LINKING SOCIAL NETWORKS TO STUDENT LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE IN PROJECT TEAMS : THE PROMISE OF COLLABORATIVE NORMS

Integrating learning and social network literatures, we developed and tested a multistage model with collaborative norms as the linking mechanism between structural character-istics of student teams' advice-seeking networks and project-based learning outcomes. Analyses of 206 students in 47 project teams revealed that the density of team advice -seeking networks was positively related to collaborative norms. In contrast, the centrali-zation of advice-seeking networks was negatively associated with collaborative norms when the level of perceived expertness of the central member in the team was higher. Sub-sequently, collaborative norms had a positive effect on both student learning and project performance. The findings suggest that research on team-based learning effectiveness can be advanced by attending to the norming process for collaboration, through which net-work structure shapes learning and performance in teams.