Evening Class! An Unintended Validation of Donald Roy’s Classic of Participant Observation, ‘Banana Time’
-Gauri Rege and Reginald Shepps
Here's an interesting read describing social interactions and group dynamics observed in a group of graduate students. Read on to find our more...
Abstract
Undertaken in the spirit and tradition of naturalistic research, this paper sets out to describe some interesting social interactions and dynamics observed within a group of graduate students in an academic setting. The authors note a close correspondence between the observations made in 'Evening Class' and those made in 'Banana Time' by Roy (1959), despite the observations having been made in entirely different settings. As such, 'Evening Class' provides material supporting and extending Donald Roy's original work. This paper hopes to contribute towards the validation and further development of psychological theory.
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In describing the social interactions observed in a moderate-sized group of graduate students, this paper draws an unexpected parallel to the observations made by Donald Roy (1959) about group dynamics. This paper was undertaken in the spirit and tradition of naturalistic research, participant observation and the observation and recording of critical incidents (Chell, 1998; Lewin, 1951; Roy, 1959) and qualitative studies (Cook and Campbell, 1979; Graziano and Rudin, 2007; Ritchie and Lewis, 2003; Webb, 1966).
Naturalistic studies are often criticized by behavioral scientists to be a type of research that is often difficult to replicate for a variety of reasons. This would apply to Roy’s case as few details on his exact observational methods were provided in ‘Banana Time’. Nevertheless the authors found in their observations what appeared to largely be a replication of Roy’s key observations about the dynamics of a small group working under potentially boring and monotonous conditions.
For those unfamiliar with Roy’s work, Donald Roy assigned himself to work as a participant- observer in a blue collar urban setting, a garment factory, that today some might be inclined to view as more or less a sweatshop. Roy made a now-classical set of small work group observations on the isolated blue collar group and their attempts to withstand the elements of boredom, monotony and repetition in their work. He described their highly visible rituals, ‘times’ and seemingly senseless games ritualized conversations functioned as a 'social maintenance' dynamic for the group.
The view today of Roy’s – and this – study approach can perhaps be summed up by saying that it presents quite a challenge to scientific replication. Thus, supporting the validity of this type of study is thought to be difficult at best, with mere ‘hypothesis generation’ as the best outcome to be hoped for. Thus the modern view in behavioral science heavily weighs numerous ‘threats to validity’ – ones well known to psychologists and other behavioral scientists. This is thought be particularly the case where field research procedures have not been described very carefully and explicitly.
Yet, social interaction patterns and ‘times’ that this participant-observer team noted appears to have been largely replicated through use of Roy’s basic technique of participant observation and the study of a small group in a live setting.
It is notable that the similarity in observations arose despite the observations being made some fifty years apart and in very different settings. Rather than the group of blue collar shift workers in 'Banana Time', the ‘Evening Class’ described below was composed of a group of white collar graduate students. The class setting consisted of a slightly larger group, roughly a dozen graduate students. The observed small group interactions, like Roy’s, did occur in a larger but still isolated space – here, within the classroom of an urban research university. It was rare for anyone to intrude on either isolated group, other than the worker who would on occasion pick up finished work from Roy’s small group or the rare ‘lost student’ who would wander in and out of the class.
Like Roy’s group, the group in the class was diverse, though not ‘blue collar’, representing a variety of backgrounds. For example, many students were working towards the Masters degrees in Industrial-Organizational (I/O) Psychology, while others were working towards other degrees. ‘Evening Class’ had racial differences and international student representation as well.
Soon after the course began the formation of an ‘in-group’ was observed– consisting of seasoned I/O students – and an ‘out-group’ consisting of all non-I/O degree track students. The in-group demonstrated its own unique behavioral characteristics. These included in-group content-driven discussions, in-group comments and a variety of ‘in-jokes’ related to incidents that occurred in other I/O classes, plus other incidences that were department specific. The ‘in-group’ also displayed visibly stronger interpersonal relationships. They demonstrated, for example, the excellent rapport and ‘good buddy’ behaviors. The ‘out-group’ was seldom a part of these interactions. This distinction between groups was seemingly not created intentionally. Rather, subtle ‘pulls’ toward these more intimate types of group behavior appeared which seemed rooted in the group's dynamics.
Interestingly, no active efforts were observed to be exerted by anyone to minimize this obvious division between members of the class. It just was.
Similar to the group Donald Roy wrote about some fifty years ago, all the students in this group worked, most at full-time jobs, except for the senior author of this paper. All came to the class – another kind of ‘work’ perhaps - right from their daytime work. It must be noted that a handful arrived more or less consistently late. The group norm however was to arrive 5-10 minutes before class began, spending the time mostly in talking with other students.
