Group Dynamics Differences Between Women Self-Help Group Structures: Individual SHGs, Cluster Level Associations and Federation

Abstract

This study aimed to address the critical research gap in understanding self-help group dynamics in the Ethiopian context; whether there is a group difference between and among SHG structures in group dynamics effectiveness, and the extent to which group dynamics predicted the attitude of self-help group members. A correlational design was applied. A total of 372 participants were selected through simple random sampling. One-way ANOVA and simple linear regression were the main data analysis methods. The one-way between-groups analysis of variance indicated statistically significant differences in group dynamics effectiveness among the three levels of self-help group structures (p<.001). A federation exhibited the highest level of group dynamics effectiveness (M=269), followed by cluster-level association (M=247), and then individual self-help groups (M=231). The effect size of Omega squared indicated that 25% of the variance in group dynamics effectiveness could be attributed to the differences between the three self-help structures, which could be taken as strong evidence that group dynamics has been impacted by the level of self-help structure. The finding also revealed a strong relationship between attitude and group dynamics effectiveness (r=.667, p<.001) and the regression for predicting attitude from group dynamics was moderately strong that 44.5% of the variance in attitude was predictable from group dynamics. The finding highlights the importance of promoting the formation of higher-level self-help group structures to enhance the effectiveness in achieving their objectives. Exploring potential moderators that might influence the relationship between self-help group structure and group dynamics effectiveness could be a valuable next step.