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<Paper uid="P80-1020">
  <Title>THE PROCESS OF COMMUNICATION IN FACE TO FACE VS. COMPUTERIZED CONFERENCES; A CONTROTT.~n EXPERIMENT USING BALES INTERACTION PROCESS ANALYSIS</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
INTRODUCTION
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> A computerized conference (CC) is a form of co~znunication in which participants type into and read frc~ a computer terminal. The participants may be on line at the same time--termed a &amp;quot;synchrononous&amp;quot; conference, or may interact anynchronous~. The conversation is stored and mediated by the computer.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> How does this form of communication change the process and outcome of group discussions, as compared to the &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; face to face (FtF) medium of group discussion, where participants communicate by talking, listening and observing non-verbal behavior, and where there is no lag between the sending and receipt of communication signals? This paper briefly ~*mmarizes the resUltS of a controlled laboratory experiment designed to quantif~ the manner in which conversation and group decision making varies between FtF and CC. Those who wish more detail are referred to the literature review which served as the basis for the design of the experiment (Hiltz, 1975) and to the full technical report on the results (Hiltz, Johnson, Aronovitch, and Turoff, 1980).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> This paper is excerpted from a longer paper on the analysis of communications process in the two media and their correlates (Hiltz, Johnson and Rabke, 198Q).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> 0v~vIEw OF mm z~na~T The chief independent variable of interest is the impact of computerized conferencing an a c~unications mode upon the process and outcome of group decision making, as compared to face-to-face discussions. Two different types of tasks were chosen, and group size was set at five persons. The subjects were Upsala College undergraduate, graduate and continuing education students. The communications process or profile was quantified using Bales Interaction process Analysis (see Bales, 1950).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> In computerized conferenclng, each participant is physically alone with a c~mputer terminal attached to a telephone. In order to communicate, he or she types entries into the terminal and reads entries sent by the other participants, rather than speaking and listening.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Entering input and res~ttug output may be done totally at the pace end time chosen b~ each individual. Conceivably, for instance, all group members could be entering comments simultaneously. Receipt of messages from others is at the terminal print speed of 30 characters per second.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> Even when all five participants are on-line at the s~me time, there is considerable lag in a computer conference between the time a discussant types in a co~ent, and when a response to that comment is received.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> First, each of the other participants must finish what they are typing at the time; then they read the waiting item; then they may type in a response; then the author of the original cou~ent must finish his or her typing of a subsequent item and print and read the response. There is thus a definite &amp;quot;asynchronous&amp;quot; quality even to &amp;quot;synchronous&amp;quot; computer conferences. As a result, computer conferences often develop several simultaneous threads of discussion that are being discussed concurrently, whereas face to face discussions tend to focus oD one single topic at a time and then move on to subsequent topics. (See Hiltz and Turoff, 1978, for a complete description of CC as a mode of cummunicatlon).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> A variable of secondary Interest is problem type. Much experimental literature indicates that the nature Of the problem has a great deal to do with grou~ performance. One type of problem that we used is the human relations case as developed by Bales. These are medium complex, unsettled problems that have no specific &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot; answer. The second type was a &amp;quot;scientific&amp;quot; ~-anklng problem ( requiring no specific expertise ), which has a single correct solution plus measurable degrees of bow nearly correct a groupts answer may be.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> The ranking problem, &amp;quot;Lost in the Arctic&amp;quot;, was adapted for ~-~etration over a conferencing system by permission of its originators (See Eady and Lafferty).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> The experiments thus had a 2 x 2 factorial design (see figure one). The factors were mode of communication (face-to-face vs. camputerlzed conference) and problem type (human relations vs. a more &amp;quot;scientific&amp;quot; ranking problem with a correct answer). These factors constituted the &amp;quot;independent variables.&amp;quot; Each problemmode condition included a total of eight groups.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> Figure 1</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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