An interesting normative behavior was noted here: As students arrived to class, each of them, – without exception – sat at or very near their respective seats in the class. This occurred despite there never being any formal assignment of seats. This is presumed to be a manifestation of the same normative group dynamic that prompted the workers in Roy’s group to always sit at the same machine, given all the identical machines.
Each student in the class made his or her entry into the group in the same way, greeting ‘their’ clique and talking with those already present, typically within a very few ‘themes’, such as the weather, recent exams or experiences shared in other classes etc. – a close parallel to the use of particular ‘themes’ noted by Roy in the group conversation of the blue collar workers.
On arrival, the instructor – the junior author of this article and companion participant-observer– ritually made his way to the front of the class and invariably sat himself facing the class, a large and battered desk separating him from the students.
The group role seemingly adopted by the instructor was to give initial structure to each meeting by assigning topics and highlighting what he felt were the significant elements of the previously assigned set of readings. The student role was structured to the extent that all students knew they were expected to acquaint themselves with the assigned readings prior to attending class and then to actively participate in class discussions.
With most of the students and the instructor seated, the ‘group work’ of the class began, during which group ‘ritual behaviors’ emerged. Typically this was accompanied by a small trickle of ‘late- comers’ – a small but steady stream of those arriving within the first 15 minutes or so of the group start… for some, even later.
Attendance Sheet. One of the class’ opening ‘rituals’, consisted of the instructor inevitably making his very first request of the group by asking for a volunteer to pass around an attendance sheet– simply a blank paper on which students diligently wrote their names to indicate their presence in class.
Roy states that rituals can upon occasion seem nonsensical, that is, not entirely rational - although other observers using field studies featuring naturalistic observation have noted that rituals tend to have their own ‘inner logic’. Notably, the instructor never brought with him a sheet of blank paper to volunteer on his own for the attendance sheet. When his attention was finally drawn to what is now described here as a ritual, the instructor claimed that the ‘Attendance Sheet’ was a deliberate attempt to initially involve members of the class.
Once signed by a student, the sheet was passed, in no describable pattern from one group member to the next – seemingly depending on who the group members perceived as needing it.
Once signed by those present, the attendance sheet which had been passed from one group member to the next, by some mystery of group dynamics, found itself on the instructor’s desk. Also, as a final element in the ‘ritual’ of the attendance sheet, the instructor asked all late-comers to add their names to the sheet during the break.
How’s It Going? While the attendance sheet was being passed around, the instructor would make
‘group rounds’ by yet another unvarying ‘ritual’– asking ask each student in turn, 'How’s it going?' Students would usually respond with a brief, non-committal answer, sometimes bearing on their preparation or lack of preparation for that particular class and, upon occasion, solid progress – or lack of same – in writing an assigned paper.
At an entirely rational level, all this can of course be explained as simply an educator’s attempt to find out two things in particular: first, how students were coping with their, sometimes, complex set of assigned readings and, second, how students were managing the various challenges of the course in general. However, from a group-dynamic perspective, this can equally well be seen as an integral ritual of the class, and a serious attempt at securing initial engagement of each student in class.
Break Time! Here there was an emergence of certain repetitive individually-focused and small-group behaviors, seemingly focused around a genuine group decision - to take a group break. Inevitably, the break would take place around 90 minutes after the start of class, typically by the instructor calling for the class to take a 15 minute break.
At break time, all students left the room, with only a rare exception – usually just one individual, occasionally two. While some students would go the rest-room, others merely spent the time talking to each other outside the classroom or at the vending machines. Another group left the building to go for a smoke, or to join the smoker subgroup outside, even though a few were not smokers.
Few students would come back into the room before the official end of Break Time. Of those few who returned early, some could be seen looking at their notes, or, more rarely, a textbook. Some of those who returned to the classroom early more or less ritually seemed to occupy themselves with their cell phones. In any case, by far the most frequent observable activity during break time was talking to others.
Notably, in addition to simply talking, late-comers to class who had arrived too late to catch a pass of the attendance sheet would also take break time as a belated opportunity to add their names on the attendance sheet that now sat on the instructor’s battered old desk.
The element of food: Elements of ritual noted by Roy around food itself also occurred in the present group. For example, the instructor – a diabetic – always had an ice cream sandwich or cone. Precisely at the end of break time students would re-enter the classroom. However the re- entry did not always end ‘break time’ activities! Sometimes the break would extend in the classroom when a very limited number of students– very often the same students – would seem to try to, and succeed at extending the break by a couple of minutes ritually offering all those who assembled donuts, gum or chocolates. The instructor's ice-cream treat was consumed only by the instructor who perhaps in so doing unwittingly tried to maintain some ‘social distance’ from the students.
The official work of the group – often of variable size - then continued after the break for another hour, usually filled with lecture, discussion and team work. It must be noted that some meetings were visibly well attended than others. This is important in that the authors observed that meetings with fewer students tended to create a new, more intimate group dynamic, as well as some sense of group strain over missing members.
