critical analysis essay on teamwork

An Analysis of the Experience of Teamwork Essay

Introduction, description, action plan, reference list.

This paper deals with assignment 4 we have completed and its evaluation. To analyze any event, it is helpful to use Gibbs’s reflective cycle (Jasper 2003). This framework helps focus on the major aspects of any event and project. Thus, I will provide a brief description of the work. I will reveal my feelings and evaluate the teamwork and my work within the team. The paper includes an analysis of the work and I will draw some conclusions.

I will develop a specific personal action plan to develop certain skills which will help me in my future career. In this paper, I will reflect on the experience of teamwork and the way it affected me. This paper also includes a description of certain challenges our team had to face. Finally, I will also speculate on the way teamwork affected my attitude towards accreditation.

For this assignment, the class was divided into groups. I was in group three with four other students. We had three meetings where we dealt with crucial issues. The first meeting was an introductory meeting and the members of our team introduced themselves. Admittedly, learning more about each member of the team is essential for efficient work (Belbin 1982). It turned out that the members of our team were involved in different fields related to healthcare.

The second meeting was devoted to discussion of the subject and sharing ideas. Each member of the group made a presentation on the matter. The last meeting was devoted to planning. Admittedly, any team must have specific goals and a concise plan to reach the goals (Covey 1994). It is also crucial to distribute roles among the team members (Berkun 2005). Thus, we distributed roles and chose the leader of the group. We also worked out our schedule. We decided to use online sessions for further meetings and updates on the project.

I had never worked in a team, so I was worried about the project. I did not know what to do and I had doubts concerning the effectiveness of our team’s work. I was also worried as I was not sure that I could be an effective member of the team for I had not had any experience in accreditation. It was a great relief for me to find out that one member of our team had some experience in accreditation. It was quite stressful to find out that the team members had opposing views on the matter as some were strongly against accreditation while others supported this idea. Eventually, we managed to come to a single conclusion and set deadlines. However, I was really upset when I read the first draft after we had joined all the parts. The parts were written by different people who had different styles. It was challenging to make the paper a complete whole.

Though it was quite challenging, I find this experience beneficial for me as I have learned a lot about working in a team. Now, I can listen to myself and self-develop, which is the most important for a person (Butler 1981). Experiential learning is seen as one of the most effective ways to gain experience (Kolb 1984). I agree with this now as I learned a lot while working in a team. I know how to exchange ideas and collaborate with people of different personality types.

The work was efficient as each member of the group contributed equally to the success of the entire group. Some members helped organize ideas and others helped manage time, etc. As for the most serious challenges, we had certain problems with the process of decision-making. I believe the team spent too much time planning and discussing things, which is ineffective and can jeopardize the project (Arden 2003). It was also difficult for me to accept other people’s views. Nevertheless, I am sure that teamwork needs to be able to find compromises or even accept others’ viewpoints.

It was rather difficult to work out a unified point of view on the matter as members of the team had different opinions. Moreover, the members of the team had quite different personality types. It is essential to understand a personality type of a partner as it helps predict his/her behavior and reactions (Rollinson 2008). At the same time, Brain (2002) states that a team where members have different personality types can be also beneficial. I agree with that as I witnessed the benefits of collaboration with people of different personality types. Thus, extroverts in our team helped come to an agreement and effectively share ideas, while introverts helped create the schedule and accumulate data.

In general, this was a beneficial experience for me as I met new people with different backgrounds and personality types. I also learned to collaborate with them efficiently. I will be able to employ this experience in the future. I understand that people differ in terms of their personality types. While working in the team, I changed my attitude towards accreditation. Now, I know that it is difficult to introduce accreditation to any organization. On top of that, it is essential to work out the culture of the organization and train teamwork before introducing accreditation to this organization.

As has been mentioned above, I learned a lot. Nonetheless, I also need to work on my communication skills. Covey (1989) notes that it is essential to be able to listen correctly and react properly. I have to learn to listen carefully. I should also learn to make sure I understand everything clearly. I have to learn how to make the right questions to avoid any misunderstanding and extract the information I need. It can be also helpful for me to learn how to articulate ideas properly to be able to support my opinion. Therefore, I will have to improve my skills to work within a team effectively.

Arden, P 2003, It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be , Phaidon, New York.

Belbin, M 1982, Management teams why the succeed or fail , Butterworth-Heinemann, London.

Berkun, S 2005, The art of project management , O’Reilly Media Inc., Sebastopol, CA.

Brain, C 2002, Advanced psychology: applications, issues and perspectives , Nelson Thornes, London.

Butler, PE 1981, Talking to yourself: learning the language of self-support , Harper and Row, San Francisco.

Covey, S 1989, The seven habits of highly effective people – powerful lessons in personal change , Simon & Schuster, New York.

Covey, S 1994, First things first, Simon & Schuster, New York.

Jasper, M 2003, Beginning reflective practice , Nelson Thornes, London.

Kolb, D 1984, Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development , FT Press, London.

Rollinson, D 2008, Organisational behaviour and analysis: an integrated approach , Pearson Education, Essex.

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• Volume 9, Issue 9
• How effective is teamwork really? The relationship between teamwork and performance in healthcare teams: a systematic review and meta-analysis
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• http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0181-807X Jan B. Schmutz 1 ,
• Laurenz L. Meier 2 ,
• Tanja Manser 3
• 1 Department of Communication Studies , Northwestern University , Evanston , Illinois , USA
• 2 Department of Work and Organizational Psychology , University of Neuchâtel , Neuchâtel , Switzerland
• 3 FHNW School of Applied Psychology, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland , Olten , Switzerland
• Correspondence to Dr Jan B. Schmutz; jan.schmutz{at}northwestern.edu

Objectives To investigate the relationship between teamwork and clinical performance and potential moderating variables of this relationship.

Design Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Data source PubMed was searched in June 2018 without a limit on the date of publication. Additional literature was selected through a manual backward search of relevant reviews, manual backward and forward search of studies included in the meta-analysis and contacting of selected authors via email.

Eligibility criteria Studies were included if they reported a relationship between a teamwork process (eg, coordination, non-technical skills) and a performance measure (eg, checklist based expert rating, errors) in an acute care setting.

Data extraction and synthesis Moderator variables (ie, professional composition, team familiarity, average team size, task type, patient realism and type of performance measure) were coded and random-effect models were estimated. Two investigators independently extracted information on study characteristics in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

Results The review identified 2002 articles of which 31 were included in the meta-analysis comprising 1390 teams. The sample-sized weighted mean correlation was r = 0.28 (corresponding to an OR of 2.8), indicating that teamwork is positively related to performance. The test of moderators was not significant, suggesting that the examined factors did not influence the average effect of teamwork on performance.

Conclusion Teamwork has a medium-sized effect on performance. The analysis of moderators illustrated that teamwork relates to performance regardless of characteristics of the team or task. Therefore, healthcare organisations should recognise the value of teamwork and emphasise approaches that maintain and improve teamwork for the benefit of their patients.

• non-technical skills
• communication
• meta-analysis

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See:  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ .

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028280

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Strengths and limitations of this study

This systematic review evaluates available studies investigating the effectiveness of teamwork processes.

Thirty-one studies have been included resulting in a substantial sample size of 1390 teams.

The sample size of the primary studies included is usually low.

For some subgroup analysis, the number of studies included was small.

Introduction

May it be an emergency team in the trauma room, paramedics treating patients after an accident or a surgical team in the operating room, teams are ubiquitous in healthcare and must work across professional, disciplinary and sectorial boundaries. Although the clinical expertise of individual team members is important to ensure high performance, teams must be capable of applying and combining the unique expertise of team members to maintain safety and optimal performance. In order for a team to be effective individual team members need to collaborate and engage in teamwork. Today, experts agree that effective teamwork anchors safe and effective care at various levels of the healthcare systems 1–4 leading to a relatively recent shift towards team research and training. 5–7

Healthcare is an evidence-based field and therefore administrators and providers are seeking evidence in the literature concerning the impact of teamwork on performance outcomes like patient mortality, morbidity, infection rates or adherence to clinical treatment guidelines. Having a closer look at the literature investigating healthcare teams we find mixed and sometimes even contradicting results about the relationship between teamwork and clinical performance. 8 Some studies find a large effect of teamwork on performance outcomes (eg, Carlson et al 9 ) while others report small or no relationships. 10 11 This inconsistency arises due to several reasons. First, the conceptual and empirical literature examining teamwork is fragmented and research examining teamwork effectiveness is spread across disciplines including medicine, psychology and organisation science. Therefore, researchers and practitioners often lack a common conceptual foundation for investigating teams and teamwork in healthcare. Second, research studies on teamwork in healthcare usually exhibit small sample sizes because of the challenges of recruiting actual professional teams and carefully balancing research with patient care priorities. Small sample sizes, however, increase the likelihood of reporting results that fail to represent true effect. Third, studies investigating healthcare teams often ignore important context variables of teams (eg, team composition and size, task characteristics, team environment) that likely influence the effect that teamwork has on clinical performance. 12 13

These inconsistencies in the teamwork literature may lead to confusion about the importance of teamwork in healthcare, thus giving voice to critics who hinder efforts to improve teamwork. We aim to address these problems with a meta-analytical study investigating the performance implications of teamwork. A meta-analytical approach moves beyond existing reviews on teamwork in healthcare 8 14–17 and quantitatively tests if the widely advocated positive effect of teamwork on performance holds true. In addition, this approach allows us to investigate context variables as moderators that may influence the effect of teamwork on performance, meaning that this effect might be stronger or weaker under certain conditions. Previous meta-analyses 18 19 focused mainly on the effectiveness of team trainings but not on the effect of teamwork itself. This meta-analysis will generate quantitative evidence to inform the relevance of future interventions, regulations and policies targeting teamwork in healthcare organisations.

In the following we will first establish an operational definition of teamwork, elaborate on relevant contextual factors and present our respective meta-analytical results and their interpretation.

Teams, teamwork and team performance

In order to clearly understand the impact of teamwork on performance it is necessary to provide a brief introduction to teams, teamwork and team performance. We define teams as identifiable social work units consisting of two or more people with several unique characteristics. These characteristics include ( a ) dynamic social interaction with meaningful interdependencies, ( b ) shared and valued goals , (c ) a discrete lifespan, ( e ) distributed expertise and ( f ) clearly assigned roles and responsibilities. 20 21 Based on this definition it becomes clear that teams must dynamically share information and resources among members and coordinate their activities in order to fulfil a certain task — in other words teams need to engage in teamwork .

Teamwork as a term is widely used and often difficult to grasp. However, we absolutely require a clear definition of teamwork especially for team trainings that target specific behaviours. Teamwork is a process that describes interactions among team members who combine collective resources to resolve task demands (eg, giving clear orders). 22 23 Teamwork or team processes can be differentiated from taskwork. Taskwork denotes a team’s individual interaction with tasks, tools, machines and systems. 23 Taskwork is independent of other team members and is often described as what a team is doing whereas teamwork is how the members of a team are doing something with each other. 24 Therefore, team performance represents the accumulation of teamwork and taskwork (ie, what the team actually does). 25

Team performance is often described in terms of inputs, processes and outputs (IPO). 22 26–28 Outputs like quality of care, errors or performance are influenced by team related processes (ie, teamwork) like communication, coordination or decision-making. Furthermore, these processes are influenced by various inputs like team members’ experience, task complexity, time pressure and more. The IPO framework emphasises the critical role of team processes as the mechanism by which team members combine their resources and abilities, shaped by the context, to resolve team task demands. It has been the basis of other more advanced models 27–29 but has also been criticised because of its simplicity. 30 However, it is still the most popular framework to date and helps to systematise the mechanisms that predict team performance and represents the basis for the selection of the studies included in our meta-analysis.

Contextual factors of teamwork effectiveness

Based on a large body of team research from various domains, we hypothesise that several contextual and methodological factors might moderate the effectiveness of teamwork, indicating that teamwork is more important under certain conditions. 31 32 Therefore, we investigate several factors: (a) team characteristics (ie, professional composition, team familiarity, team size), (b) task type (ie, routine vs non-routine tasks), (c) two methodological factors related to patient realism (ie, simulated vs real) and (d) the type of performance measures used (ie, process vs outcome performance). In the following we discuss these potentially moderating factors and the proposed effects on teamwork.

Professional composition

We distinguished between interprofessional and uniprofessional teams. Interprofessional teams consist of members from various professions that must work together in a coordinated fashion. 33 Diverse educational paths in interprofessional teams may shape respective values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours. 34 As a result team members with different backgrounds might perceive and interpret the environment differently and have a different understanding of how to work together. Therefore, we assume that explicit teamwork is especially important in interprofessional teams compared with uniprofessional teams.

Team familiarity

If team members have worked together, they are familiar with their individual working styles; and roles and responsibilities are usually clear. If a team works together for the first time, this potential lack of familiarity and clarity might make teamwork even more important. Therefore, we differentiate between real teams that also work together in their everyday clinical practice and experiential teams that only came together for study purposes.

Another factor that may moderate the relationship between teamwork and performance is team size. Since larger teams exhibit more linkages among members than smaller teams, they also face greater coordination challenges. Also, with increasing size teams have greater difficulty developing and maintaining role structures and responsibilities. For these reasons, we expect the influence of teamwork on clinical performance to be stronger in larger teams as compared with smaller teams.

Routine situations are characterised by repetitive and unvarying actions (eg, standard anaesthesia induction). 35 In contrast, non-routine situations exhibit more variation and uncertainty, requiring teams to be flexible and adaptive. Whereas team members mostly rely on pre-learned sequences during routine situations, during non-routine situations we assume that teamwork is more important in order for team members to resolve task demands.

Patient realism

Authors highlight the importance of using medical simulators in education. 36 Therefore, we investigate the realism used in a study (simulated vs real patients) as a potential methodological factor that influences the relationship between teamwork and performance. Studies conducted with medical simulators might be more standardised and less influenced by confounding variables than studies conducted with real patients. Therefore, results from simulation studies might show stronger relationships between the two variables. Further, using a simulator could cause individuals and teams to act differently than in real settings, thereby distorting the results. However, in the last decade high-fidelity simulators have become increasingly realistic, suggesting that the results from simulation studies generalise to real environments. Including realism as a contextual factor in our analysis will reveal if the effects of teamwork observed in simulation compare with real life settings. Better understanding would provide important insights about simulation use in teamwork studies.

Performance measures

As a second methodological factor, we expect that the type of performance measure used in a study influences the reported teamwork effectiveness. The literature usually differentiates between process-related and outcome-related aspects of performance. 37 38 Process performance measures are action-related aspects and refer to adequate behaviour during procedures (eg, adhering to guidelines), making them easier to assess. Outcome performance measures (eg, infection rates after operations) follow team actions, with assessment occurring later than process measures. Outcome performance measures suffer from several factors: greater sensitivity to confounding variables (eg, comorbidities), assessment challenges and greater difficulty linking team processes to outcomes. Looking at the predictors of the survival of cardiac arrest patients illustrates the difference between the two types of performance measures. The main predictors for the survival (ie, performance outcome) of a cardiac arrest patient are ‘duration of the arrest’ and ‘age of the patient less than 70’ . 39 Although a team delivers perfect basic life support (ie, high process performance) the patient can still die (ie, low outcome performance). Due to these methodological considerations, we expect that studies assessing process performance report a stronger relationship between teamwork and performance than studies assessing outcome performance.

The study was conducted based on the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement 40 as well as established guidelines in social sciences. 41 42 Through the combination of studies in the meta-analytical process, we will increase the statistical power and provide an accurate estimation of the true impact that teamwork has on performance.

Search strategy

We applied the following search strategy to select relevant papers: ( a ) an electronic search of the database PubMed (no limit was placed on the date of publication, last search 19 June 2018) using the keywords teamwork , coordination , decision-making , leadership and communication in combination with patient safety , clinical performance , the final syntax for PubMed is available ( online supplementary file ), (b) a manual backwards search for all references cited by eight systematic literature reviews that focus on teamwork or non-technical skills in various healthcare domains, 8 15 17 43–47 (c) a manual backwards search for all references cited in studies we included in our meta-analysis, (d) a manual forward search using Web of Science to identify studies that cite the studies we included in our meta-analysis, (e) identification of relevant unpublished manuscripts via email from authors currently investigating medical teams using specific mailing lists.

