Team learning in teacher teams: team entitativity as a bridge between teams-in-theory and teams-in-practice

This study aimed to investigate team learning in the context of teacher teams in higher vocational education. As teacher teams often do not meet all criteria included in theoretical team definitions, the construct team entitativity was introduced. Defined as the degree to which a group of individuals possesses the quality of being a team, this makes it possible to extend team learning research from strict teams-in-theory to various types of teams-in-practice, including teacher teams. The team learning beliefs and behaviours model, including team entitativity, was applied to teacher teams, assessing whether it still stands in these non-strict teams. Data were collected from 105 teams and analysed using multilevel analysis. Results showed that team entitativity, psychological safety and group potency were related to the occurrence of team learning. The latter appeared to be significantly related to team effectiveness, and the formation of mutually shared cognition was found to be a mediating variable in this relationship.