One rational basis for dips in attendance seemed to reflect many students’ approaching submission deadlines in other classes that week, for example: mid-term exam submissions which took place in the first week of the observation period, and once due to extreme weather conditions which disallowed a few students from commuting to campus.
Nevertheless, the perhaps ‘unconscious agenda’ of each group meeting faithfully continued. One example here would be the instructor invariably starting class by highlighting selected elements of the assigned readings from his perspective.
Story-telling. Both before the break and after it was that the instructor narrated relevant ‘stories’ from his own professional experiences, another ritualized element of the class. This element seemed to encourage greater group interaction with the content of the instruction as some student-participants shared their own perspectives, ideas and experiences with both the instructor and the group as a whole.
Social Loafing: Roy described a variety of social loafing - self-initiated breaks from work on the part of his small group of workers, or some segment of that group. It is notable in this class that an interesting variation was visible in the extent to which students would actively participate in these discussions. Particular members reliably took on the role of ‘regular speakers’ and some cases imitated the instructor’s story telling behavior by contributing their own thoughts, stories and personal experiences to class discussions. Other students could be reliably counted on, perhaps habitually, to participate to a much lesser extent. Some students never did so, just as in Roy’s group certain discussions and themes never involved certain members of his group.
This distinct lack of participation by certain students can be possibly be attributed to “social loafing” although other possibilities include – for some, perhaps for all this group, personality introversion.
When the instructor elected to comment on a seeming lack of participation on the part of the group as a whole, he regularly wondered aloud about a seeming lack of preparedness. The instructor would inevitably make a frustrated, call for ‘more participation’ and would call upon all of the class to “speak up!” On these occasions, as participation rate became uncomfortably low – perhaps due to fatigue, rather than lack of preparation in itself - the instructor would make his 'call for participation', consequently, as a group the student-participants would carry out quite a sequence of seemingly ritualized behaviors: avoiding eye contact with the instructor, sometimes also demonstrating embarrassed half-smiles – particularly when the instructor wondered about the sea of ‘poker faces’ he was saw.
Note-taking. Another easily visible ritual in the class. The same unchanging group of students could be seen taking notes, some in their notebooks and some on their laptops. While the note-taking ritual was task-appropriate and indeed unsurprising to at least the instructor, it was unexpected that students checked their cell phones too – some more often than others.
Team Formation: Some elements of the class’ ‘unconscious agenda’ seemingly continued as class went on. An example that could be easily observed was the phenomenon of team formation. Often, the class meeting featured a regular pattern of frequent small group discussions. Students were split into groups to work as teams to problem-solve a variety of case studies and other types of assignments. Such team formation occurred at least twice every meeting.
Teams were always formed by one of two ways - based on physical proximity among students or when the instructor assigned them to groups using a random ‘count off ’. As more class meetings took place, the tendency was that these teams consisted of identical or nearly identical members, usually those sitting next to each other in the class.
It might be wondered if the observed ‘preferred pattern’ of team formation in some way might facilitate sub-group’s dynamics. Perhaps the in-groups thus formed offered an advantage or comfort to team members who were immediately familiar with each other. These teams did not have to go through possibly uncomfortable and somewhat time-consuming small group conflicts and start-up behaviors. Interestingly, when the class split into two teams based on physical proximity, there invariably emerged a ‘joking’ team - made up of in-group members consisting of those taking previous classes together - and a ‘serious’ team - one visibly much more reserved and task focused.
The joking team, viewed from a group dynamics perspective, could be thought focused on group self-maintenance. It saw a heavy interplay of interpersonal relationships with group members visibly behaving in a very close and friendly manner with each other, in many cases joking and laughing together.
The serious team focused on maintaining an effective work pattern. They dealt with their in-class group assignment discussions in a focused and business-like way. This difference in group demeanor stood out not only for the authors, but was observed and commented on by various class members themselves. Interestingly, the habitual demeanor of a team, serious or joking, was not a reliable predictor of which would team perform better at the group task.
On infrequent occasions, when a member or two of the ‘serious’ team ended up being included in the ‘joking’ team, probably due to the instructor’s introduction of a ‘count off’ system for team formation, an unexpected dynamic would be observed as a result.
Typically, the ‘visiting’ member(s) of the serious team in the class became uncomfortable or annoyed at the way the majority of the ‘alien’ team was going about handling the assignment. While this discomfort was not actively voiced, it was clearly evident in the quiet demeanor, facial expressions and awkward body language of the visitor(s). This observation runs parallel to the results in Roy's group of an equally unintended ‘Barber College’ remark in Banana Time.
Such conflicts found seeming resolution in the joking team as various team members would address this dilemma with the serious team member. Various team members from the joking team could be seen and heard actively addressing the dilemma and attempting to make a variety of compromises with the member(s) of the ‘serious’ team.
