### abstract ###
studying group decision-making is challenging for multiple reasons
an important logistic difficulty is studying a sufficiently large number of groups  each with multiple participants
assembling groups online could make this process easier and also provide access to group members more representative of real-world work groups than the sample of college students that typically comprise lab face-to-face ftf groups
the main goal of this paper is to compare the decisions of online groups to those of ftf groups
we did so in a study that manipulated gain loss framing of a risky decision between groups and examined the decisions of both individual group members and groups
all of these dependent measures are compared for an online and an ftf sample
our results suggest that web-conferencing can be a substitute for ftf interaction in group decision-making research  as we found no moderation effects of communication medium on individual or group decision outcome variables
the effects of medium that were found suggest that the use of online groups may be the preferred method for group research
to wit  discussions among the online groups were shorter  but generated a greater number of thought units  i e   they made more efficient use of time
### introduction ###
studying group decision making is more challenging than studying individual decision making for multiple reasons
it requires more complex data analysis methods due to an increase in the number of levels of analysis and relevant variables
it also requires increased sample sizes for sufficient statistical power to test hypotheses  as groups rather than individuals are the unit of analysis
groups consist of members that in themselves constitute sources of variance  and this is further complicated by variation in the social interactions of group members between groups
all this increases between-group variability  which increases the required sample size to detect the effects of experimental manipulations
another challenge is the practical requirement of needing group members present at the same time and location  where single no-shows can lead to cancelled experimental sessions
