Trust in Online Collaborative Groups: A Constructivist Psychodynamic View

Trust represents one of the most critical issues facing online collaborative groups. The growth of online courses and programs and the growth of collaborative learning pedagogical strategies through the text-based online environment can make trust issues more salient. According to Allen and Searman (2010), the 17% growth rate for online student enrollment far exceeds the 1.2% growth of the increases in the student population. Additionally, more than 25% of higher education students now take at least one online course. The use of online collaborative learning has grown rapidly in the past 15 years. Many educators in adult and higher education recognize the need to use active and contextual learning, such as collaborative learning to better address adult learning needs (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007). Collaborative learning can help to mitigate early online course instructional approaches that often resembled traditional teacher-led instruction and resulted in high attrition rates (Boshier, Mohapi, & Boulton, 1997). As the use of online collaborative groups increase, the need to understand trust issues becomes vital. Yet, it is difficult to answer the question of how trust is developed and maintained within these groups and how trust issues influence collaborative processes and outcomes. The research on trust in the online collaborative groups (OCG) shows contradictory results. For example, the often recommended social measures, such as team building exercises and communication tools that are designed to facilitate a successful learning environment, decrease (Jarvenpaa, Shaw, & Staples, 2004) or increase (Walther & Brunz, 2005) trust in the OCG. Furthermore, the current models for trust (i.e., Dirks & Ferrin, 2001 ; Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995) that are used in OCG trust research focus on conscious and rational approaches to understanding trust, but fail to account for the unconscious aspects. For example, Dirks and Ferrin contend that the direct trust model as seen in Mayer et al.'s work is more appropriate for structured settings. A strongly structured situation has clear processes to produce outcomes with little ambiguity and uncertainty. Individuals assess low trust risks in these situations and are able to act in trusting ways. The OCG however, is less structured with high ambiguity and uncertainty. The learners are asked to work on ill-structured problems and accept responsibility for their learning (Bruffee, 1999). Jarvenpaa et al. (2004) concludes that these models, which are used in most OCG trust literature, are helpful, but fail to account for the moderate trust effects. The moderate models are best for weak structures with high ambiguity and uncertainty. The weak structure forces the person to immediately attend to the task and leaves little time to assess trust risks. The person is thus left to rely on their past perceptions of trust. Although the moderate trust models provide an important element to trust issues in the OCG (Jarvenpaa et al., 2004), these models largely ignore the unconscious nature of past trust experiences that influence a person's ability to assess trust in the OCG. This paper examines trust issues in the OCG from a psychodynamic view; unconscious meaning making processes at work within the OCG and their effect on individual and group trust issues. The paper ends with a few suggestions for instructors on how to help groups recognize and resolve these issues. The Psychodynamic Perspective on Trust The psychodynamic perspective (Bion, 1961; Ringer, 2002; Smith & Berg, 1987) refers to the experience of unconscious group and social processes. These processes are simultaneously both a source and a consequence of unresolved and unrecognized group conflict for the group as a whole and individual members. This paper focuses on those processes that affect trust by looking at what is needed for collaborative learning. …