Supplemental material

Inclusion criteria.

Studies were included if a construct complied to the definition of teamwork processes outlined in the introduction (eg, coordination, communication). In addition, studies needed to investigate the relationship between at least one teamwork process and a performance measure (eg, patient outcome). When studies reported multiple estimates of the same relationship from the same sample (eg, between coordination and more than one indicator of performance), those correlations were examined separately only as appropriate for sub-analyses, but an average correlation was computed for all global meta-analyses of those relationships to maintain independence. 41 We excluded articles investigating long-term care since the coordination of care for chronically ill patients has to consider the unique team task interdependencies in this setting. 48 Also, teams working together over longer periods of time are more likely to develop emergent states (eg, team cohesion) that influence how a specific team works together. 24 All articles included in this meta-analysis are listed in tables 1 and 2 .

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Descriptions of study objectives, settings and description of teamwork process and outcome measures

Studies, effect sizes and moderator variables included in the meta-analytical database

For the criterion level of analysis, we included only effect sizes at the team level and not on an individual level. Therefore, the performance measure had to be clearly linked to a team. This approach aligns with research that strongly recommends against mixing levels of analysis in meta-analytical integrations. 49 50

Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts from articles yielded in the search. Afterwards full texts of all relevant articles were obtained and screened by the same two reviewers. Agreement was above 90%. Any disagreement in the selection process was resolved through consensus discussion.

Data extraction

With the help of a jointly developed coding scheme, studies were independently coded by one of the authors (JS) and another rater, both with a background in industrial psychology and human factors. Twenty per cent of the studies were rated by both coders. Intercoder agreement was above 90%. Any disagreement was resolved through discussion. The data extracted comprised details of the authors and publication as well as important study characteristics and statistical relationships between a teamwork variable and performance ( table 2 ).

Coding of team characteristics

The professional composition of teams was coded either as ‘Interprofessional’ if a team consisted of members from different professions (eg, nurses and physicians) or as ‘Uniprofessional’ if the members of the teams were of the same profession. Team size was coded as the number of members (average number if team size varied) of the investigated teams. Team familiarity was coded either as ‘experimental’ or ‘real’. ‘Real’ indicates that the team members also worked together in their everyday clinical practice. ‘Experimental’ means that the teams only worked together during the study.

Coding of task characteristics

Task type was coded either as ‘Routine task’ or ‘Non-routine task’. We defined ‘Non-routine tasks’ as unexpected events that require flexible behaviour often under time-pressure (eg, emergency situations). ‘Routine tasks’ describe previously planned standard procedures (eg, standard anaesthesia induction, planned surgery).

Coding of methodological factors

Patient realism was either coded as ‘Real patient’ or ‘Simulated patient’. ‘Simulated patient’ included a patient simulator (manikin) whereas ‘Real patient’ included real patients in clinical settings.

Clinical performance measures were coded either as ‘Outcome performance’ or ‘Process performance’. 38 51 ‘Outcome performance’ includes an outcome that is measured after the treatment process (eg, infection rate, mortality). We focused only on patient-related outcomes and not on team outcomes (eg, team satisfaction). ‘Process performance’ describes the evaluation of the treatment process and describes how well the process was executed (eg, adherence to guidelines through expert rating). Process performance measures are often based on official guidelines and extensive expert knowledge. 52 Thus, we assumed that process performance closely relates to patient outcomes.

Statistical analysis

Different types of effect sizes (eg, OR, F values and r ) have been reported in the original studies. We therefore converted the different effect sizes to a common metric, namely r using the formulas provided by Borenstein et al 53 and Walker. 54 Moreover, some samples contained effect sizes of teamwork with two or more measures of performance. Because independence of the included effects sizes is required for a meta-analysis, 41 55 we used Fisher’s z score to average the multiple correlations from the same sample (scholars have suggested to convert r to Fisher's z scores, to average the z’s and then to backtransform it to r . 56 Using simple arithmetic average (ie, correlations will be summed and divided by the number of coefficients) is problematic because the distribution of r becomes negatively skewed as the correlation is larger than zero. As a result, the average r tends to underestimate the population correlation). The correlations were weighted for sample size. However, in contrast to many meta-analyses in social sciences, the correlations were not adjusted for measurement reliability. This is because information about the measurement reliability could not be compared (Kappa vs Cronbach’s Alpha) or were not available at all for the majority of studies. Therefore, we report uncorrected, sample-size weighted mean correlation, its 95% CI, and the 80% credibility interval (CR). The CI reflects the accuracy of a point estimate and can be used to examine the significance of the effect size estimates, whereas the CR refers to the deviation of these estimates and informs us about the existence of possible moderators.

Random-effects models were estimated based on two considerations. 57 First, we expected study heterogeneity to be high given the different study design characteristics such as patient realism (‘Real patient’ vs ‘Simulated patient’), task type (‘Routine task’ vs ‘Non-routine task’) and different forms of performance measures. Second, we aimed to provide an inference on the average effect in the entire population of studies from which the included studies are assumed to be a random selection of it. Therefore, random-effects models were estimated. 57 These models were calculated by the restricted maximum-likelihood estimator, an efficient and unbiased estimator. 58 Since we included only descriptive studies and no interventions we only included the sample size of the individual studies as a potential bias into the meta-analysis. To rule out a potential publication bias, we tested for funnel plot asymmetry using the random-effect version of the Egger test. 59 The results indicate that there is no asymmetry in the funnel plot (z=1.79, p=0.074), suggesting that there is no publication bias.

The estimation of meta-analytical models including the outlier analyses were performed with the package ‘metafor’ from the programming language and statistical environment R. 58

The online search resulted in 2002 articles ( figure 1 ). Two studies were identified via contacting authors directly and have been presented at conferences in the past. 60 61 After duplicates were removed 1988 articles were screened using title and abstract. Sixty-seven articles were then selected for a full text review. Full text examination, forward and backward search of selected articles and relevant reviews resulted in 30 studies coming from 28 articles (two publications presented two independent studies in one publication 62 63 ). This led to a total of 32 studies coming from 30 articles. Following the recommendation by Viechtbauer and Cheung, 64 we screened for outliers using studentized deleted residuals. One case (Carlson et al , 9 r =0.89, n=44, studentized deleted residuals=4.26) was identified as outlier and therefore excluded from further analyses, resulting in a final sample size of k =31.

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Systematic literature search.

Table 1 provides a qualitative description of the selected articles including study objectives, the setting in which the studies were carried out and a description of the teamwork processes as well as the outcome measures that were assessed. If a specific tool for the assessment of a teamwork process or outcome measure was used this is indicated in the corresponding column. Observational studies were most prevalent. Teamwork processes were assessed using either behaviourally anchored rating scales (n=8) or structured observation (n=19) of specific teamwork behaviour. Structured observation — as we describe it — is defined as a purely descriptive assessment of certain behaviour usually using a predefined observation system (eg, amount of speaking up behaviour). In contrast, behaviourally anchored rating scales consist of an evaluation of teamwork process behaviour by an expert. Only three studies used surveys to assess teamwork behaviours. The majority of the studies (n = 27) assessed process performance using either a checklist based expert rating or assessing a reaction time measure after the occurrence of a certain event (eg, time until intervention). Only four studies assessed outcome performance measures. Measures included accuracy of diagnosis, postoperative complications and death, surgical morbidity and mortality, ventilator-associated pneumonia, bloodstream infections, pressure ulcers and acute physiology and chronic health evaluation score. Table 2 provides an overview of all variables included in the meta-analysis including the effect sizes and moderator variables.

Effect of teamwork and contextual factors

Table 3 and figure 2 shows the relationship between teamwork and team performance. The sample-sized weighted mean correlation was 0.28 (95% CI 0.20 to 0.35, z =6.55, p<0.001), indicating that teamwork is positively related to clinical performance. Results further indicated heterogeneous effect size distributions across the included samples ( Q =53.73, p<0.05, I 2 =45.96), signifying that the variability across the sample effect sizes was more than what would be expected from sampling error alone.

Relationship between teamwork processes and performance.

Meta-analytical relationships between teamwork and clinical performance

To test for moderator effects of the contextual factors, we conducted mixed-effects models including the mentioned moderators: professional composition, team familiarity, team size, task type, patient realism and performance measures .

The omnibus test of moderators was not significant ( F =0.18, df 1 =6, df 2 =18, p>0.20), suggesting that the examined contextual factors did not influence the average effect of teamwork on clinical performance. To provide greater detail about the role of the contextual factors, we conducted separate analyses for the categorical contextual factors and report them in table 3 .

With this study, we aimed to provide evidence for the performance implications of teamwork in healthcare teams. By including various contextual factors, we investigated potential contingencies that these factors might have on the relationship between teamwork and clinical performance. The analysis of 1390 teams from 31 different studies showed that teamwork has a medium sized effect ( r =0.28 65 66 ;) on clinical performance across various care settings. Our study is the first to investigate this relationship quantitatively with a meta-analytical procedure. This finding aligns with and advances previous work that explored this relationship in a qualitative way. 8 15 17 43–47

At first glance a correlation of r =0.28 might not seem very high. However, we would like to highlight that r =0.28 is considered a medium sized effect 65 66 and should not be underestimated. To better illustrate what this effect means we transformed the correlation into an OR of 2.8. 53 Of course, this transformation simplifies the correlation because teamwork and often the outcome measures are not simple dichotomous variables that can be divided into an intervention and control group. However, this transformation illustrates that teams who engage in teamwork processes are 2.8 times more likely to achieve high performance than teams who are not. Looking at the performance measures in our study we see that they either describe patient outcomes (eg, mortality, morbidity) or are closely related to patient outcomes (eg, adherence to treatment guidelines). Thus, we consider teamwork a performance-relevant process that needs to be promoted through training and implementation into treatment guidelines and policies.

The included studies used a variety of different measures for clinical performance. This variability resulted from the different clinical contexts in which the studies were carried out. There is no universal measure for clinical performance because the outcome is in most cases context specific. In surgery, common performance measures are surgical complications, mortality or morbidity. 67 In anaesthesia, studies often use expert ratings based on checklists to assess the provision of anaesthesia. Expert ratings are also the common form of performance assessment in simulator settings where patient outcomes like morbidity or mortality cannot be measured. Future studies need to be aware that clinical performance measures depend on the clinical context and that the development of valid performance measures requires considerable effort and scientific rigour. Guidelines on how to develop performance assessment tools for specific clinical scenarios exist and need to be accounted for. 52 68 69 Furthermore, depending on the clinical setting researchers need to evaluate what specific clinical performance measures are suitable and if and how they can be linked to team processes in a meaningful way.

The analysis of moderators illustrates that teamwork is related with performance under a variety of conditions. Our results suggest that teams in different contexts characterised by different team constellations, team size and levels of acuity of care all benefit from teamwork. Therefore, clinicians and educators from all fields should strive to maintain or increase effective teamwork. In recent years, there has been an upsurge in crisis resource management (CRM). 19 These trainings focus on team management and implement various teamwork principles during crisis situations (eg, emergencies). 70 Our results suggest that team trainings should not only focus on non-routine situations like emergencies but also on routine situations (eg, routine anaesthesia induction, routine surgery) because based on our data teamwork is equally important in such situations.

A closer look at methodological factors of the included studies revealed that the observed relationship between teamwork and performance in simulation settings does not differ from relationships observed in real settings. Therefore, we conclude that teamwork studies conducted in simulation settings generalise to real life settings in acute care. Further, the analysis of different performance measures reveals a trend towards process performance measures being more strongly related with teamwork than outcome performance measures. A possible explanation of this finding relates to the difficulty of investigating outcome performance measures in a manner isolated from other variables. Nevertheless, we still found a significant relationship between teamwork and objective patient outcomes (eg, postoperative complications, bloodstream infections) despite the methodological challenges of measuring outcome performance and the small number of studies using outcome performance ( k =4).

Our results are in line with previous meta-analyses investigating the effectiveness of team training in healthcare. 18 19 Similar to our results, Hughes et al highlighted the effectiveness of team trainings under a variety of conditions — irrespective of team composition, 18 simulator fidelity or patient acuity of the trainee’s unit as well as other factors.

We were unable to find a moderation of task type in our study, potentially explained by task interdependence, which reflects the degree to which team members depend on one another for their effort, information and resources. 71 A meta-analysis including teams from multiple industries (eg, project teams, management teams) found that task interdependence moderates the relationship between teamwork and performance, demonstrating the importance of teamwork for highly interdependent team tasks. 72 Most studies included in our analysis focused on rather short and intense patient care episodes (eg, a surgery, a resuscitation task) with high task interdependence, which may explain the high relevance of teamwork for all these teams.

Limitations and future directions

Despite greater attention to healthcare team research and team training over the last decade, we were only able to identify 32 studies (31 included in the meta-analysis). Of note, over two-thirds of the studies in our analysis emerged in the last 10 years, reflecting the increasing interest in the topic. The rather small number of studies might relate to the difficulties in quantifying teamwork, the considerable theoretical and methodological knowledge required and the challenges of capturing relevant outcome measures. Also, besides the manual searches of selected articles and reviews and contacting authors in the field we did only search the database PubMed. PubMed is the most common database to access papers that potentially investigate medical teams and includes approximately 30 000 journals from the field of medicine, psychology and management. We are fairly confident that through the additional inclusion of relevant reviews and forward and backwards search, our results represent an accurate representation of what can be found in the literature.

Future research should build on recent theoretical and applied work 24 26 28 73 about teamwork and use this current meta-analysis as a signpost for future investigations. In order to move our field forward, we must use existing conceptual frameworks 22 24 26 and establish standards for investigating teams and teamwork. This can often only be achieved with interdisciplinary research teams including experts from the medical fields but equally important from health professions education, psychology or communication studies.

Another limitation relates to the unbalanced analysis of subgroups. For example, we only identified four studies that used outcome performance variables compared with 27 using process performance measures. Uneven groups may reduce the power to detect significant differences. Therefore, we encourage future studies to include outcome performance measures despite the effort required.

Finally, more factors may influence the relationship between teamwork and performance that we were unable to extract from the studies. While we tested for the effects of team familiarity by comparing experimental teams and real teams, this does not fully capture team member familiarity. The extent to which team members actually worked together during prior clinical practice might predict of how effectively they perform together. However, even two people working in the same ward might actually not have interacted much during patient care depending on the setting. Also team climate on a ward or in a hospital may be an important predictor of how well teams work together, especially related to sharing information or speaking up within the team. 74 75

Finally, the clinical context might play a role in how team members collaborate. In different disciplines, departments or healthcare institutions different norms and routines exist on how to work together. Therefore, study results and recommendations about teamwork need to be interpreted in the light of the respective clinical context. There are empirical indications that a one-size-fits-all approach might not be suitable and team training efforts cannot ignore the clinical context, especially the routines and norms about collaboration. 76 We acknowledge that there might be other factors surrounding healthcare teams that might potentially influence teamwork and clinical performance. However, in this review we could only extract data that was reported in the primary studies. Since these were limited in the healthcare contexts studied, the results might not generalise to long-term care settings or mental health, for example. Future work needs to consider and also document a broader range of potentially influencing factors.

The current meta-analysis confirms that teamwork across various team compositions represents a powerful process to improve patient care. Good teamwork can be achieved by joint reflection about teamwork during clinical event debriefings 77 78 as well as team trainings 79 and system improvement. All healthcare organisations should recognise these findings and place continuous efforts into maintaining and improving teamwork for the benefit of their patients.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Manuel Stühlinger for his help with study selection and data extraction and Walter J. Eppich, MD, PhD for a critical review and proofreading the manuscript.

