Critical Review: Developmental Sequence in small groups

Submitted by: Piyush Gupta (F003-15) Section: B

Original Paper: Developmental Sequence in Small Groups (1965) by Bruce

W. Tuckman, Naval Medical Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryland and
Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited (1977) by B.W. Tuckman &
Mary Ann C. Jensen

This paper suggested different stages of

group development sequence in small
groups. B.W.Tuckman categorises 50
articles in the same stream separated by
group setting as follows: therapy group
studies, T-group studies, and natural and
laboratory-group studies. After review all
articles Tuckman proposed four general
stages of development i.e. forming,
storming, norming, and performing.
After review many articles Tuckman
proposed the fifth stage of development
process as adjourning
During my review first question that clicks
me, why small groups are only focused
during the study and the same concept
will be applicable for the large group?
For answering this question Tuckman
suggested the importance of small groups
in recent times and the gives the main
reason, the overwhelming tendency of
small group researcher to run groups for
the shorter period of time and avoid
problems created by temporal change. As
there is no study is conducted with the
large groups, hence this study shows
limitation regarding whether this group

development sequence is also followed

with large groups.
Tuckman studies these three setting with
respect two aspects i.e. social and task
realm. In social realm the development
sequence
are
testing-dependence,
conflict, cohesion, and functional roles
and in task realm, they are orientation,
emotionality, relevant opinion exchange,
and emergence of solution.
This study itself does not generalise this
concept to all type of small groups, this
shows some limitation of this model
which need to be tested in some future
research. This model shows confidence in
two settings out of three i.e. therapy
group studies, T-group studies and need
some future research for the third setting
natural and laboratory-group studies.
Study conducted by Runkel et al. (1971) is
the only study which could test Tuckman
hypothesis; this study was conducted on
college students and suggested seven
stages which somehow similar with the
Tuckman suggested four states of
development.

Some study shows that there are only two

development stages, this shows it is
difficult to standardize the stages because
this significant depend on the group size
and the environment and geographical
area where the experiment is conducted.
It is possible in some environment the
participants has no need to go through
the forming or storming stage. Due to
some natural calamity group itself doing
norming and performing stage. It varies
situation to situation.
Some study shows that the sequence of
developmental stages is different for
various groups. This is varies groups to
groups because the uniqueness of the
groups.
In a study of Shmbaugh and Kanter (1969),
study was conducted on the therapy

group i.e. spouses of patients. This group

supports the Tuckmans four-stage theory.
But if we include some group member in
between of the study then we may not
find the Tuckmans theory fully applicable.
For this model to be applicable many
variables have to simultaneously test i.e.
the duration of study, environment, the
entry of group members and the settings.
Hence after study many reviews on the
development sequence in small groups, it
can be said it is difficult to generalise the
four stage theory because it largely
depend on many variables. But in todays
literature Tuckmans model fits for many
situations and types of groups. There is
need of future research so that every type
of groups can be studied. Until Tuckmans
four-stage theory will be widely accepted
for the small groups.