The compromises typically resulted in lowering the group’s frequency of joking, as well as in a visible effort to integrate the newcomer's suggestions and introduce something of a minority point- of-view in the small group discussion going on. It should be noted in passing that the nature of the joking team’s work did not reflect a lowered commitment towards working well in the class. Rather, it seemed like a by-product of complementary personalities and good interpersonal relationships within the team.
Conversations and Discussions: Recurrent topics of discussion were observed by the authors, just as in the group described by Roy. Such talk would break out spontaneously at every possible opportunity. It appeared largely constrained around a set number of issues or ‘themes’, One of these major themes was recent job openings within the university, plus some job openings known to exist in certain other business and local government organizations. Another recurrent theme of conversation centered around student assignments and required student submissions in other graduate classes. These particular themes appeared largely restricted to the I/O Psychology 'in-group'. Another theme was the progress being made – or not made -on certain research projects undertaken by the students. There were also ‘individual-interest’ discussions, frequently about personal lives – mostly these were about relationships - plus occasional discussions about upcoming events within the individual’s academic department. The subject varied from the upcoming Department Christmas party to ‘cheese and wine’ evenings. These ‘academic department’ discussions occurred mostly within - and seemed of greatest interest to - the (I/O Psychology) 'in-group'
Conclusions
A primary conclusion was that it proved possible, using naturalistic or ‘field’ observations, to see the kinds of small group dynamics, themes and sometimes visible behavior first reported by Donald
Roy in a factory setting. Within a short 7 week observation period the observed academic group displayed many of an array of group dynamics, rituals, times and other group behaviors - seemingly associated with group self- maintenance and other maintenance functions reported by Donald Roy. Were this group to be considered – as did Donald Roy with his factory worker group - as a single entity maintaining its own dynamic equilibrium, group cohesion and an effective pursuit of their own group purpose, a close correspondence could be noted. The two authors view this as a replication of Roy’s work.
Most notable, was the case with Donald Roy’s own participant observations, the ‘Evening Class’ group demonstrated and maintained group norms, group ‘rituals’, ‘times’ and even the stable status hierarchy. Rituals observed in the class;’ included faithfully passing ‘the attendance sheet’ at the start of class, maintaining a set of highly stable seating arrangement throughout the course, the rituals like ‘How’s-It-Going’ time, plus the group’s own break-time and idiosyncratic break time rituals, such as, ‘smoke time’ and ‘snack time’ as expanded by an assortment of ‘chocolate/donut/gum-times’. Also, just as was the case in ‘Banana Time,’ a variety of group- specific, invariant verbal and non-verbal communication cues and behaviors were observed during the class. Verbal cues included not only the compulsion on the part of the same individuals to engage in note taking, but also normalized non-verbal behavior. Examples were the ‘poker faces’ of the more passive students and their body language.
Group phenomena initially described by Donald Roy in ‘Banana Time’ that were also observed or replicated in the class included the consistent adoption of the same ‘group roles’ by specific individuals. Even Roy’s most dramatic observation of his own group itself replicate in the class - successful conflict resolution by the group itself, when it arose to a level that was threatening to become seriously disruptive of effective group functioning. Just as was the case in ‘Banana Time’, despite all the ‘horse play’ that was developed among members of the class, the underlying culture in the class and its smaller sub0groups was one of general group harmony and, most importantly, generalized mutual respect, characterized by widespread friendliness, helpfulness and mutual intellectual stimulation.
One significant difference that must be noted was that in this class there was a strong official leader - the instructor - who proactively set and followed up on the formal agenda of the group. He actively maintained and reinforced his position the top of this group’s hierarchy, unlike the somewhat ‘leaderless group’ situation described by Donald Roy.
The close correspondence that emerged in the present set of naturalistic observations, using the technique of participant observation was particularly remarkable since naturalistic or field studies are supposed to be very difficult to replicate unless observation procedures have been described very carefully and explicitly. Roy did not do so in 'Banana Time', yet the present authors report an unexpectedly close replication of many of Roy’s observed rituals, times and group dynamics in a very different setting and group.
Hence, the technique of naturalistic/participant observation may be more replicable than has commonly been believed.
It will be the task of future observers and perhaps theory-builders to enlarge our understanding. Are we to conclude that most or all groups – despite surface differences of a magnitude as great as that between garment industry factory workers in the 1950s and an almost completely white-collar evening class at an urban university in the year 2012 – more or less driven by the same group dynamics?
Are Donald Roy’s pioneering observations of small group dynamics in an old-fashioned manufacturing setting more generalizable than previously recognized? If so, how can we explain that? These are tasks for further research among those of us in behavioral science who remain convinced of the enduring worth and value-added of participant observation, qualitative study and naturalistic observation – to us, a valued set of behavioral science tools!
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