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Contributors All authors substantially contributed to this study and were involved in the study design. JS drafted the paper. LM analysed the data and revised the manuscript for content. TM revised the manuscript for content and language. All authors approved the final version.

Funding This work was funded by the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, Grant No. P300P1_177695). The ESA provided resources for an additional research assistant helping with literature search and selection. Part of the salary of JS was funded by the SNSF.

Competing interests None declared.

Patient and public involvement statement Patients and public were not involved in this study.

Patient consent for publication Not required.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Data availability statement Data are available upon reasonable request.

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Teamwork Essay: Examples, Tips, & Ideas

These days, leadership and ability to work in a team are the skills that everybody should possess. It is impossible to cope with a large educational or work project alone. However, it can also be challenging to collaborate in a team. You might want to elaborate on importance and difficulties of such collaboration in your teamwork essay.

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

In the article, you’ll learn:

• Pros and cons of working in a team;
• Teamwork college essay prompts;
• Tips for writing your paper’s introduction, body, and conclusion;
• Ideas for writing about teamwork;
• Short teamwork essay examples for students.

Have you already decided on the main idea and an excellent way to complete your essay? If not yet, then do not waste your time and check several suggestions from our writers .

• ☝️ Pros and Cons
• 🏆 Its Importance
• 🤔 What Makes a Team?

📝 Teamwork Essay Examples

• 🔥 Essay Topics

🔗 References

☝️ writing about teamwork: pros & cons.

Considering the benefits and drawbacks of working in a group is essential for writing any paper on the topic. You have to understand what makes the issue multifaceted. In particular, if you’re going to compose the advantages and disadvantages of a teamwork essay, research on the subject is crucial.

📋 Teamwork Essay Outline

A well-crafted essay outline makes it easier to organize thoughts and stay focused while writing your essay. It also ensures that your text has a logical structure.

Keep reading to learn about different essay parts and their components.

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Teamwork Essay Introduction

One effective way to engage the reader is to start your introduction with a hook . A hook is a captivating opening line or statement that can be an interesting fact , a thought-provoking question , or a powerful quote . You should also provide some background information on teamwork to give the reader context.

Here are some ideas on what to include in your teamwork essay introduction:

Thesis Statement about Teamwork

A thesis statement in an essay is a concise, arguable claim or central point that sets the tone for the entire paper. A good thesis statement is debatable , specific , and provides a clear focus for the essay. Remember that it should also be supported by evidence relevant to the topic.

Have a look at these ideas for a thesis statement about teamwork:

Teamwork Essay: Main Body

Here’s how to structure your essay’s main body:

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• Each body paragraph typically begins with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea or argument of the paragraph.
• This is followed by evidence , such as quotes, statistics, or examples, which support the topic sentence.
• After presenting the evidence, you should provide an analysis by explaining how the evidence supports the thesis statement.
• A paragraph should end with a sentence that summarizes it and transitions to the next paragraph.

For more information about writing the main body, check out our 5-paragraph essay guide and the essay length guide .

Teamwork Essay Conclusion

At the conclusion of an essay, you should restate your thesis statement and summarize the essay’s ideas. It’s also essential to leave the reader with a lasting impression by offering a thought-provoking insight, a call to action, or a suggestion to explore the topic further.

Consider these ideas for a teamwork essay conclusion:

🖊️ Teamwork College Essay: How to Write

If you’ve been assigned to write an essay on teamwork, there are some of the most common approaches you can use. So, when thinking about essay topics, take a look at these. In the following sections, we will break them down separately.

Besides, you can see some points explored in detail in teamwork essay examples.

Get an originally-written paper according to your instructions!

🏆 The Importance of Teamwork

You may have to elaborate on teamwork in a college essay, though it may concern its different types. Dealing with tasks in groups can be an option both in educational institutions and workplaces. We’ll look at them separately in the following sections.

See how to write an essay about the importance of teamwork here.

Teamwork in School and College

You can introduce various points while explaining the importance of teamwork in an essay when it concerns educational institutions.

• It helps learn essential social skills. Working in a team can teach you necessary social skills, such as listening and speaking. You’ll have to act cohesively to get anything done. Additionally, teamwork experience will make you learn how to communicate information to others effectively.
• It enhances self-confidence . Teamwork in school and college teaches individuals that their voices are heard and valued. That helps people improve their self-esteem and enhance the working process.
• It diminishes bullying . Improved self-confidence will help a student to rise above the bully. Moreover, team members are more willing to support each other than other classmates. Discussing it in a student teamwork essay can be quite profound.
• It establishes the ground for student’s success in the future. Effective teamwork may contribute to breakthroughs outside the classroom. An early introduction to such experiences creates more opportunities for people to be productive and satisfied as a part of the group. When looking between teamwork and individual work experience, hiring companies value the former more.

Teamwork in the Workplace

You may be assigned to write an essay on teamwork in the workplace and its importance. In that case, you should consider the following arguments:

• Teamwork is crucial for the project’s success. The ability to work within a group increases your chance of getting and keeping the job. Moreover, the capacity to cooperate with colleagues can help you achieve better results. That’s the reason why companies have team-building activities. They can help improve the teamwork in the workplace and thus improve effectiveness.
• Teamwork is critical for personal growth. Working with different people in one group can enhance the personal strengths of each person. For instance, the team’s cultural diversity can help you learn how to communicate with people from different backgrounds. You can see this argument explored in various teamwork essay examples .

🤔 Writing about Teamwork: What Makes a Good Team?

For some reason, you need to compose a paper on creating or managing a team. Describe the whole process in your essay about teamwork. The main question you should answer is, “What makes a good team?”

To do that, discuss the following points in your paper:

• primary goals and purposes of your team;
• members of the team and duties of each member;
• a leader of your team;
• ways of achieving good relations and agreement between all members of the group.

The overall success of a team depends on each particular member. So, what a team member should be like? It is another good question to answer in essays about teamwork.

You may consider the following characteristics of a team member:

• an ability to meet the deadlines;
• an ability to adapt to changes quickly;
• good communication and diplomatic skills;
• optimism and a positive attitude, etc.

Explain the importance of each trait in your essay on teamwork. Add other personal features that you believe are significant.

Looking for some teamwork essay examples? Find a collection of links below! You are welcome to use these samples for inspiration. We ho hope that you will write an A+ paper!

• Mattel’s Workforce Strategy: Fostering of Teamwork
• Applied Teamwork Plan Review
• Cultural Diversity in Teamwork: Research Process
• Teamwork and Conflict Management in Nursing
• Teamworking Skills in Healthcare
• Teamwork During Product Design and Launch Process
• Diversity in the Workplace, Teamwork and Leadership
• Teamwork Organization and Experiences
• Measuring Teamwork in Workplaces
• Team Communication’s Importance for Successful Teamwork
• Trader Joe’s Stores’ Teamwork and Motivation
• Apple Company’s Teamwork Benefits
• The Teamwork Approach and the Customers Satisfaction
• Management: Effective Teamwork Role for Organizations Performance

Short Essay on Teamwork: Example

For your inspiration, we have prepared a short example of a teamwork essay. Check it out to gain ideas on how to effectively structure your paper.

Teamwork essay introduction

Over the last few decades, effective teamwork has become a key factor in business success. Companies hire diverse employees with unique skills to work together toward a common goal. The synergy created by such teamwork can lead to amazing achievements.

Thesis statement about teamwork

Effective teamwork helps achieve organizational goals by fostering collaboration and enhancing productivity.

Teamwork’s first advantage is improved collaboration among team members. When people with different perspectives work together, they can use their collective knowledge to address challenges, make better decisions, and come up with innovative ideas. For example, research and development teams have scientists and engineers collaborate and develop new technologies. Important inventions and breakthroughs can only be possible with their combined efforts.

Teamwork also enhances productivity by combining the team members’ strengths. Teams can optimize their performance and achieve better results when they assign tasks based on each member’s skills. For instance, in a marketing team, one member may excel in creative design while another is skilled in data analysis. The team can combine their skills to create memorable campaigns that resonate with their audience.

Teamwork essay conclusion

Teamwork is crucial for organizational success because it promotes collaboration and enhances productivity. Only by working together can companies overcome challenges and achieve their strategic goals.

🔥 Teamwork Essay Topics 

• Importance of teamwork for medical social workers.
• Describe the cooperation challenges of teamwork.
• Examine the relation between the effectiveness of the teams and the performance of the organization.
• Analyze what challenges the leader of a change team meets.
• Essential role of interprofessional team development in healthcare .
• Explain who are leaders from behind and how they affect the teamwork.
• Describe the key elements of positive teamwork .
• Is teamwork more productive than individual work?
• How to achieve successful collaboration and teamwork within a unit.
• The advantages of military mindset for business team.
• Discuss how different leadership styles affect teams.
• Describe your experience of group work .
• The importance of successful managing of team members’ capabilities .
• Why it is essential to learn the teamwork from the childhood.
• Lessons of the Marshmallow Challenge as a model of teamwork .
• Explain why collaboration is the essence of teamwork .
• How to avoid social loafing in teamwork.
• Analyze the methods of managing the team resources .
• Discuss the pros and cons of team-based approach .
• The crucial role of emotional intelligence in successful teamwork.
• Appraisal system and its impact on team performance.
• What are the stages of team development ?
• Is it difficult to build trust between team members?
• How to create an effective team .
• Describe the most effective strategies for virtual team communication.
• The role of strategy in team development.
• The main aspects of effective teamwork .
• Explain the difference between a work group and a team .
• The essential role of cultural literacy for managing a global team .
• Analyze how proper motivation affects the team performance.
• Is psychology important for formation of a sports team ?
• Discuss the principal elements of group management.
• Transitional leadership and its importance for teamwork .
• Describe the ways to improve teamwork within an organization.
• Examine the mutual impact of team members on each other.
• How properly managed conflict can help a team develop and improve.
• Discuss whether team building is important in nursing.
• Teamwork and successful collaboration in healthcare .
• Explain what personal qualities will make working in a team comfortable.
• What tools and strategies can help managing a remote team ?
• Analyze the advantage of diverse teams for a company.
• Can building of an effective team improve quality of healthcare?
• The difficulties of working in a virtual team .
• Role of a nurse team in caring for patients with breast cancer .
• The challenges of decision making in project teams .
• The crucial role of good leadership for team performance .
• Effective interprofessional communication and its importance for a healthcare team.
• Analyze the effect diversity has on global sales team .
• Explain the meaning of a performance-driven team .
• Describe advantages and disadvantages of team decision making .

Thank you for reading this article! We hope that this information was useful for you. If so, leave the comments and share this article with your friends.

This might be interesting for you:

• How to Write an Impressive Discursive Essay: Tips to Succeed
• Friendship Essay: Writing Guide & Topic Ideas about Friendship
• Compare and Contrast Essay Writing Tips and Examples
• Transportation Essay: Writing Tips and Brilliant Topics
• 4 Reasons Teamwork is Important in the Workplace: Career Training, YTI Career Institute
• Teamwork, Mastering Soft Skills for Workplace Succes: Skills to Pay the Bills, U.S. Department of Labor
• Essay Structure: Elizabeth Abrams, for the Writing Center at Harvard University
• The Basics of Essay Writing: UNSW Current Students, UNSW Sydney
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A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEAMWORK MANAGEMENT ON A WORKING RELATIONSHIP IN KENYAN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

The teachers of a school and the administrators have the sole responsibility to make sure that all is well within the school environment. The school, been an institution of learning and making future leaders should be favourable and conducive for the learning to take place. Children have a right to be attended to and given their share of the cake. The teachers who are also human beings need to have a good working relationship so that they can meet the objectives set. Sometimes, the teachers' morale is on the ground, or there are other things that are disturbing their concentration. At this time, one needs a shoulder to lean on, a person who can listen patiently and someone who can step in for him/her in that class where one was supposed to be and the children are jumping up and down like small monkeys. The model of team stages theory by Bruce Tuckman, (1965) which is also known as the origin for successful teambuilding, gave the researcher the insight that it's one thing to create a team and another to create teamwork. To have a performing team is not a one day process and it takes real hearts to accomplish the task. Teething problems are many but Bruce Tuckman says that with time most of the problems resolve themselves. The key areas discussed included effective communication, effective administration and importance of teambuilding. These aspects are the foundation of a lasting and effective teamwork. The research design-Qualitative methodology was used to critique the effectiveness of a teamwork management in a working relationship in Kenyan primary schools.

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The main aim of the article was to study the secondary school principals' management skills and how they affect team work in Kenya. Most of the principals in secondary schools in Kenya lack the proper management that they require to create effective teams among the staff members and students. The purpose of the study was to build a simple theoretical framework where efficiency of the management skills in education was studied to discover their effect on improving teamwork and the teachers' productivity in the school. Most of the principals in secondary schools in Kenya lack the prerequisite management skills that they require so that they can be able to supervise and translate the educational policies and objectives into school programs. The management skills include delegation of duties to other teachers with the rightful talents and abilities. There should be set proper mechanism that encourages open dialogue among the staff members and students. The staff members and students should be motivated to perform to their highest potential. The teachers should be involved in early timely planning of the school programs. All the teachers and students should be treated fairly and impartially regardless of their gender, religion or ethnic background. The study was guided by Bass transformational leadership theory which states that leaders acquire the leadership skills through learning. The study used a qualitative analysis with a non-interactive research design. The study critically analyzed the literature with an outlook of identifying the key management skills that principals and teachers should use to encourage functioning teams in their schools. Team work encourages learning Kahuthia Wanjiku Zaveria, Ruth W Thinguri CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRINCIPALS' MANAGEMENT SKILLS AND TEAM WORK IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KENYA European Journal of Education Studies-Volume 3 │ Issue 1 │ 2017 153 that occurs through dialogue, motivation, delegation of duties, timely planning and impartiality. When the principals have the proper management skills, they are able to organize the teachers and the students to work as a team. This prompts effective implementation of the school programs which leads to improved performance in the set targets. If the management skills are effectively utilized, there may be a clear performance management system and cooperative environment in the school. This may promote the efficiency of the teachers in enhancing schools' productivity as well as improving its overall performance. The study established the following key recommendations to the government, principals and teachers. The government to ensure that there is a comprehensive policy to equip principals with the proper management skills before being appointed to the leadership posts. It also recommends that principals and teachers should promote teamwork in their schools. This is through delegating duties to the staff members with different talents, allow open dialogue and encourage positive feedback from teachers and students, motivate teachers and students through recognition and physical rewarding and exercise impartiality to all regardless of their age, gender, religion or ethnic background.

The research study critically analyzed the impact of head teacher's and deputy head teacher's conflict development on team works in public primary school in Kenya. The study sought to establish the root causes of conflicts among the head teachers and deputy head teachers, perceptions of the stakeholders on the head teacher's and deputy head teachers, impact of the conflict resolution measures between the head teacher's and deputy head teachers on team work in public primary school in Kenya. Leadership challenges leading to chronic conflicts that has persisted in public primary schools and in high rise according to ministry of education report. Always conflicts occur whenever disagreement exists in a social setup between individuals or group and negotiations has become a song in the public schools in Kenya. The researchers sought to justify that in dead there exist a great disagreement between head teacher's and deputy head teacher's an issue that must be urgently addressed and if not taken serious might adversely effect on team work at work places. Also, the research sought to justify that conflicts leads to social desertification. Demoralization, stress, unhappiness, frustration and a sense of low self-esteem this is a thriving factor to disunity and weakens the bond of team work in an organization. The study defined the team head teacher, deputy head teacher's highlighting their major roles in a learning institution and to the community and to all education stakeholders. The study was based on team work theory so called Bruce tuck man theory of 1965 enriched by START TEAM MODEL. This theory had

abubakar saidi

This article reports some findings of study regarding practices and procedures of internal instructional supervision in public secondary schools in Kenya. The findings are part of a large-scale project undertaken in Kenya to determine the perceptions of headteachers, teachers and senior government education officers regarding the practices of internal instructional supervision and staff development in Kenyan public secondary schools. Findings indicated that instructional supervision was viewed as a process of checking other people's work to ensure that bureaucratic regulations and procedures are followed and that loyalty to the higher authorities is maintained. The benefits of supervision practices included facilitating students' academic performance, improving the quality of teachers and teaching, and enabling instructional supervisors to monitor teachers' instructional work. The major problems frustrating the practices of instructional supervision were those associated with a lack of consistency, questionable supervisor practices and lack of resources. Suggestions for change included developing clear policies on instructional supervision and providing needed resources, feedback and follow-up support.

