Institutional systems have to change to offer computer-mediated programs. The use of the technology itself is anxiety-provoking for many of our colleagues. Further, people have established bases of personal power within the traditional structure and are loath to risk loss of status in the new one. Homogenous groups tend to make relatively poor decisions partly because they are susceptible to group-think, usually exhibited as failing to consider wide ranges of information sources or alternative goals. These illogical decision-making processes arise from the anxieties people experience have when faced with major personal and institutional changes.
Results suggest that the predominant process is often group think.
Group think occurs when group cohesiveness and unanimity in decision-making is so highly valued that group members fail to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. Signs of group think include failing to consider a sufficiently wide range of goals and objectives, failing to consider a sufficiently wide range of methods or strategies for goal attainment, failure to seek out relevant information, selective bias in processing information, and inadequate feedback or evaluation mechanisms for both process and product. In the previous example, for instance, the faculty involved failed to study the literature about teaching and learning at a distance, did not consult with experienced distance educators, and did not seek feedback or evaluation from other distance education planning groups in their university. Dissonance can be reduced by adjusting the importance of one of the conflicting factors, by adopting a new belief, or by changing the conflicting behavior. Too often, the distance education concept per se is devalued to maintain cognitive equilibrium.