When you chat with an instructor in her office, you probably speak freely and informally. The two of you may exchange questions and comments rapidly, interrupt one another, and prompt each other for more information. But when you sit with that same professor in a classroom full of other students, the nature of your communication changes; you might be expected to raise your hand, defer to other students who are already speaking, or not ask questions at all.

What has changed? Why is the nature of your communication so different in the classroom from the way you converse in her office? In this section, we’ll take a look at how complex group communication can be, depending on the number of individuals involved, their relationships, and their patterns of interaction.