Gregory T Papanikos

This book includes the abstracts of all the papers presented at the 19th Annual International Conference on Education, 15-18 May 2017, organized by the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). In total 160 papers were submitted by 170 presenters, coming from 40 different countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, FYROM, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malaysia, Qatar, Russia, Saudia Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, Uganda, UK and USA). The conference was organized into 39 sessions that included topic areas such as educational foundations, language learning, online education, leadership, education technology, and more. A full conference program can be found beginning on the next page. The papers presented during this conference will be considered for inclusion in one of ATINER’s many publications.

A. Kayum Ahmed

IJRTEM editor , Nehad El Leithy

The increasing global competition, lack of awareness and clear understanding of numerous varied domains and challenging issues surrounding the managerial implementation process caused TESOL educational institutions to realize the necessity to rapidly respond successfully to compete in the marketplace, meeting stakeholders' requirements and achieving a better competitive advantage.TESOL educational institutions have to work hard on making their strategic and operational processes more efficient and effective.For most, if not all, TESOL educational institution, achieving superior performance relative to rivals is the ultimate challenge.Consequently, TESOL educational institutions need to change their operation system by motivating the interest of all stakeholders, changing employees' attitudes, encouraging unity of purpose, involving creative problem solving, and making sure that organizational goals and objectives are accomplished. And that gets us to conclude that if TESOL educational institutions improve their system operation by adapting TQM and integrating work flow between top managerial level, middle managerial level and the ELT community, there will be an effective well communicated work harmony, especially in the decision making process and in developing more healthy culture across all the institution.

Alexander Franco

Published by the World Bank Group, 2018

The purpose of the study was a critical analysis on stakeholders' interrelation and students discipline in Kenyan schools. For discipline to be upheld different stakeholders have to come together and forge a healthy interrelation. That is the; Government, Board of management, parents, teachers and students stakeholders contribute to discipline of any learning institution. Every stakeholder has a role to play as the findings bring out. Every stakeholder participates in policy making and healthy interrelation aids smooth running of schools. Without good interrelation between stakeholders the findings show that school unrest rise and student disagree by protesting. Good interrelation is seen to improve learning environment which leads to improved discipline. The findings established that not only is unhealthy interrelation between students and other stakeholders but also between parents, Board of management, Government and teachers. Indiscipline on any part of stakeholder has resulted to conflict and unhealthy interrelation. The purpose of the study critically analyzes the stakeholders' interrelation and students discipline in Kenyan schools. The study aims at analyzing the Board of Management, Parents, Teachers, Students and The Ministry of Education interrelation and students discipline in Kenyan schools. The study recommends a comprehensive policy by all stakeholders and guidelines that would inform and improve the need to interrelate among the stakeholders. In conclusion the role of all stakeholders in maintaining the students discipline in Kenyan schools wholly depends on interrelation between the stakeholders.

Jessie Alocillo

European Scientific Journal ESJ

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between working conditions and teacher turnover intentions in public secondary schools in Meru County, Kenya. The study used a descriptive survey design with both quantitative and qualitative approaches in data collection and analysis. A total of 520 respondents were involved in the study that included 503 secondary school teachers, 15 principals and 2 staffing officers. Teachers working conditions were examined to determine their relationship with turnover intentions. Data obtained from teachers' questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively using SPSS version 21.Hypotheses were tested using Pearson product moment correlation coefficient and chi-square goodness of fit at 95%, p<0.05. The result of product moment correlation analysis indicated that the independent variable, working conditions (r=-0.488, p<0.001) have a negative and an inverse relationship with the independent variable, turnover intention. These results were agreed with the results of Chi-square analysis for both the independent variable which showed a significant relationship between working conditions and turnover intentions of secondary school teachers in Meru County. The results therefore established that teachers' motivation in secondary schools in Meru County is low due to poor working conditions and the education system appears to be staffed with teachers with poor morale and low levels of commitment to their jobs leading to high turnover intentions. The study recommends the various Boards of Management and other education stakeholders at the national and county government levels consider issues of teachers working conditions as an essential element in the motivating and reducing turnover intentions hence retention in teaching service.

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What Is a Critical Analysis Essay: Definition

Have you ever had to read a book or watch a movie for school and then write an essay about it? Well, a critical analysis essay is a type of essay where you do just that! So, when wondering what is a critical analysis essay, know that it's a fancy way of saying that you're going to take a closer look at something and analyze it.

So, let's say you're assigned to read a novel for your literature class. A critical analysis essay would require you to examine the characters, plot, themes, and writing style of the book. You would need to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses and provide your own thoughts and opinions on the text.

Similarly, if you're tasked with writing a critical analysis essay on a scientific article, you would need to analyze the methodology, results, and conclusions presented in the article and evaluate its significance and potential impact on the field.

The key to a successful critical analysis essay is to approach the subject matter with an open mind and a willingness to engage with it on a deeper level. By doing so, you can gain a greater appreciation and understanding of the subject matter and develop your own informed opinions and perspectives. Considering this, we bet you want to learn how to write critical analysis essay easily and efficiently, so keep on reading to find out more!

Meanwhile, if you'd rather have your own sample critical analysis essay crafted by professionals from our custom writings , contact us to buy essays online .

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Critical Analysis Essay Topics by Category

If you're looking for an interesting and thought-provoking topic for your critical analysis essay, you've come to the right place! Critical analysis essays can cover many subjects and topics, with endless possibilities. To help you get started, we've compiled a list of critical analysis essay topics by category. We've got you covered whether you're interested in literature, science, social issues, or something else. So, grab a notebook and pen, and get ready to dive deep into your chosen topic. In the following sections, we will provide you with various good critical analysis paper topics to choose from, each with its unique angle and approach.

Critical Analysis Essay Topics on Mass Media

From television and radio to social media and advertising, mass media is everywhere, shaping our perceptions of the world around us. As a result, it's no surprise that critical analysis essays on mass media are a popular choice for students and scholars alike. To help you get started, here are ten critical essay example topics on mass media:

• The Influence of Viral Memes on Pop Culture: An In-Depth Analysis.
• The Portrayal of Mental Health in Television: Examining Stigmatization and Advocacy.
• The Power of Satirical News Shows: Analyzing the Impact of Political Commentary.
• Mass Media and Consumer Behavior: Investigating Advertising and Persuasion Techniques.
• The Ethics of Deepfake Technology: Implications for Trust and Authenticity in Media.
• Media Framing and Public Perception: A Critical Analysis of News Coverage.
• The Role of Social Media in Shaping Political Discourse and Activism.
• Fake News in the Digital Age: Identifying Disinformation and Its Effects.
• The Representation of Gender and Diversity in Hollywood Films: A Critical Examination.
• Media Ownership and Its Impact on Journalism and News Reporting: A Comprehensive Study.

Critical Analysis Essay Topics on Sports

Sports are a ubiquitous aspect of our culture, and they have the power to unite and inspire people from all walks of life. Whether you're an athlete, a fan, or just someone who appreciates the beauty of competition, there's no denying the significance of sports in our society. If you're looking for an engaging and thought-provoking topic for your critical analysis essay, sports offer a wealth of possibilities:

• The Role of Sports in Diplomacy: Examining International Relations Through Athletic Events.
• Sports and Identity: How Athletic Success Shapes National and Cultural Pride.
• The Business of Sports: Analyzing the Economics and Commercialization of Athletics.
• Athlete Activism: Exploring the Impact of Athletes' Social and Political Engagement.
• Sports Fandom and Online Communities: The Impact of Social Media on Fan Engagement.
• The Representation of Athletes in the Media: Gender, Race, and Stereotypes.
• The Psychology of Sports: Exploring Mental Toughness, Motivation, and Peak Performance.
• The Evolution of Sports Equipment and Technology: From Innovation to Regulation.
• The Legacy of Sports Legends: Analyzing Their Impact Beyond Athletic Achievement.
• Sports and Social Change: How Athletic Movements Shape Societal Attitudes and Policies.

Critical Analysis Essay Topics on Literature and Arts

Literature and arts can inspire, challenge, and transform our perceptions of the world around us. From classic novels to contemporary art, the realm of literature and arts offers many possibilities for critical analysis essays. Here are ten original critic essay example topics on literature and arts:

• The Use of Symbolism in Contemporary Poetry: Analyzing Hidden Meanings and Significance.
• The Intersection of Art and Identity: How Self-Expression Shapes Artists' Works.
• The Role of Nonlinear Narrative in Postmodern Novels: Techniques and Interpretation.
• The Influence of Jazz on African American Literature: A Comparative Study.
• The Complexity of Visual Storytelling: Graphic Novels and Their Narrative Power.
• The Art of Literary Translation: Challenges, Impact, and Interpretation.
• The Evolution of Music Videos: From Promotional Tools to a Unique Art Form.
• The Literary Techniques of Magical Realism: Exploring Reality and Fantasy.
• The Impact of Visual Arts in Advertising: Analyzing the Connection Between Art and Commerce.
• Art in Times of Crisis: How Artists Respond to Societal and Political Challenges.

Critical Analysis Essay Topics on Culture

Culture is a dynamic and multifaceted aspect of our society, encompassing everything from language and religion to art and music. As a result, there are countless possibilities for critical analysis essays on culture. Whether you're interested in exploring the complexities of globalization or delving into the nuances of cultural identity, there's a wealth of topics to choose from:

• The Influence of K-Pop on Global Youth Culture: A Comparative Study.
• Cultural Significance of Street Art in Urban Spaces: Beyond Vandalism.
• The Role of Mythology in Shaping Indigenous Cultures and Belief Systems.
• Nollywood: Analyzing the Cultural Impact of Nigerian Cinema on the African Diaspora.
• The Language of Hip-Hop Lyrics: A Semiotic Analysis of Cultural Expression.
• Digital Nomads and Cultural Adaptation: Examining the Subculture of Remote Work.
• The Cultural Significance of Tattooing Among Indigenous Tribes in Oceania.
• The Art of Culinary Fusion: Analyzing Cross-Cultural Food Trends and Innovation.
• The Impact of Cultural Festivals on Local Identity and Economy.
• The Influence of Internet Memes on Language and Cultural Evolution.

How to Write a Critical Analysis: Easy Steps

When wondering how to write a critical analysis essay, remember that it can be a challenging but rewarding process. Crafting a critical analysis example requires a careful and thoughtful examination of a text or artwork to assess its strengths and weaknesses and broader implications. The key to success is to approach the task in a systematic and organized manner, breaking it down into two distinct steps: critical reading and critical writing. Here are some tips for each step of the process to help you write a critical essay.

Step 1: Critical Reading

Here are some tips for critical reading that can help you with your critical analysis paper:

• Read actively : Don't just read the text passively, but actively engage with it by highlighting or underlining important points, taking notes, and asking questions.
• Identify the author's main argument: Figure out what the author is trying to say and what evidence they use to support their argument.
• Evaluate the evidence: Determine whether the evidence is reliable, relevant, and sufficient to support the author's argument.
• Analyze the author's tone and style: Consider the author's tone and style and how it affects the reader's interpretation of the text.
• Identify assumptions: Identify any underlying assumptions the author makes and consider whether they are valid or questionable.
• Consider alternative perspectives: Consider alternative perspectives or interpretations of the text and consider how they might affect the author's argument.
• Assess the author's credibility : Evaluate the author's credibility by considering their expertise, biases, and motivations.
• Consider the context: Consider the historical, social, cultural, and political context in which the text was written and how it affects its meaning.
• Pay attention to language: Pay attention to the author's language, including metaphors, symbolism, and other literary devices.
• Synthesize your analysis: Use your analysis of the text to develop a well-supported argument in your critical analysis essay.

Step 2: Critical Analysis Writing

Here are some tips for critical analysis writing, with examples:

• Start with a strong thesis statement: A strong critical analysis thesis is the foundation of any critical analysis essay. It should clearly state your argument or interpretation of the text. You can also consult us on how to write a thesis statement . Meanwhile, here is a clear example:
• Weak thesis statement: 'The author of this article is wrong.'
• Strong thesis statement: 'In this article, the author's argument fails to consider the socio-economic factors that contributed to the issue, rendering their analysis incomplete.'
• Use evidence to support your argument: Use evidence from the text to support your thesis statement, and make sure to explain how the evidence supports your argument. For example:
• Weak argument: 'The author of this article is biased.'
• Strong argument: 'The author's use of emotional language and selective evidence suggests a bias towards one particular viewpoint, as they fail to consider counterarguments and present a balanced analysis.'
• Analyze the evidence : Analyze the evidence you use by considering its relevance, reliability, and sufficiency. For example:
• Weak analysis: 'The author mentions statistics in their argument.'
• Strong analysis: 'The author uses statistics to support their argument, but it is important to note that these statistics are outdated and do not take into account recent developments in the field.'
• Use quotes and paraphrases effectively: Use quotes and paraphrases to support your argument and properly cite your sources. For example:
• Weak use of quotes: 'The author said, 'This is important.'
• Strong use of quotes: 'As the author points out, 'This issue is of utmost importance in shaping our understanding of the problem' (p. 25).'
• Use clear and concise language: Use clear and concise language to make your argument easy to understand, and avoid jargon or overly complicated language. For example:
• Weak language: 'The author's rhetorical devices obfuscate the issue.'
• Strong language: 'The author's use of rhetorical devices such as metaphor and hyperbole obscures the key issues at play.'
• Address counterarguments: Address potential counterarguments to your argument and explain why your interpretation is more convincing. For example:
• Weak argument: 'The author is wrong because they did not consider X.'
• Strong argument: 'While the author's analysis is thorough, it overlooks the role of X in shaping the issue. However, by considering this factor, a more nuanced understanding of the problem emerges.'
• Consider the audience: Consider your audience during your writing process. Your language and tone should be appropriate for your audience and should reflect the level of knowledge they have about the topic. For example:
• Weak language: 'As any knowledgeable reader can see, the author's argument is flawed.'
• Strong language: 'Through a critical analysis of the author's argument, it becomes clear that there are gaps in their analysis that require further consideration.'

Master the art of critical analysis with EssayPro . Our team is ready to guide you in dissecting texts, theories, or artworks with depth and sophistication. Let us help you deliver a critical analysis essay that showcases your analytical prowess.

Creating a Detailed Critical Analysis Essay Outline

Creating a detailed outline is essential when writing a critical analysis essay. It helps you organize your thoughts and arguments, ensuring your essay flows logically and coherently. Here is a detailed critical analysis outline from our dissertation writers :

I. Introduction

A. Background information about the text and its author

B. Brief summary of the text

C. Thesis statement that clearly states your argument

II. Analysis of the Text

A. Overview of the text's main themes and ideas

B. Examination of the author's writing style and techniques

C. Analysis of the text's structure and organization

III. Evaluation of the Text

A. Evaluation of the author's argument and evidence

B. Analysis of the author's use of language and rhetorical strategies

C. Assessment of the text's effectiveness and relevance to the topic

IV. Discussion of the Context

A. Exploration of the historical, cultural, and social context of the text

B. Examination of the text's influence on its audience and society

C. Analysis of the text's significance and relevance to the present day

V. Counter Arguments and Responses

A. Identification of potential counterarguments to your argument

B. Refutation of counterarguments and defense of your position

C. Acknowledgement of the limitations and weaknesses of your argument

VI. Conclusion

A. Recap of your argument and main points

B. Evaluation of the text's significance and relevance

C. Final thoughts and recommendations for further research or analysis.

This outline can be adjusted to fit the specific requirements of your essay. Still, it should give you a solid foundation for creating a detailed and well-organized critical analysis essay.

