The impact of virtual teamwork on real-world collaboration

With the rapid advance of online gaming and virtual reality technology, virtual teamwork has become increasingly popular. People spend more and more time working with others in 3D virtual environments to accomplish common goals. In this study, we investigate the impact of virtual teamwork on collaboration in the real world. We conducted a study with a sample of 60 participants. These participants were asked to work in groups of three and play a Nintendo Wii music game. Half of the groups were assigned to the control condition where members played the game individually. The other half of the groups were assigned to the experimental condition where members play the game altogether as in a band. After the game play, all groups performed a collaborative problem-solving task and a creativity task. Results show that groups in the experimental condition performed significantly better than the groups in the control condition. This suggests that virtual teamwork has a positive effect on collaborative problem-solving and group creativity in the real world.

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