splitting all behaviours into eight dichotomies. It can be a good indicator to see whether a peer would work well within a certain group dynamic.
This theory does have some basic assumptions/flaws that are worth noting (Pittenger,2005):
- Preferences are not absolutes. Everyone uses all eight types in their daily lives and the model only shows a discrete result as opposed to a spectrum.
- Preferences are not abilities. It doesn't identify whether someone can or can't do something (Different to Vygotsky).
- All types have potential - There is no better or worse types. This supports my realisation last week in 'valuing everything, especially things that are least acceptable'.
- People are the best judges of their own type. In other words, I can make rough guesses as to where my peers might appear on the spectrum but it won't be as accurate as asking them directly to take the indicator.
- There are multiple versions of the indicator, some longer than others and many with different questions. Therefore, the indicator might reveal a different result if I was to use a different set of MBTI questions (Issue with Repeatability)
After selecting one online test at random - the results were in. The system identified my top 3 personality type matches. It's good that in this case, they don't discretly place your personality within box - instead a spectrum of potential types is shown.
To my surprise, after initial doubts of it feeling like an arduous Facebook scam, it actually matched up fairly well with my analysis of previous group collaboration situations. My ability in identifying potential in other people fits well with Teacher qualities and my musical creativity links well to the Inventor. Notice that Extrovert and Intuition are present in all my types.
The question now lies in whether the collaboration would benefit better with peers who have a similar personality type to myself or whether a more diverse range of personalities will fuse towards a more daring project (with a risk of clashing personalities to occur).
The Selection Process
Getting all of my peers to take the MTBI test would be a challenging task, so at my own risk, I used past interactions (through lectures and socially) to decide approximately where they would lie. Thinking back to previous collaborations, I seem to work well with extroverted characters - but not who have teacher qualities as well as myself (clashing of similar responsibilities). From my initial observations, I felt I was the only one who have those teacher qualities so that hopefully wouldn't be a problem in the context of this project. My thoughts above, with regards to looking for someone with passion for their competancies, potentially links with why I work well with extroverted characters - they have desire to openly share their passion with others.
Peer B and Peer E were removed from my selection due to their competancies not quite aligning to my vision of the project. In particular, with Peer E, their inability to submit a video on time in a low pressure time of the semester, was a cause of concern and was a risk not worth taking.
The bold competancies in the table above were of interest to me. Peer A and Peer C seemed to have a set of competancies that not only covered my potential interests in the video - but also seemed far enough from my comfort zone to make it a worth-while collaboration. I really appreciated Peer D's honesty in wanting to becoming less passive in the collaborative process but I felt that within the context of COVID, the orchestral writing that Peer D is usually writing might not best match the module's circumstances. I also felt that with my experiences within conducting, I did have some knowledge of writing for orchestral instruments should we need to and that it could be something I could develop on my own atomony within the project. The last thing I would want (especially with my 'Teacher' perspective') is for Peer D to be left out of the project and not being able to contribute something fruitful to the direction of the project.
I did have a concern that Peer C might be too technologically driven, with the type of language he was using in the video - potentially leading to a project that is entirely driven by himself if we were to take the electronic route. However, I felt that with Peer A's more accessible take on technology, this would then fuse a perfect balance of technical profiency and accessibility in the knowledge of musical electronics in the group.
To my surprise, it seemed like Peer A and Peer C were already talking about a potential collaboration together and they then approached me and asked if I could join the group. It was nice to know that they had a similar train of thought with me with regards to their initial visions - the only worry I had was if anyone from the rest of the cohort would approach me (I don't particuarly enjoy rejecting people's proposals for collaborating). Luckily, it seemed the other three peers formed a group together and I didn't get asked by any of them to form a group. A suprisingly pleasant result, with forming groups - compared to previous blood baths!
The Cultural Barrier
Despite the module leader encouraging a cross-over between cultures in the groups, a split did occur between the western and chinese culture in the cohort. Personally, I did have a feeling that this was going to happen before even the videos were going to play.
Gu (1992) explores the politeness principle in Chinese culture where he connects politeness with social moral norms. I'm not going to act as an expert within a culture that I havn't fully immersed myself in - but the study does seem to suggest that the culture is based upon modesty, agreement and sympathy - Sun (2017). Taking a highly stereotypical view - this can be seen as quite the opposite with western culture where we are told in education to share our skills to the world and to voice our opinions when disagreement might happen. This schism in cultural differences could have been a potential reason why peers from both cultures might have been reluctant to cross-collaborate. It would have likely led to some fascinating creative outcomes but I feel personally that it was mostly coincidental that this selection happened - due to the small numbers in our cohort.
References
Pittenger, D. (2005). Cautionary comments regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Consulting Psychology Journal Practice and Research, 57(3): 210-221. DOI: 10.1037/1065-9293.57.3.210
GU, Y. G. (1992). 礼貌、语用与文化 (Politeness, pragmatics and culture). Foreign Language and Research, (4).