Useful Techniques Used in Literary Criticism

There are several techniques used in literary criticism to analyze and evaluate a work of literature. Here are some of the most common techniques:

• Close reading: This technique involves carefully analyzing a text to identify its literary devices, themes, and meanings.
• Historical and cultural context: This technique involves examining the historical and cultural context of a work of literature to understand the social, political, and cultural influences that shaped it.
• Structural analysis: This technique involves analyzing the structure of a text, including its plot, characters, and narrative techniques, to identify patterns and themes.
• Formalism: This technique focuses on the literary elements of a text, such as its language, imagery, and symbolism, to analyze its meaning and significance.
• Psychological analysis: This technique examines the psychological and emotional aspects of a text, including the motivations and desires of its characters, to understand the deeper meanings and themes.
• Feminist and gender analysis: This technique focuses on the representation of gender and sexuality in a text, including how gender roles and stereotypes are reinforced or challenged.
• Marxist and social analysis: This technique examines the social and economic structures portrayed in a text, including issues of class, power, and inequality.

By using these and other techniques, literary critics can offer insightful and nuanced analyses of works of literature, helping readers to understand and appreciate the complexity and richness of the texts.

Sample Critical Analysis Essay

Now that you know how to write a critical analysis, take a look at the critical analysis essay sample provided by our research paper writers and better understand this kind of paper!

Final Words

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• A Guide on How to Write a Teamwork Reflection with Examples

“The strength of the team is each individual member and the strength of each member is the team.” Phil Jackson

Reflective practices have always been a great way to look back on your experience and improve your actions for the future. For those who are not aware of the term reflection, it refers to an examination of one’s actions, experiences, and perspectives in order to find critical areas for improvement. Simply put, it is more like learning from the past in order to enhance future scenarios.

Table of Contents

Step 1 - describe the main focus of the reflection, step 2 - elaborate on the objective of the project, step 3 - elucidate the responsibilities of the team, step 4 - highlight the status of the objective, step 5 - underline the challenges, step 6 - emphasize learnings, step 7 - accentuate changes in future endeavors.

• Teamwork reflection examples

Reflecting on our actions or decisions is our path to enlightenment and it does add immensely to our vision and future goals. From students to employees, everyone needs to work in teams quite often in their pursuit of meeting their goals. Having said that, it is essential for you to know how to write a teamwork reflection.

This is your complete guide on writing a teamwork reflection that is inclusive of a stepwise approach to writing a reflection of your participation in a team project. Besides, the guide includes three effective examples for greater understanding. So, to begin with, let us get started with the process of writing a teamwork reflection. To assist you with a better comprehension of the writing of a teamwork reflection, every step covers the same example elaborating on the teamwork reflection of performing surgery in the operations room.

How to write a teamwork reflection in 7 easy steps

The first and foremost step in writing a teamwork reflection is to describe the main focus of the reflection i.e. describing the experience you want to reflect upon. Along with this, you will also describe whether your reflection talks about teamwork or it is a self-reflection. To simplify, this section in-depth will talk about the whole central idea of reflection on the event including all the main aspects that contributed to the occurrence of the event. While describing the main focus of the reflection, you need to keep 5Ws and 1H in mind where 5Ws and 1H stand for

When - In this, you will describe the time of the occurrence of the event.

Where - This will focus on the location where the event took place.

What - Through this, you will describe what exactly happened during the event.

Why - While answering why, you will focus on highlighting the reasons things happened in the way they did.

Who - Who part will answer the question by describing which all people were involved in the event.

How - Lastly, you will include how everyone including you contributed to the occurrence of the event

Effectively answering the 5Ws and 1H will give you a detailed description of the whole incident you want to express in terms of an engaging reflection write-up. However, you have to ensure that the main focus of the reflection should be concise and meticulous enough that it should clearly highlight the central idea to the readers.

Introduction

This teamwork reflection is regarding a leg surgery we performed at The Alfred last month. We needed to perform surgery on a patient who got an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury on his leg in a car accident. We were a team of 5 including nurses and doctors. The surgery was successful because everyone performed their tasks responsibly.

After describing the main focus of the reflection, you are ready to move on to the next step i.e. elaborating on the objective of the whole project. Simply put, you have to describe the key objectives of the project that you wish to achieve through your teamwork.

The main objective of the surgery was to rebuild the ligament with a tissue graft in order to ensure that the patient can smoothly perform his regular day to day basis tasks on his own.

Succeeding that, you will elaborate on the responsibilities of the team in detail. To elaborate, you will effectively define which team member of your group was assigned which task. Here, you can also elaborate on the various leadership theories that were applied at the team level. Following that, you will also provide detailed information on whether your team members were successful in completing their responsibilities on an individual level and the team level.

We were a total of five members were responsible for performing the surgery

1. Surgeon - He was responsible for taking out the graft from other tendons in the knee or thigh areas.

2. Anesthesiologist - I was responsible for deciding the level of anesthesia that needs to be given to the patient from time to time.

3. Nurse anesthetist - She was the assistant to the anesthesiologist and was supposed to take care of the temperature of the patient and other functional changes occurring in the body.

4. Circulating nurse - He was responsible for helping the surgeon throughout the process of surgery.

5. Surgical tech - Surgical tech was responsible for ensuring that all the tools are available in the surgery room and will hand them out as per the surgeon’s instructions.

In this section, after describing the roles and responsibilities, you will further elaborate on the status of the objective. In this section, you will highlight the correlation between the efforts of your team members and how their efforts contributed to the successful completion of your overall objective. Along with this, you will also highlight the reason why the objective was achieved or why it was not achieved.

The operation was successful and we were successfully able to remove the graft from a cadaver and deposit it in the injured area. The reason that the operation was successful was that everybody knew their responsibility beforehand and the whole surgery was performed with cordiality.

Coming to the next step, next you will emphasize the challenges that you faced during the completion of the team task. In this, challenges will be described in both the senses mentioned below.

The challenges you faced at the individual level

The challenges you encountered at the team level.

For instance, if ethical issues proved to be a hindrance to the accomplishment of the objectives, you ought to highlight them. Underlining the challenges will assist you in further indicating the key pitfalls that would have contributed to delay or inefficient results. After this, you can significantly conduct a gap analysis that will highlight the major reason why pitfalls occurred. Results of the gap analysis will also assist you in making future strategies to avoid these challenges.

During the surgery, we were a group of diverse teams in which the members were of different social groups. Hence, during the operation, we faced the challenge of understanding each other’s non-verbal language signs. On a personal level, as I was an intern in nursing, I faced the challenge of coping with the senior members’ speed. They were moving really fast with every step during the surgery, so, I got a little anxious through the whole surgery.

After underlining the challenges, comes another crucial step in reflection writing. In this step, you will significantly elaborate on the learnings of the whole experience. Again, one of the crucial notable points over here is that you need to accentuate both the learnings at a personal level and at the group level. Highlighting your learnings will assist you in creating a roadmap on how you can improve for the future.

Through this surgery, we all learned irrespective of our different backgrounds, that if you have cordiality and collaboration in the team, you can carry out any major operation successfully. Personally, I learned that with time and experience, people gradually build their speed in performing different tasks. Additionally, I also got to learn how to work professionally with a team of highly skilled surgeons.

With this, we have come to our last but definitely not the least step of the writing teamwork reflection is focusing on the changes that you will make for the future. To elaborate, lastly, you will focus on how you need to change your strategies in order to come up with more efficient results. On the other side of it, you are done with your well-written reflection on teamwork.

During future operations, we will ensure to cross-check whether everyone has been very well prepared for the operation and all the apparatus are available for the operations. On the other hand, in the future, I will ensure that I come with a free mind in the operation room. Besides, if anything goes wrong, I would take deep breaths to calm myself down and continue the progress to complete the assigned task.

At last, another important consideration in writing a reflection using the above-given steps is subject to change until you are not using any particular reflection out of several prominent reflection models .

To continue, to give you a better comprehension of how to write a reflection about teamwork, we have two completely different samples of teamwork reflection. Firstly, an example of teamwork reflection will be about teamwork and collaboration in nursing. Following that, an example of teamwork reflection as a nursing student is highlighted. Lastly, an effective example of teamwork reflection in the workplace will be provided.

Group teamwork reflection examples

Example 1 - sample of group teamwork reflection as a nursing practitioner.

Assessment task - Teamwork reflection by nursing practitioners

For - Nursing practitioners

Task - Team reflection on the duties performed in the context of nursing practices for old age care

Working center - Berengarra Residential Aged Care Facility

Step 1 - Describe the main focus of reflection

Gone are the days when a single doctor or dentist or other health organization practitioners could solely deliver high-quality care that could easily satisfy their patients. Today, it requires a good tea to offer satisfactory service to the patients. The complexity of the care that patients need today highlights the need for health professionals to collaborate and communicate clearly with each other (Eddy, Jordan & Stephenson, 2016). We learned this through our recent experience which will be described in this reflection.

This teamwork reflection will confer our experience of taking care of old age people about a week ago. We were 4 team members that were supposed to visit Berengarra Residential Aged Care Facility and take care of old aged people. The reason that we were assigned this job was that the previously assigned team failed in performing their duty due to a lack of responsibility. Although we also faced some challenges, eventually we took care of everything and successfully performed our duty because of our collaboration and teamwork.

Step 2 - Elaborate on the objectives of the project

The main objective of this project was to effectively take care of the elderly people that need the utmost care and support because of a lack of energy to even perform basic daily tasks. Moreover, most of the people in old age care centers are suffering from worry or distress due to leaving their homes because of ample reasons such as abandonment from their homes. People living in the old age care center often experience depression and in old age. This is either the result of living alone or due to a lack of connection breakage with their culture of origin. This results in an incapacity to actively participate in the activities of the community (Singh & Misra, 2009). Hence, another objective of this project was to connect with the old age people and give them the support and care they deserve at this age.

We were a team of 5 people and we all divided our responsibilities as per the handling of different essential activities every day. To maintain confidentiality, I will address each member as members 1, 2, 3, and 4. Team member one was responsible for the food committee and was supposed to look after all the meals in terms of their quality and the timely serving of the meals. In different old age centers, old people often lack the energy to perform daily personal tasks such as changing and bathing.

So, team member 2 was responsible for taking care of the bathing and dressing assistance of elderly people. Team member 3 was me and I was accountable for medication assistance for the elderly people and for ensuring that every patient gets their medications on time. Lastly, team member 5 was responsible for coordinating with the housekeeping team and ensuring proper sanitation at the whole place, and keeping the place disinfected.

Step 4 - Final status of the objective

After a month, we were relieved from the duty, and in our final evaluation our supervisors evaluated the place and took the feedback and we got good feedback and ratings. This implies that we were successful in achieving our ultimate goal and providing efficient service to the old age center. Secondly, we got blessings from the elderly and this indicated that we were successful in achieving the second objective of providing a satisfactory service to the old age people.

Step 5 - Highlight the main challenges

Through the whole tenure we worked at that old age center, we encountered a few challenges. Firstly, as it was a completely new place to us, So, it was challenging for all of us to adjust to the new environment. So, it took us some time to adjust to their daily routines and learn their daily routines. Besides, the last team that was in charge was accused of a lack of responsibility, so it was pressure on us to avoid that tag for us.

On a personal level, as I was in charge of medication for the patient, there were 20 patients under my supervision. Hence, it was quite challenging for me to keep a record of all the patients and the time and name of the medicines that were supposed to get delivered to the target audience. So, I took assistance from team member 1 who was in charge of the food committee. He had this tool on his iPad where he stored all the data and kept a track of all the medication easily and suggested the same to me. He assisted me effectively and we divided up the number of patients to effectively maintain the record.

Through this whole experience we learned how crucial coordination and collaboration are in the healthcare sector. If we would have not divided our work or assisted each other, it would not have been possible for us to successfully take care of the old age people. It was our collaboration and trust in each other as a team that made us successful in achieving the target and getting good feedback from our superiors.

On a personal level, I learned that there will always be difficulty in handling different situations and it is always good to ask for help if needed rather than handling it all on your own and messing it up by doing it alone. Besides, I also learned that technology can be a great helping hand if used effectively.

On a team level, for the future we would ensure that we calm ourselves down and try our best to adapt and blend the environment as soon as possible to effectively work on giving the best services. Besides, we would also have frequent team meetings every day to ensure that if any team member needs any sort of help or assistance with their tasks.

On the other hand, if similar situations occur again, on a personal level, I would definitely ensure that I would learn more about different applications that can offer assistance to me in managing different records.

Example 2 - Sample of group teamwork reflection as a nursing student

Assessment task - Teamwork reflection by nursing students

For - Nursing students

Task - Team reflection on the PowerPoint presentation by nursing students

Working center - University of Texas Arlington

I have always believed that teamwork always brings out the dreamwork. But, in order for a team to give efficient results, every team member needs to collaborate and engage in teamwork (Schmutz, Meier & Manser, 2019). I learned this through the effective experience I had in my second year of doing a Master's in Nursing with a Specialty in Nursing Administration and Management at the University of Texas Arlington. I was in a group of 5 people and we were assigned the task of creating a PowerPoint presentation.

We all agreed on the topic, “How health practitioners can support families of children with autism spectrum disorders”. All the team members together decided and made me the team leader and on their suggestion only I distributed the tasks among the teams.

There were two major objectives of this project. Firstly, we wanted to find out the different ways through which we can support families of children dealing with autism spectrum disorders. The major reason for this objective was that as nurses there often comes a time when we would have to support the families of children dealing with different disorders. While preparing for this presentation, we would understand various methods through which we can offer support to the families of children dealing with ASD.

The second crucial objective of this task was our teachers wanted us to know how to work in teams effectively. The major reason behind the same is that nursing teams are often instructed to handle a bunch of patients or wards in different sections. Learning how to work in a team would give us clarity on how we can work together effectively to get the desired results.

We were in a group of 5 members and to maintain the confidentiality of the names, I would refer to each member as Student A, Student B, Student C, Student D, and me. While keeping in mind the capabilities and key skills of all my team members, I decided to give them the task that suited their capabilities. Student A - Student A was very good with research and had in-depth knowledge about how to find relevant and high authority-certified research papers. Besides, the topic of the presentation majorly required in-depth research about finding different ways to support families of children with ASD. Hence, student A was responsible for finding all the relevant research papers, theses, and dissertations related to the topic of the presentation.

Student B voluntarily decided to take the responsibility of digging out the relevant information because she liked reading. Once all the relevant literature had been selected, then Student B was responsible for shunting out all the relevant information that needed to be added to the PowerPoint presentation. For student C, we decided to give the responsibility of arranging the data in a presentable form. The major reason behind the same was that it was pre-decided that C might not be able to get the task done because of his interview round. So, as part of the contingency plan we decided to give student C the minimum work because even if the work doesn't get done, nobody has to bear an extra burden. Student D had a specialized certification in PowerPoint presentation so we decided to give him the duty of creating the final presentation. Me, as everybody decided, I would be the team lead so I was responsible to give the final presentation in front of the whole class.

Step 4 - Describe the final status of the objectives

Everybody in my team did proper work as per their assigned responsibilities. Although as a part of the contingency plan we decided to give student C minimal responsibilities possible he also finished his work on time before going to the interview. I believe this objective was successfully attained because we had everything planned in advance along with pre-decided responsibilities for everyone. As everyone knew what they had to do even when we faced challenges during the language barriers or lack of coordination, everybody did their part very well. However, when it was my turn to present the presentation in front of the whole class, I got a little nervous and even fumbled in some places during delivering my presentation. But in the end, we were successful in achieving the main objective of working together irrespective of some challenges we faced. Moreover, we also learn so much about how to support families of children with autism syndrome disorder.

We had to encounter various types of challenges that we had to face during this presentation. Even I personally had to experience some of the challenges. At the team level - as we were still studying under a remote structure, for the team level we faced communication challenges because there were many people who did not have high-quality internet connections in their homes. Besides, two of the team members belong to other nationalities so we also faced language barriers as a major challenge during communication with them. Language barriers in a multinational team often lead to reduced participation in team communication (Tenzer, Pudelko & Zellmer-Bruhn, 2021).

