Some people think that a person improves their intellectual skills more when doing group activities. To what extent do you agree? Use specific details and examples to explain your view.
In recent decades, many researchers have studied the importance of team-level cognition. Society activities are beneficial by different groups of people. Indeed, to my mind, there is now convincing evidence that group activities improve the intelligence of individuals. In
this
essay, I shall examine how research in team-games and study-groups supports this
view.
To begin
with, team-games clearly require individuals to perform a diverse range of rapid mental calculations. This
is because, in a sporting context, players must predict and anticipate possible actions within tight time constraints. For example
, a recent Cambridge study showed that soccer players can – within the span of seconds – calculate over a dozen different permutations that could result from a single soccer related action. Such
predictive powers clearly improve players’ mental abilities and result from activities performed in a group context.
Secondly
, team-groups enable individuals to obtain information that they could not acquire in isolation. This
is because peer feedback allows individuals to refine their understanding of concepts and to also
learn new information from other members in the study-group. For example
, a study by The British Institute for Learning found that, if individuals participated in the study-groups, they had a far more objective and sophisticated understanding of a topic than learners who were not part of study-groups. Therefore
, it is certainly the case that learning in a group improves an individual’s mental abilities.
In conclusion, I strongly agree with the notion that team activities improve intellectual abilities. In the future, we will certainly see schools take greater measures to ensure that more group-level cognition occurs in the classroom.Submitted by darko.abramovic on
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Writing9 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.