Investigating design cognition in the construction and enactment of team mental models

When discussing the performance of design teams, researchers repeatedly stress the role of design cognition. A major challenge in this research is assessing the collective cognitive structures and processes of a design team. Based on the construct of the team mental model, we present advances to two complementary research methods, latent semantic analysis and reflective practice analysis, to provide a way to model design team cognition over time so as to identify which aspects are relevant to design performance. Together these methods characterize: (1) the emergence of sharedness of the team mental model; (2) the accuracy of the team mental model in relation to a dynamic referent model; and, (3) the enactment of the team mental model as goal-directed behavior.

► The content and structure of cognition have causal importance in explaining designers’ behaviors.
► This paper develops approaches for the direct measurement of the quality of team mental models.
► Methods characterize team mental model while it is constructed without relying on self-report.
► No simple relation between quality of the team mental model and its enactment.
► Quality of the team mental model is a necessary condition for high performance but is not sufficient.