On a personal level, I am an introvert by nature and somehow also lacked confidence in public speaking. As I was the one who had to present it in front of the entire class, I was a little nervous and also thought that I would not be able to present it meticulously.

Through the whole experience, on a personal level, I learned how crucial communication skills are in my nursing profession. The reason is irrespective of this presentation in the future as well I would have to interact with the families of the patient or with the patient. Hence, I have to socialize and would have to work on my communication skills as well. Good communication skill does not only rely on the physical abilities of nurses, but also on education and experience (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014).

On the team level, I gotta know that cordiality and planning are really crucial in any team for the successful accomplishment of the desired goal. Irrespective of the fact that we had a language barrier or connectivity issue, as everything was well-planned everybody did their part very well.

In the future, I personally feel that I would like to make two changes to the action plan that we followed in this experience. On an individual level, I would definitely take some of the communication skill courses from different learning apps and would even practice public speaking to socialize comparatively better to this experience. On the team level, if the situation occurs in the remote working structure again, then I would prefer to use various project management software or different applications that could help us with coordination and planning more effectively.

Example 3 - Sample of group teamwork reflection in the workplace

Assessment task - Teamwork reflection by employees in a workplace

For - Employees

Task - Team reflection on the achieving a target in a workplace

Workplace - AB Enterprises

The success of any workplace majorly depends on teamwork and collaboration between its employees. A group accomplishes the highest amount of accomplishments when it is completely focused on a task and completely utilizes every participant’s ability. The most important factor that impacts the success of team collaboration is trust. Without trust, the team significantly runs the risk of deteriorating over time (Bennett & Gadlin, 2012). I learned this from a recent experience I had in my company when we were assigned a task that we have to perform in a group.

Last month, the superiors of our AB enterprise company assigned us the target of making our website rank in the top 10 search engine results for some particular keywords in the span of 3 months. We were a total of 5 people in the marketing team that was assigned this task 4 months back. After effectively planning everything and using different strategies and tactics, we successfully achieved our target.

The main objective of this project was to convert our website into a revenue-generating website. The first step for achieving the same was it was essential that our website should rank on the first pages of the search engines. Secondly, we were a newly formed team, our employer wanted us to understand the true meaning of the team, collaboration, and trust. Hence, he assigned us this task to let us understand the true meaning of the team.

We were a team of 5 members and out of which I was the SEO content writer with another junior content writer. Along with this, we had 2 members of the technical SEO team and 1 member was from the development team. Both of the content writers including me were responsible for creating engaging content for the website. Technical SEO members were responsible for optimizing the content and pitching for gaining backlinks in order to make the website rank higher. Besides, the responsibility of the developer was to upload the content, set the structure, and ensure that there remains no errors in the development phase so that the target can be achieved.

After working hard for 3 months and working overtime as well, we finally achieved the target and made our website rank for 10 keywords that were related to our niche. Moreover, when we worked together for three months as a team, we bonded and collaborated effectively to get the desired results. We trusted and assisted each other in understanding things and getting the work going so that we can achieve the target by the assigned deadline.

Throughout the whole process, we faced many challenges down the line. On a team level, the senior technical SEO got a stomach infection and was on leave for almost 15 days. In her absence, the other member faced many issues in handling the work alone. But here he asked for my assistance and for this, I had to learn about technical SEO first, and then I assisted him with all his doubts.

On a personal level, as I was leading this project, I also had other responsibilities along with writing the content. So, I faced challenges in managing my work of content writing and other responsibilities. Hence to ensure a proper balance and clear my pendencies, I did work some of the work after office hours as well.

Through this whole project, we all learned that if we collaborate effectively and work together, we can easily achieve any target. Moreover, we realized that trust is really important for the successful accomplishment of the project. Trusting teams can effectively assist in enhancing cooperation and collaboration in processes. Furthermore, this will assist them in managing their interdependencies among their respective areas of expertise (Bond-Barnard, Fletcher & Steyn, 2018). We had three subteams in a bigger circle of the marketing team. None of the subteams interfered with each other’s tasks and everyone took accountability for performing their assigned tasks with utmost efficiency.

On a personal level, I learned that although we together achieved the desired results, taking over responsibilities disrupted my work-life balance and I felt stressed from time to time due to this. Hence, I learned that I need to manage my time during working hours more effectively so that I would not have to do work from home.

On a group level, in the planning phase only, we will break our bigger target into smaller ones. So that, we would effectively be able to keep track of our overall levels of accomplishments. Moreover, in the future, if similar situations occur, we would create contingency plans as well. For example, in this situation, our team member got sick, and the burden of the same was on the other members. So, we would learn little of everything from the next time onward. So that, if anything goes wrong, we would have each other’s support to handle the crisis.

On a personal level, as I have too many responsibilities to handle, I would try to delegate some of my tasks to my juniors. So that, I would be able to focus more on the tasks that need my most attention. The next time, I would also take help from various productivity and time management tools to keep a track of all time I am spending on all the necessary and unnecessary tasks.

To conclude, teamwork is an important part of the work irrespective of the industry you work in. Hence, it is really essential to look back and reflect on the incidents to learn something every time that can assist in enhancing your efficiency. Moreover, the above-given information will effectively assist you in writing a good teamwork reflection as well.

Recommended Readings

How to write an academic essay

How to avoid plagiarism

HD grades in assignments

How important is self-assessment in a teamwork reflection?

Self-assessment is a crucial aspect of a teamwork reflection. It allows you to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a team member, leading to personal growth and development in future collaborative endeavors.

Should I include any references or citations in my teamwork reflection?

In most cases, teamwork reflections do not require formal references or citations unless you are referring to specific external sources. The reflection is a personal account of your experiences and insights rather than an academic or research paper.

Schmutz, J., Meier, L., & Manser, T. (2019). How effective is teamwork really? The relationship between teamwork and performance in healthcare teams: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open, 9(9), e028280. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028280

Tenzer, H., Pudelko, M., & Zellmer-Bruhn, M. (2021). The impact of language barriers on knowledge processing in multinational teams. Journal Of World Business, 56(2), 101184. doi: 10.1016/j.jwb.2020.101184

Kourkouta, L., & Papathanasiou, I. (2014). Communication in Nursing Practice. Materia Socio Medica, 26(1), 65. doi: 10.5455/msm.2014.26.65-67

Singh, A., & Misra, N. (2009). Loneliness, depression and sociability in old age. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 18(1), 51. doi: 10.4103/0972-6748.57861

Bond-Barnard, T., Fletcher, L., & Steyn, H. (2018). Linking trust and collaboration in project teams to project management success. International Journal Of Managing Projects In Business, 11(2), 432-457. doi: 10.1108/ijmpb-06-2017-0068

Bennett, L., & Gadlin, H. (2012). Collaboration and Team Science. Journal Of Investigative Medicine, 60(5), 768-775. doi: 10.2310/jim.0b013e318250871d

Eddy, K., Jordan, Z., & Stephenson, M. (2016). Health professionals’ experience of teamwork education in acute hospital settings. JBI Database Of Systematic Reviews And Implementation Reports, 14(4), 96-137. doi: 10.11124/jbisrir-2016-1843

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Home » Critical Analysis – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

Critical Analysis – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Critical Analysis

Definition:

Critical analysis is a process of examining a piece of work or an idea in a systematic, objective, and analytical way. It involves breaking down complex ideas, concepts, or arguments into smaller, more manageable parts to understand them better.

Types of Critical Analysis

Types of Critical Analysis are as follows:

Literary Analysis

This type of analysis focuses on analyzing and interpreting works of literature , such as novels, poetry, plays, etc. The analysis involves examining the literary devices used in the work, such as symbolism, imagery, and metaphor, and how they contribute to the overall meaning of the work.

Film Analysis

This type of analysis involves examining and interpreting films, including their themes, cinematography, editing, and sound. Film analysis can also include evaluating the director’s style and how it contributes to the overall message of the film.

Art Analysis

This type of analysis involves examining and interpreting works of art , such as paintings, sculptures, and installations. The analysis involves examining the elements of the artwork, such as color, composition, and technique, and how they contribute to the overall meaning of the work.

Cultural Analysis

This type of analysis involves examining and interpreting cultural artifacts , such as advertisements, popular music, and social media posts. The analysis involves examining the cultural context of the artifact and how it reflects and shapes cultural values, beliefs, and norms.

Historical Analysis

This type of analysis involves examining and interpreting historical documents , such as diaries, letters, and government records. The analysis involves examining the historical context of the document and how it reflects the social, political, and cultural attitudes of the time.

Philosophical Analysis

This type of analysis involves examining and interpreting philosophical texts and ideas, such as the works of philosophers and their arguments. The analysis involves evaluating the logical consistency of the arguments and assessing the validity and soundness of the conclusions.

Scientific Analysis

This type of analysis involves examining and interpreting scientific research studies and their findings. The analysis involves evaluating the methods used in the study, the data collected, and the conclusions drawn, and assessing their reliability and validity.

Critical Discourse Analysis

This type of analysis involves examining and interpreting language use in social and political contexts. The analysis involves evaluating the power dynamics and social relationships conveyed through language use and how they shape discourse and social reality.

Comparative Analysis

This type of analysis involves examining and interpreting multiple texts or works of art and comparing them to each other. The analysis involves evaluating the similarities and differences between the texts and how they contribute to understanding the themes and meanings conveyed.

Critical Analysis Format

Critical Analysis Format is as follows:

I. Introduction

• Provide a brief overview of the text, object, or event being analyzed
• Explain the purpose of the analysis and its significance
• Provide background information on the context and relevant historical or cultural factors

II. Description

• Provide a detailed description of the text, object, or event being analyzed
• Identify key themes, ideas, and arguments presented
• Describe the author or creator’s style, tone, and use of language or visual elements

III. Analysis

• Analyze the text, object, or event using critical thinking skills
• Identify the main strengths and weaknesses of the argument or presentation
• Evaluate the reliability and validity of the evidence presented
• Assess any assumptions or biases that may be present in the text, object, or event
• Consider the implications of the argument or presentation for different audiences and contexts

IV. Evaluation

• Provide an overall evaluation of the text, object, or event based on the analysis
• Assess the effectiveness of the argument or presentation in achieving its intended purpose
• Identify any limitations or gaps in the argument or presentation
• Consider any alternative viewpoints or interpretations that could be presented
• Summarize the main points of the analysis and evaluation
• Reiterate the significance of the text, object, or event and its relevance to broader issues or debates
• Provide any recommendations for further research or future developments in the field.

VI. Example

• Provide an example or two to support your analysis and evaluation
• Use quotes or specific details from the text, object, or event to support your claims
• Analyze the example(s) using critical thinking skills and explain how they relate to your overall argument

VII. Conclusion

• Reiterate your thesis statement and summarize your main points
• Provide a final evaluation of the text, object, or event based on your analysis
• Offer recommendations for future research or further developments in the field
• End with a thought-provoking statement or question that encourages the reader to think more deeply about the topic

How to Write Critical Analysis

Writing a critical analysis involves evaluating and interpreting a text, such as a book, article, or film, and expressing your opinion about its quality and significance. Here are some steps you can follow to write a critical analysis:

• Read and re-read the text: Before you begin writing, make sure you have a good understanding of the text. Read it several times and take notes on the key points, themes, and arguments.
• Identify the author’s purpose and audience: Consider why the author wrote the text and who the intended audience is. This can help you evaluate whether the author achieved their goals and whether the text is effective in reaching its audience.
• Analyze the structure and style: Look at the organization of the text and the author’s writing style. Consider how these elements contribute to the overall meaning of the text.
• Evaluate the content : Analyze the author’s arguments, evidence, and conclusions. Consider whether they are logical, convincing, and supported by the evidence presented in the text.
• Consider the context: Think about the historical, cultural, and social context in which the text was written. This can help you understand the author’s perspective and the significance of the text.
• Develop your thesis statement : Based on your analysis, develop a clear and concise thesis statement that summarizes your overall evaluation of the text.
• Support your thesis: Use evidence from the text to support your thesis statement. This can include direct quotes, paraphrases, and examples from the text.
• Write the introduction, body, and conclusion : Organize your analysis into an introduction that provides context and presents your thesis, a body that presents your evidence and analysis, and a conclusion that summarizes your main points and restates your thesis.
• Revise and edit: After you have written your analysis, revise and edit it to ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and well-organized. Check for spelling and grammar errors, and make sure that your analysis is logically sound and supported by evidence.

When to Write Critical Analysis

You may want to write a critical analysis in the following situations:

• Academic Assignments: If you are a student, you may be assigned to write a critical analysis as a part of your coursework. This could include analyzing a piece of literature, a historical event, or a scientific paper.
• Journalism and Media: As a journalist or media person, you may need to write a critical analysis of current events, political speeches, or media coverage.
• Personal Interest: If you are interested in a particular topic, you may want to write a critical analysis to gain a deeper understanding of it. For example, you may want to analyze the themes and motifs in a novel or film that you enjoyed.
• Professional Development : Professionals such as writers, scholars, and researchers often write critical analyses to gain insights into their field of study or work.

Critical Analysis Example

An Example of Critical Analysis Could be as follow:

Research Topic:

The Impact of Online Learning on Student Performance

Introduction:

The introduction of the research topic is clear and provides an overview of the issue. However, it could benefit from providing more background information on the prevalence of online learning and its potential impact on student performance.

Literature Review:

The literature review is comprehensive and well-structured. It covers a broad range of studies that have examined the relationship between online learning and student performance. However, it could benefit from including more recent studies and providing a more critical analysis of the existing literature.

Research Methods:

The research methods are clearly described and appropriate for the research question. The study uses a quasi-experimental design to compare the performance of students who took an online course with those who took the same course in a traditional classroom setting. However, the study may benefit from using a randomized controlled trial design to reduce potential confounding factors.

The results are presented in a clear and concise manner. The study finds that students who took the online course performed similarly to those who took the traditional course. However, the study only measures performance on one course and may not be generalizable to other courses or contexts.

Discussion :

The discussion section provides a thorough analysis of the study’s findings. The authors acknowledge the limitations of the study and provide suggestions for future research. However, they could benefit from discussing potential mechanisms underlying the relationship between online learning and student performance.

Conclusion :

The conclusion summarizes the main findings of the study and provides some implications for future research and practice. However, it could benefit from providing more specific recommendations for implementing online learning programs in educational settings.

Purpose of Critical Analysis

There are several purposes of critical analysis, including:

• To identify and evaluate arguments : Critical analysis helps to identify the main arguments in a piece of writing or speech and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. This enables the reader to form their own opinion and make informed decisions.
• To assess evidence : Critical analysis involves examining the evidence presented in a text or speech and evaluating its quality and relevance to the argument. This helps to determine the credibility of the claims being made.
• To recognize biases and assumptions : Critical analysis helps to identify any biases or assumptions that may be present in the argument, and evaluate how these affect the credibility of the argument.
• To develop critical thinking skills: Critical analysis helps to develop the ability to think critically, evaluate information objectively, and make reasoned judgments based on evidence.
• To improve communication skills: Critical analysis involves carefully reading and listening to information, evaluating it, and expressing one’s own opinion in a clear and concise manner. This helps to improve communication skills and the ability to express ideas effectively.

Importance of Critical Analysis

Here are some specific reasons why critical analysis is important:

• Helps to identify biases: Critical analysis helps individuals to recognize their own biases and assumptions, as well as the biases of others. By being aware of biases, individuals can better evaluate the credibility and reliability of information.
• Enhances problem-solving skills : Critical analysis encourages individuals to question assumptions and consider multiple perspectives, which can lead to creative problem-solving and innovation.
• Promotes better decision-making: By carefully evaluating evidence and arguments, critical analysis can help individuals make more informed and effective decisions.
• Facilitates understanding: Critical analysis helps individuals to understand complex issues and ideas by breaking them down into smaller parts and evaluating them separately.
• Fosters intellectual growth : Engaging in critical analysis challenges individuals to think deeply and critically, which can lead to intellectual growth and development.

