The hidden gender effect in online collaboration: An experimental study of team performance under anonymity

It has been argued that the generally positive effect that female participation exerts on team performance ceases to exist under conditions of anonymity. We evaluate this thesis in the context of an online learning environment in which the gender of fellow student team members was not disclosed to subjects. To circumvent selection effects in the composition of teams we employed an experimental design in which female and male students were randomly assigned to teams of varying gender composition. Against expectations, we find that under anonymity gender composition continues to impact team performance, with all-female teams being most productive. Counter-intuitively, this team effect occurred in our study without female students individually being more productive than their male counterparts. These findings indicate that the presence of females on anonymous teams can have a hidden effect on the productivity of other team members. Our results underscore that despite face-to-face interaction in higher education increasingly being substituted by Internet-enabled communication, a student's social environment continues to impact academic learning in important ways.