Team learning has become pervasive in the field of higher education. Indeed, the benefits of social interaction for learners’ motivation has been extensively studied, both in the educational sciences and the organisational sciences. However, there is less evidence as to how team-level affective and motivational states emerge from the interaction between students. Drawing notably upon sociocognitive conflict theory, the present contribution links individual goal orientation to team efficacy through the mediatory role of sociocognitive conflict regulation and team psychological safety.

Indeed, the present empirical study analyses a dataset collected in 2019 in a sample of 311 students in economics and management, split into 58 teams, using a two-times survey. Students’ goal orientations were measured at the beginning of a course in “Human management”, while individual sociocognitive conflict regulation strategies, team psychological safety, and team efficacy were measured at the end of the course. At the individual level, multiple regression analyses showed that goal orientations predicted sociocognitive conflict regulation differently. Moreover, based on team-aggregated scores, a path analysis partially revealed the role of team psychological safety as a team-level mediator of the effect of individual sociocognitive conflict regulation on team efficacy.

The present contribution offers insights into the emergence of team-level motivational beliefs from students’ goal orientations by pointing at the mediatory role of sociocognitive conflict regulation and team psychological safety. After a discussion of the limits and perspectives of the study, we formulate three key-recommendations with the shared goal to promote learning-conducive team interactions.