Advantages of Critical Analysis

Some advantages of critical analysis include:

• Improved decision-making: Critical analysis helps individuals make informed decisions by evaluating all available information and considering various perspectives.
• Enhanced problem-solving skills : Critical analysis requires individuals to identify and analyze the root cause of a problem, which can help develop effective solutions.
• Increased creativity : Critical analysis encourages individuals to think outside the box and consider alternative solutions to problems, which can lead to more creative and innovative ideas.
• Improved communication : Critical analysis helps individuals communicate their ideas and opinions more effectively by providing logical and coherent arguments.
• Reduced bias: Critical analysis requires individuals to evaluate information objectively, which can help reduce personal biases and subjective opinions.
• Better understanding of complex issues : Critical analysis helps individuals to understand complex issues by breaking them down into smaller parts, examining each part and understanding how they fit together.
• Greater self-awareness: Critical analysis helps individuals to recognize their own biases, assumptions, and limitations, which can lead to personal growth and development.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay

Here are the exact steps you need to follow for a reflection on group work essay.

• Explain what Reflection Is
• Explore the benefits of group work
• Explore the challenges group
• Give examples of the benefits and challenges your group faced
• Discuss how your group handled your challenges
• Discuss what you will do differently next time

Do you have to reflect on how your group work project went?

This is a super common essay that teachers assign. So, let’s have a look at how you can go about writing a superb reflection on your group work project that should get great grades.

The essay structure I outline below takes the funnel approach to essay writing: it starts broad and general, then zooms in on your specific group’s situation.

Disclaimer: Make sure you check with your teacher to see if this is a good style to use for your essay. Take a draft to your teacher to get their feedback on whether it’s what they’re looking for!

This is a 6-step essay (the 7 th step is editing!). Here’s a general rule for how much depth to go into depending on your word count:

• 1500 word essay – one paragraph for each step, plus a paragraph each for the introduction and conclusion ;
• 3000 word essay – two paragraphs for each step, plus a paragraph each for the introduction and conclusion;
• 300 – 500 word essay – one or two sentences for each step.

Adjust this essay plan depending on your teacher’s requirements and remember to always ask your teacher, a classmate or a professional tutor to review the piece before submitting.

Here’s the steps I’ll outline for you in this advice article:

Step 1. Explain what ‘Reflection’ Is

You might have heard that you need to define your terms in essays. Well, the most important term in this essay is ‘reflection’.

So, let’s have a look at what reflection is…

Reflection is the process of:

• Pausing and looking back at what has just happened; then
• Thinking about how you can get better next time.

Reflection is encouraged in most professions because it’s believed that reflection helps you to become better at your job – we could say ‘reflection makes you a better practitioner’.

Think about it: let’s say you did a speech in front of a crowd. Then, you looked at video footage of that speech and realised you said ‘um’ and ‘ah’ too many times. Next time, you’re going to focus on not saying ‘um’ so that you’ll do a better job next time, right?

Well, that’s reflection: thinking about what happened and how you can do better next time.

It’s really important that you do both of the above two points in your essay. You can’t just say what happened. You need to say how you will do better next time in order to get a top grade on this group work reflection essay.

Scholarly Sources to Cite for Step 1

Okay, so you have a good general idea of what reflection is. Now, what scholarly sources should you use when explaining reflection? Below, I’m going to give you two basic sources that would usually be enough for an undergraduate essay. I’ll also suggest two more sources for further reading if you really want to shine!

I recommend these two sources to cite when explaining what reflective practice is and how it occurs. They are two of the central sources on reflective practice:

• Describe what happened during the group work process
• Explain how you felt during the group work process
• Look at the good and bad aspects of the group work process
• What were some of the things that got in the way of success? What were some things that helped you succeed?
• What could you have done differently to improve the situation?
• Action plan. What are you going to do next time to make the group work process better?
• What? Explain what happened
• So What? Explain what you learned
• Now What? What can I do next time to make the group work process better?

Possible Sources:

Bassot, B. (2015).  The reflective practice guide: An interdisciplinary approach to critical reflection . Routledge.

Brock, A. (2014). What is reflection and reflective practice?. In  The Early Years Reflective Practice Handbook  (pp. 25-39). Routledge.

Gibbs, G. (1988)  Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods . Further Education Unit, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford.

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Extension Sources for Top Students

Now, if you want to go deeper and really show off your knowledge, have a look at these two scholars:

• John Dewey – the first major scholar to come up with the idea of reflective practice
• Donald Schön – technical rationality, reflection in action vs. reflection on action

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Step 2. Explore the general benefits of group work for learning

Once you have given an explanation of what group work is (and hopefully cited Gibbs, Rolfe, Dewey or Schon), I recommend digging into the benefits of group work for your own learning.

The teacher gave you a group work task for a reason: what is that reason?

You’ll need to explain the reasons group work is beneficial for you. This will show your teacher that you understand what group work is supposed to achieve. Here’s some ideas:

• Multiple Perspectives. Group work helps you to see things from other people’s perspectives. If you did the task on your own, you might not have thought of some of the ideas that your team members contributed to the project.
• Contribution of Unique Skills. Each team member might have a different set of skills they can bring to the table. You can explain how groups can make the most of different team members’ strengths to make the final contribution as good as it can be. For example, one team member might be good at IT and might be able to put together a strong final presentation, while another member might be a pro at researching using google scholar so they got the task of doing the initial scholarly research.
• Improved Communication Skills. Group work projects help you to work on your communication skills. Communication skills required in group work projects include speaking in turn, speaking up when you have ideas, actively listening to other team members’ contributions, and crucially making compromises for the good of the team.
• Learn to Manage Workplace Conflict. Lastly, your teachers often assign you group work tasks so you can learn to manage conflict and disagreement. You’ll come across this a whole lot in the workplace, so your teachers want you to have some experience being professional while handling disagreements.

You might be able to add more ideas to this list, or you might just want to select one or two from that list to write about depending on the length requirements for the essay.

Scholarly Sources for Step 3

Make sure you provide citations for these points above. You might want to use google scholar or google books and type in ‘Benefits of group work’ to find some quality scholarly sources to cite.

Step 3. Explore the general challenges group work can cause

Step 3 is the mirror image of Step 2. For this step, explore the challenges posed by group work.

Students are usually pretty good at this step because you can usually think of some aspects of group work that made you anxious or frustrated. Here are a few common challenges that group work causes:

• Time Consuming. You need to organize meetups and often can’t move onto the next component of the project until everyone has agree to move on. When working on your own you can just crack on and get it done. So, team work often takes a lot of time and requires significant pre-planning so you don’t miss your submission deadlines!
• Learning Style Conflicts. Different people learn in different ways. Some of us like to get everything done at the last minute or are not very meticulous in our writing. Others of us are very organized and detailed and get anxious when things don’t go exactly how we expect. This leads to conflict and frustration in a group work setting.
• Free Loaders. Usually in a group work project there’s people who do more work than others. The issue of free loaders is always going to be a challenge in group work, and you can discuss in this section how ensuring individual accountability to the group is a common group work issue.
• Communication Breakdown. This is one especially for online students. It’s often the case that you email team members your ideas or to ask them to reply by a deadline and you don’t hear back from them. Regular communication is an important part of group work, yet sometimes your team members will let you down on this part.

As with Step 3, consider adding more points to this list if you need to, or selecting one or two if your essay is only a short one.

8 Pros And Cons Of Group Work At University

You’ll probably find you can cite the same scholarly sources for both steps 2 and 3 because if a source discusses the benefits of group work it’ll probably also discuss the challenges.

Step 4. Explore the specific benefits and challenges your group faced

Step 4 is where you zoom in on your group’s specific challenges. Have a think: what were the issues you really struggled with as a group?

• Was one team member absent for a few of the group meetings?
• Did the group have to change some deadlines due to lack of time?
• Were there any specific disagreements you had to work through?
• Did a group member drop out of the group part way through?
• Were there any communication break downs?

Feel free to also mention some things your group did really well. Have a think about these examples:

• Was one member of the group really good at organizing you all?
• Did you make some good professional relationships?
• Did a group member help you to see something from an entirely new perspective?
• Did working in a group help you to feel like you weren’t lost and alone in the process of completing the group work component of your course?

Here, because you’re talking about your own perspectives, it’s usually okay to use first person language (but check with your teacher). You are also talking about your own point of view so citations might not be quite as necessary, but it’s still a good idea to add in one or two citations – perhaps to the sources you cited in Steps 2 and 3?

Step 5. Discuss how your group managed your challenges

Step 5 is where you can explore how you worked to overcome some of the challenges you mentioned in Step 4.

So, have a think:

• Did your group make any changes part way through the project to address some challenges you faced?
• Did you set roles or delegate tasks to help ensure the group work process went smoothly?
• Did you contact your teacher at any point for advice on how to progress in the group work scenario?
• Did you use technology such as Google Docs or Facebook Messenger to help you to collaborate more effectively as a team?

In this step, you should be showing how your team was proactive in reflecting on your group work progress and making changes throughout the process to ensure it ran as smoothly as possible. This act of making little changes throughout the group work process is what’s called ‘Reflection in Action’ (Schön, 2017).

Scholarly Source for Step 5

Schön, D. A. (2017).  The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action . Routledge.

Step 6. Conclude by exploring what you will do differently next time

Step 6 is the most important step, and the one far too many students skip. For Step 6, you need to show how you not only reflected on what happened but also are able to use that reflection for personal growth into the future.

This is the heart and soul of your piece: here, you’re tying everything together and showing why reflection is so important!

This is the ‘action plan’ step in Gibbs’ cycle (you might want to cite Gibbs in this section!).

For Step 6, make some suggestions about how (based on your reflection) you now have some takeaway tips that you’ll bring forward to improve your group work skills next time. Here’s some ideas:

• Will you work harder next time to set deadlines in advance?
• Will you ensure you set clearer group roles next time to ensure the process runs more smoothly?
• Will you use a different type of technology (such as Google Docs) to ensure group communication goes more smoothly?
• Will you make sure you ask for help from your teacher earlier on in the process when you face challenges?
• Will you try harder to see things from everyone’s perspectives so there’s less conflict?

This step will be personalized based upon your own group work challenges and how you felt about the group work process. Even if you think your group worked really well together, I recommend you still come up with one or two ideas for continual improvement. Your teacher will want to see that you used reflection to strive for continual self-improvement.

Scholarly Source for Step 6

Step 7. edit.

Okay, you’ve got the nuts and bolts of the assessment put together now! Next, all you’ve got to do is write up the introduction and conclusion then edit the piece to make sure you keep growing your grades.

Here’s a few important suggestions for this last point:

• You should always write your introduction and conclusion last. They will be easier to write now that you’ve completed the main ‘body’ of the essay;
• Use my 5-step I.N.T.R.O method to write your introduction;
• Use my 5 C’s Conclusion method to write your conclusion;
• Use my 5 tips for editing an essay to edit it;
• Use the ProWritingAid app to get advice on how to improve your grammar and spelling. Make sure to also use the report on sentence length. It finds sentences that are too long and gives you advice on how to shorten them – such a good strategy for improving evaluative essay  quality!
• Make sure you contact your teacher and ask for a one-to-one tutorial to go through the piece before submitting. This article only gives general advice, and you might need to make changes based upon the specific essay requirements that your teacher has provided.

That’s it! 7 steps to writing a quality group work reflection essay. I hope you found it useful. If you liked this post and want more clear and specific advice on writing great essays, I recommend signing up to my personal tutor mailing list.

Let’s sum up with those 7 steps one last time:

• Explain what ‘Reflection’ Is
• Explore the benefits of group work for learning
• Explore the challenges of group work for learning
• Explore the specific benefits and challenges your group faced
• Discuss how your group managed your challenges
• Conclude by exploring what you will do differently next time

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

2 thoughts on “How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay”

Great instructions on writing a reflection essay. I would not change anything.

Thanks so much for your feedback! I really appreciate it. – Chris.

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Critical Analysis of the Lack of Teamwork as a Human Factor That Impacts Interprofessional Collaboration and Service-User Safety

Introduction.

The lack of teamwork heavily affects inter-professional collaboration and patient safety. In the context of healthcare, interprofessional collaboration is the practice of handling patient care from a team-based perspective. This simply means that healthcare providers carry out assessment and treatment of patients as a group and they focus on the whole process of treating the patient. Inter-professional collaboration is necessitated by inter-professional education which refers to the incidences when students from diverse professions in health and social care learn together during their professional training to propagate collaboration in the provision of healthcare. Lack of teamwork in inter-professional collaboration leads to staff fatigue, burnout, turnover, elevated workflow redundancies, operational inefficiencies, and increased healthcare costs. Lack of teamwork also leads to a high rate of preventable harm to patients, medical errors, and poor patient experience and outcomes. Team failure is caused by varying reasons, but its consequences are severe and the same: formation of factions, drawing of battle lines, ceased communication, elevated suspicions, lowered productivity and efficiency, and further collaboration or innovation is futile. The objective of this study is to critically analyze how lack of teamwork affects inter-professional collaboration and patients’ safety. This is achieved by discussing teamwork, inter-professional collaboration, and how the former affects the latter.

Teamwork in Healthcare Delivery

Teamwork in healthcare is the independent interaction of two or more people with a common objective, operating toward measurable goals that are supported by leadership that maintains stability while spurring honest discussion and problem solving (Mach et al., 2021). Teamwork is integral in ensuring patient safety since it reduces adverse events perpetrated by miscommunication among healthcare providers and misunderstanding of the roles and responsibilities. According to Greer et al. (2020), effective teamwork reduces medical errors, elevates the safety of patients, improves patients’ mortality rate, and leads to better staff outcomes such as reduced stress and enhanced job satisfaction. Teamwork is a critical intervention in healthcare since the current clinical care is complex and specialized, forcing health practitioners to try complicated medical operations and learn new techniques of health provision.

The need for teamwork in health institutions has been necessitated by the increasing aging populations, elevated chronic diseases like cancer, heart diseases, and diabetes. These conditions require a multidisciplinary approach, hence the need for partnership. Some countries such as the United States require medical teams to manage patients with varying health conditions. The observations made by Greer et al. (2020) were also reiterated by Weller and Civil (2017) who also observed that working together minimizes medical errors, elevates patients’ safety, and reduces problems that cause burnout. Given that solid communication is the foundation of teamwork, patients and their families feel comfortable when being handled by a collection of healthcare providers and report high satisfaction with the services they receive.

Interprofessional Collaboration

Interprofessional collaboration is the coming together of professionals in the healthcare sector to offer quality care (Reeves et al., 2011). It occurs when all health providers (nurses, clinical officers, doctors, pharmacists, and other registered healthcare professionals) team up to provide the best care to patients (Littlechild & Smith, 2013). Interprofessional collaboration from a healthcare perspective entails medical practitioners working together to offer exhaustive care while recognizing the responsibilities and competencies of each healthcare expert. According to Barr et al. (2008), interprofessional collaboration becomes effective when there is open communication, respect, trust, and acknowledgment of each members’ role among medical practitioners. To realize an effective interprofessional collaboration, each health provider should understand their roles and responsibilities and be active in communication.

Interprofessional collaboration is needed within health care delivery. With the right communication strategies and technology, interprofessional collaboration improves patient care and outcomes. A team of healthcare professionals has varying perspectives and valuable insights about patients that facilitate their quick treatment. With only one healthcare provider looking after a patient, there are possibilities of them erring in their service provision due to narrow or unidirectional perspectives. Interprofessional collaboration reduces medical errors. As noted by Hammick et al. (2007), gaps in communication in health institutions which is caused by a lack of interprofessional collaboration are the third leading cause of death in the United States and it has serious ramifications on a patient such as missed symptoms, misdiagnosis and medical errors. Interprofessional collaboration facilitates faster treatment, reduces inefficiencies and healthcare costs, and improves staff relationships and job satisfaction.

