Shared Mental Models: Accuracy and Visual Representation

Teams are important for organizational work but coordinating teamwork is not always easy. Oftentimes members are separated by time or geographic distance, thus making coordination even more difficult. Recent research suggests that teams develop shared mental models about the task and each other, which helps them develop mutual explanations and expectations about the task environment, thus helping its members coordinate implicitly. The theoretical grounding of this research literature is strong, and recent evidence is beginning to provide some support for it. But in order to make good progress in this area we need to develop and validate shared mental model measures that can be used across studies. In this study we build upon methodological contributions on shared mental model measurement and propose, describe, and empirically validate a measure for shared mental model accuracy using network analysis methods. We also use the resulting network data to illustrate the visual representation of shared mental models and their accuracy.