The Effects of Team Training on Team Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis

researchers have attended to reviewers ’ suggestions for improving training as a field and, as a result, have focused their research on improving needs analysis, defining training objectives, developing effective se-quencing of training events, and advancing new methods and theoretical frameworks (Campbell, 1971; Ford, 1997; Tannenbaum & Yukl, 1992). Although attention and effort directed toward improving the rigor of individual-level training research have increased, research on training at the team level of analysis has not been examined as extensively or as rigorously. A team is defined as at least two people who interact with one another in an interdependent and adaptive manner to reach a common goal (Salas, Dickinson,Converse,&Tannenbaum, 1992). Examples of teams include top management teams, task forces, and surgical teams. Since the mid-1980s, team training (a planned effort administered in a team environment to improve team performance; Goldstein & Ford, 2002) in organizations has become more prevalent due to the need for organizations to address integration across departments and functions (Ilgen, 1999) and the visibility of teams such as flight crews and air traffic controllers (Stout, Salas, & Fowlkes, 1997). The need to understand and improve team performance (the outputs and outcomes a team generates, such as products or services, individual satisfaction, and team viability (Hackman, 1987) in-creases as organizations tackle multifaceted issues and the need for colla-boration and high-quality team performance grows (O’Connor & Yoon, 2008). A 2008 survey administered by the American Society for Training and Development indicated that organizations spent $134 billio