Analysis of the Impact of Lack of Teamwork on Interprofessional Collaboration and Patient Safety

Teamwork is the practice of operating in a group to achieve the objectives of an organization through dynamic exchange of resources, coordination of effort, and adaptation to the altering situational factors. Good teamwork in health institutions is necessary for bringing out the desired outcome and this is facilitated via effective communication skills. Quality teamwork is integral in professional satisfaction and engagement, productivity, organizational performance, and patient satisfaction and outcome. A well-structured team in healthcare impedes patient mortality, poor health performance, and staff absenteeism and turnover (Tweedie et al., 2019). An effective team is composed of various disciplines. Health practitioners should come together, communicate effectively, and be open to new ideas to ensure that there are successful patient outcomes. The collaboration among health providers should not only be limited to them but also with patients. All members of the medical facility benefit from teams with diverse backgrounds and experiences which results in efficient care of patients. When all health participants are engaged in a program, the objectives of medical facilities are easily achieved. Being able to efficiently communicate and work collectively as a group requires acknowledgment and appreciation from the members’ area of practice (Mach et al., 2021). The members of a team play a critical role and the appreciation of their contributions makes them responsible and accountable.

Teamwork plays a critical role in the inter-professional group. It sharpens the performance of the unit via simplification. Good teams are not formed by chance but through consistent action and constructive feedback in a high morale workplace. It encourages feedback among health professionals that is not impeded by vague philosophy or precision (Gardner, 2015). Since the health profession requires teamwork, identifying what works, inculcating collaborative learning, and meeting objectives as a group elevates the motivation and focus of team members. Teamwork enables health professionals to be in control of their destinies and it kills the old hierarchical model of dictating the thoughts and actions of people working in a polarized business environment. With effective teamwork, health practitioners are insulated from the stress and pressure of putting up with a tyrant manager who controls employees working individually (Cooke, 2016). Teamwork also develops a code of conduct and instills discipline among the group members. There is a higher probability of group members being disciplined and sticking to the provided guidelines as compared to medical practitioners working on their own. Group work facilitates discipline since the members of the team motivate themselves and encourage each other to ensure they meet their objectives. As noted by Cooke (2016), the discovery of the core values of a company requires asking the right questions that can be scaled down to meet the needs of the team. Team building entails finding answers to the questions but on a limited scale. Given that team members, managers, and employees want an effective system and culture where they are empowered by their work, health facilities thrive to create a culture that enables medical practitioners to use their unique skills, motivation, and experience to make a difference for the team and themselves.

Teamwork impacts the safety of service users and inter-professional collaboration in various ways. Effective coordination of teams in healthcare reduces the level of stress experienced by patients, fastens their recovery, and positively impacts the outcome. Through effective coordination, teamwork enhances the safety of patients through elevated clinical performance, reduced medical errors, heightened efficiencies, reduced health cost, and eased concerns of patients regarding treatment and procedures. Inter-professional collaboration is also affected by teamwork. Teamwork facilitates inter-professional collaboration which is integral in improving patient care and outcomes. Through teamwork, health professionals can effectively reduce medical errors, facilitate faster treatment, minimize inefficiencies, enhance staff relationships and job satisfaction, and empower inter-professional collaboration in healthcare with mobile solutions (O’Connor, 2019).

Interprofessional communication entails the operation of medical practitioners as a unit through effective communication, respect, and acknowledgment of the roles played by others. Teamwork is the foundation of interprofessional collaboration. The absence of teamwork in a medical setup leads to an array of problems such as staff fatigue, burnout, high workflow redundancies, elevated costs of healthcare, and operational inefficiencies (Slusser et al., 2018). Lack of teamwork causes a high rate of avoidable harm to patients, medical errors, and poor patient experience. Among healthcare professionals, team failure leads to the formation of divisions, no communication, heightened suspicions, reduced productivity and efficiency, drawn battle lines, and futile innovation or corporation (Altmiller, 2014).

Lack of teamwork grossly affects interprofessional communication. With health providers working independently, no flow of critical information facilitates the diagnosis, treatment, and recovery of patients. The safety of patients is jeopardized with collapsed communication since healthcare entails complex and specialized treatments that cannot be carried out by an individual (Weller & Civil, 2017). Medical practitioners who operate without collaborating with others tend to experience fatigue and burnout since they execute multiple activities that can grossly be reduced by engaging other practitioners. Lack of teamwork also leads to redundancy in workflow since there is no division of roles. Health providers who work indecently tend to repeatedly carry out the same activities yet with collaboration, such repetitions can be minimized (Forman et al., 2020). The cost of healthcare also increases when there is no teamwork since health providers take longer to handle patients and they encounter numerous errors which make the whole process costly (Reeves et al., 2011). Lack of collaboration among medical practitioners also leads to inefficiencies that elevate the risks of medical errors and reduce the quality of care. Medical practitioners who do not exercise teamwork lose motivation and knowledge and experience reduced efficiency in their operations. They also experience imbalanced professional relationships, especially between nurses and physicians.

Non-teamwork is not acceptable in inter-professional collaboration since the healthcare setting does not allow a patient to be under the control of one health provider. The provision of healthcare is achieved by an interdisciplinary team of medical practitioners who are experts in different fields (Stewart, 2018). Each member of the team has a unique perspective and integral insights into the condition of a patient. They observe different symptoms, consider varying possibilities, and provide unique treatment and care. Working as a unit, the professionals have a comprehensive and holistic insight into the patient.

Teamwork plays a critical role in patient care and interprofessional collaboration. It generates an environment that encourages team members to share their collective knowledge, resources, and skills. With open communication and sharing, team members reflect on their way of thinking and how to approach a situation. When health professionals operate cohesively, medical facilities experience elevated quality of patient care, increased patient safety, reduction in team stress and fatigue, elevated job satisfaction, improved time management skills, and enhanced skill sets. Teamwork is not always successful in healthcare. The absence of teamwork affects patient care and inter-professional collaboration. Lack of teamwork is caused by prioritizing one’s individual needs, lack of focus and commitment of team members, distrust of other team members, lack of accountability, and lack of keen attention. Lack of communication and group work leads to mistakes such as medication errors or misdiagnosis which can be detrimental to patients and at times worsen the pre-existing health issues. The effects of medical errors are not just limited to patients but also healthcare delivery for facilities, at times employee/personnel wages and insurance cost. Numerous errors that happen in healthcare facilities impact the reputation of such medical institutions, causing patients to look for medical assistance elsewhere. Teamwork and interprofessional collaboration require effective implementation of regulations for it to be successful. No medical institution does not need interprofessional collaboration since healthcare provision is achieved through an interdisciplinary team of medical practitioners who are experienced in various fields.

Altmiller, G. (2014). Interprofessional teamwork and collaboration.  Introduction to Quality and Safety Education for Nurses . https://doi.org/10.1891/9780826121844.0005

Barr, H., Koppel, I., Reeves, S., Hammick, M., & Freeth, D. S. (2008).  Effective interprofessional education: argument, assumption, and evidence (Promoting partnership for health) . John Wiley & Sons.

Cooke, M. (2016). TeamSTEPPS for health care risk managers: Improving teamwork and communication.  Journal of Healthcare Risk Management ,  36 (1), 35-45. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhrm.21233

Forman, D., Jones, M., & Thistlethwaite, J. (2020).  Sustainability and interprofessional collaboration: Ensuring leadership resilience in collaborative health care . Springer Nature.

Gardner, H. (2015). Teamwork and collaboration in professional service firms.  Oxford Handbooks Online . https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199682393.013.21

Greer, A., Selladurai, R. I., Pfeifle, A. L., Selladurai, R., & Hobson, C. J. (2020). Effective teamwork and healthcare delivery outcomes.  Evaluating Challenges and Opportunities for Healthcare Reform , 77-99. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-2949-2.ch004

Hammick, M., Freeth, D., Koppel, I., Reeves, S., & Barr, H. (2007). A best evidence systematic review of interprofessional education: BEME Guide No. 9.  Medical Teacher ,  29 (8), 735-751. https://doi.org/10.1080/01421590701682576

Institute of Medicine, Board on Global Health, & Committee on Measuring the Impact of Interprofessional Education on Collaborative Practice and Patient Outcomes. (2016).  Measuring the impact of interprofessional education on collaborative practice and patient outcomes . National Academies Press.

Littlechild, B., & Smith, R. (2013).  A handbook for interprofessional practice in the human services: Learning to work together . Routledge.

Mach, M., C.M. Abrantes, A., & Soler, C. (2021). Teamwork in healthcare management.  Teamwork in Healthcare . https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96826

Nzelu, O. (2018). Human factors: The Dirty Dozen in CTG misinterpretation.  Global Journal of Reproductive Medicine ,  6 (2). https://doi.org/10.19080/gjorm.2018.06.555683

O’Connor, W. (2019, November 4).  5 benefits of interprofessional collaboration in healthcare . TigerConnect. https://tigerconnect.com/blog/5-benefits-of-interprofessional-collaboration-in-healthcare/

Reeves, S., Lewin, S., Espin, S., & Zwarenstein, M. (2011).  Interprofessional teamwork for health and social care . John Wiley & Sons.

Sherwood, G., & Barnsteiner, J. (2021).  Quality and safety in nursing: A competency approach to improving outcomes . John Wiley & Sons.

Slusser, M., Garcia, L. I., Reed, C., & McGinnis, P. Q. (2018).  Foundations of interprofessional collaborative practice in health care – E-book . Elsevier Health Sciences.

Stewart, T. (2018). Expanding possibilities for ESP practitioners through interdisciplinary team teaching.  Key Issues in English for Specific Purposes in Higher Education , 141-156. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70214-8_9

Thistlethwaite, J. (2015). Assessment of interprofessional teamwork — An international perspective.  Leadership and Collaboration , 135-152. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137432094_9

Tweedie, J., Peake, L., Dutta, N., & Goddard, A. (2019). Improving teams in healthcare.  Future Healthcare Journal ,  6 (Suppl 1), 35-35. https://doi.org/10.7861/futurehosp.6-1-s35

Weller, J., & Civil, I. (2017). Teamwork and healthcare simulation.  Healthcare Simulation Education , 127-134. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119061656.ch17

Wright, K., & McKeown, M. (2018).  Essentials of mental health nursing . SAGE.

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I Thought the Bragg Case Against Trump Was a Legal Embarrassment. Now I Think It’s a Historic Mistake.

By Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Mr. Shugerman is a law professor at Boston University.

About a year ago, when Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted former President Donald Trump, I was critical of the case and called it an embarrassment. I thought an array of legal problems would and should lead to long delays in federal courts.

After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the Manhattan D.A. has made a historic mistake. Their vague allegation about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud.

To recap: Mr. Trump is accused in the case of falsifying business records. Those are misdemeanor charges. To elevate it to a criminal case, Mr. Bragg and his team have pointed to potential violations of federal election law and state tax fraud. They also cite state election law, but state statutory definitions of “public office” seem to limit those statutes to state and local races.

Both the misdemeanor and felony charges require that the defendant made the false record with “intent to defraud.” A year ago, I wondered how entirely internal business records (the daily ledger, pay stubs and invoices) could be the basis of any fraud if they are not shared with anyone outside the business. I suggested that the real fraud was Mr. Trump’s filing an (allegedly) false report to the Federal Election Commission, and only federal prosecutors had jurisdiction over that filing.

A recent conversation with Jeffrey Cohen, a friend, Boston College law professor and former prosecutor, made me think that the case could turn out to be more legitimate than I had originally thought. The reason has to do with those allegedly falsified business records: Most of them were entered in early 2017, generally before Mr. Trump filed his Federal Election Commission report that summer. Mr. Trump may have foreseen an investigation into his campaign, leading to its financial records. Mr. Trump may have falsely recorded these internal records before the F.E.C. filing as consciously part of the same fraud: to create a consistent paper trail and to hide intent to violate federal election laws, or defraud the F.E.C.

In short: It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.

Looking at the case in this way might address concerns about state jurisdiction. In this scenario, Mr. Trump arguably intended to deceive state investigators, too. State investigators could find these inconsistencies and alert federal agencies. Prosecutors could argue that New York State agencies have an interest in detecting conspiracies to defraud federal entities; they might also have a plausible answer to significant questions about whether New York State has jurisdiction or whether this stretch of a state business filing law is pre-empted by federal law.

However, this explanation is a novel interpretation with many significant legal problems. And none of the Manhattan D.A.’s filings or today’s opening statement even hint at this approach.

Instead of a theory of defrauding state regulators, Mr. Bragg has adopted a weak theory of “election interference,” and Justice Juan Merchan described the case , in his summary of it during jury selection, as an allegation of falsifying business records “to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 election.”

As a reality check, it is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement. Hush money is unseemly, but it is legal. The election law scholar Richard Hasen rightly observed , “Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.”

In Monday’s opening argument, the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo still evaded specifics about what was illegal about influencing an election, but then he claimed , “It was election fraud, pure and simple.” None of the relevant state or federal statutes refer to filing violations as fraud. Calling it “election fraud” is a legal and strategic mistake, exaggerating the case and setting up the jury with high expectations that the prosecutors cannot meet.

The most accurate description of this criminal case is a federal campaign finance filing violation. Without a federal violation (which the state election statute is tethered to), Mr. Bragg cannot upgrade the misdemeanor counts into felonies. Moreover, it is unclear how this case would even fulfill the misdemeanor requirement of “intent to defraud” without the federal crime.

In stretching jurisdiction and trying a federal crime in state court, the Manhattan D.A. is now pushing untested legal interpretations and applications. I see three red flags raising concerns about selective prosecution upon appeal.

First, I could find no previous case of any state prosecutor relying on the Federal Election Campaign Act either as a direct crime or a predicate crime. Whether state prosecutors have avoided doing so as a matter of law, norms or lack of expertise, this novel attempt is a sign of overreach.

Second, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the New York statute requires that the predicate (underlying) crime must also be a New York crime, not a crime in another jurisdiction. The Manhattan D.A. responded with judicial precedents only about other criminal statutes, not the statute in this case. In the end, they could not cite a single judicial interpretation of this particular statute supporting their use of the statute (a plea deal and a single jury instruction do not count).

Third, no New York precedent has allowed an interpretation of defrauding the general public. Legal experts have noted that such a broad “election interference” theory is unprecedented, and a conviction based on it may not survive a state appeal.

Mr. Trump’s legal team also undercut itself for its decisions in the past year: His lawyers essentially put all of their eggs in the meritless basket of seeking to move the trial to federal court, instead of seeking a federal injunction to stop the trial entirely. If they had raised the issues of selective or vindictive prosecution and a mix of jurisdictional, pre-emption and constitutional claims, they could have delayed the trial past Election Day, even if they lost at each federal stage.

Another reason a federal crime has wound up in state court is that President Biden’s Justice Department bent over backward not to reopen this valid case or appoint a special counsel. Mr. Trump has tried to blame Mr. Biden for this prosecution as the real “election interference.” The Biden administration’s extra restraint belies this allegation and deserves more credit.

Eight years after the alleged crime itself, it is reasonable to ask if this is more about Manhattan politics than New York law. This case should serve as a cautionary tale about broader prosecutorial abuses in America — and promote bipartisan reforms of our partisan prosecutorial system.

Nevertheless, prosecutors should have some latitude to develop their case during trial, and maybe they will be more careful and precise about the underlying crime, fraud and the jurisdictional questions. Mr. Trump has received sufficient notice of the charges, and he can raise his arguments on appeal. One important principle of “ our Federalism ,” in the Supreme Court’s terms, is abstention , that federal courts should generally allow state trials to proceed first and wait to hear challenges later.

This case is still an embarrassment of prosecutorial ethics and apparent selective prosecution. Nevertheless, each side should have its day in court. If convicted, Mr. Trump can fight many other days — and perhaps win — in appellate courts. But if Monday’s opening is a preview of exaggerated allegations, imprecise legal theories and persistently unaddressed problems, the prosecutors might not win a conviction at all.

Jed Handelsman Shugerman (@jedshug) is a law professor at Boston University.

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