Interaction Pattern and Trajectory Analysis for Studying Group Communication

In order to deepen understanding of team processes in dynamic organizational contexts, we suggest that analyses employing techniques to identify and analyze team member interaction patterns and trajectories are necessary. After presenting a brief review of interaction data coding and reliability requirements, we first review examples of two approaches used in the identification and analysis of interaction patterns in teams: lag sequential analysis and T-pattern analysis. We then describe and discuss three statistical techniques used to analyze team interaction trajectories: random coefficient modeling, latent growth modeling, and discontinuous growth analysis. We close by suggesting several ways in which these techniques could be applied to data analysis in order to expand our knowledge of team interaction, processes, and outcomes in complex and dynamic settings.