Exploring the antecedents of team performance in collaborative learning of computer software

As teamwork becomes common in computer software learning, there is an increasing need to study factors contributing to team performance. To this pursuit, the concept of collective efficacy offers great potential to researchers of information systems (IS). Drawing upon social cognitive theory (SCT), this study examines the relationships among computer collective efficacy (CCE), outcome expectations and team performance in the context of collaborative learning. Computer collective efficacy is further divided into two constructs, general CCE and specific CCE. Their causal relationships with two other constructs, performance and outcome expectations, are then investigated using longitudinal data collected from 188 groups of students of an 18-week computer software course. The results indicate that a team's software learning performance is strongly influenced by specific CCE and outcome expectations, which in turn are influenced by prior performance and general CCE. Finally, prior performance of a group has no direct impact on its subsequent performance. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.