Full Paper: Characterizing Conflicts in Student Design Teams in an Introductory Engineering Course

Haritha Malladi; Marcia Gail Headley; Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue

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Conference: FYEE 2025 Conference
Location: University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland
Publication Date: July 27, 2025
Start Date: July 27, 2025
End Date: July 29, 2025
Conference Session: Full Papers II
Tagged Topic: FYEE 2025
Page Count: 9
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--55243
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/55243
Download Count: 24

Paper Authors

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Haritha Malladi University of Delaware orcid.org/0000-0002-8723-8964

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Haritha Malladi is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Director of First-Year Engineering at the University of Delaware. She received her Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Warangal, India, and her MS and PhD in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University. She is a teacher-scholar working in the intersection of undergraduate engineering education, sustainable infrastructure, and community engagement. She teaches the introductory engineering course for all first-year undergraduate students in the College of Engineering at UD. Her undergraduate teaching experience includes foundational engineering mechanics courses like statics and strength of materials as well as courses related to sustainability and infrastructure. Her research interests are in foundational engineering education, sustainability in engineering curriculum, and green technologies in infrastructure.

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Marcia Gail Headley University of Delaware orcid.org/0000-0003-3017-2834

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Dr. Headley is a Data Scientist at the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP) at the University of Delaware. She specializes in the development of mixed methods research designs for educational research.

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Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue Towson University orcid.org/0000-0003-2989-7969

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Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, Ph.D., is Professor of Science and Engineering Education in the Department of Physics, Astronomy & Geosciences at Towson University. She has integrated engineering into courses for PreK-8 teacher candidates, developed and directed a graduate STEM program for PreK-6 teachers, and partnered with teachers to implement PreK-8 science-integrated engineering learning experiences. She has authored numerous engineering-focused teacher practitioner articles, chapters, and research articles, and presents her research regularly through the ASEE Pre-College Engineering Education Division, a division she has chaired. Her current research includes investigating how K-5 students plan, fail, and productively persist, and how simulated classroom environments can be used to help pre-service and in-service teachers practice facilitating discussions in science and engineering.

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Abstract

Students in undergraduate engineering programs often experience their first college-level team-based design project as a summative assessment in an introductory engineering course. As novice collaborators, students in these teams are commonly challenged with issues stemming from interpersonal conflict with teammates. Monitoring, diagnosis, and interventions to mitigate these conflicts can be especially difficult when the student-to-instructor ratio is high, as is often the case with large-enrollment introductory engineering courses.

This study focuses on a required first-semester Introduction to Engineering course taken by approximately 700 students every fall semester at a large public R1 university. Students in this course are assigned to interdisciplinary teams of around five members to work on a semester-long design project. While submitting project milestone assignments during the semester, students also complete Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) peer evaluation surveys. The course instructor (first author) supervises a team of engineering undergraduates who have previously completed the course to serve as near-peer mentors (PMs) for students in the course. Each PM is assigned to mentor around five student teams by facilitating required discussion sections, grading formative assignments, reviewing CATME results, and answering student questions. They are instrumental in ensuring that students get personalized support in the large-enrollment class environment. PMs in this course have noted difficulties in dealing with team conflicts among their mentees. We are motivated by the need to develop a coaching program for PMs to help students in design teams experiencing engagement-related conflicts.

This paper characterizes student team conflicts from one semester of this course using three data collection mechanisms—CATME peer evaluation surveys, and two novel survey instruments: Student Team Reflection (STR) and Peer Mentor Observation (PMO). The STR and PMO surveys were used to collect reflections on team conflict at the end of the semester, from the students’ and PM’s perspectives, respectively. The CATME surveys provided data about students’ perceptions of teamwork issues during the semester. This study focused on teams with complete STR and PMO data sets. Results show that while some teams improve their conflict by the end of the semester, some others stagnate with respect to their conflict. PMs are generally not aligned with their students in diagnosing the team conflicts. Additionally, while students report evaluating their peers using CATME, the ratings seem insufficient to alert the PM to the presence of team conflict.

This study is part of a larger National Science Foundation-funded project that aims to identify the root causes of student team conflicts and explore how near-peer mentors respond to reports of student team members not contributing as expected. With this, we seek to develop an evidence-based coaching program for PMs that promotes strategies for identifying and responding to student conflicts in design teams.

Citation
Format

Malladi, H., & Headley, M. G., & Lottero-Perdue, P. S. (2025, July), Full Paper: Characterizing Conflicts in Student Design Teams in an Introductory Engineering Course Paper presented at FYEE 2025 Conference, University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--55243

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Students in undergraduate engineering programs often experience their first college-level team-based design project as a summative assessment in an introductory engineering course. As novice collaborators, students in these teams are commonly challenged with issues stemming from interpersonal conflict with teammates. Monitoring, diagnosis, and interventions to mitigate these conflicts can be especially difficult when the student-to-instructor ratio is high, as is often the case with large-enrollment introductory engineering courses.

This study focuses on a required first-semester Introduction to Engineering course taken by approximately 700 students every fall semester at a large public R1 university. Students in this course are assigned to interdisciplinary teams of around five members to work on a semester-long design project. While submitting project milestone assignments during the semester, students also complete Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) peer evaluation surveys. The course instructor (first author) supervises a team of engineering undergraduates who have previously completed the course to serve as near-peer mentors (PMs) for students in the course. Each PM is assigned to mentor around five student teams by facilitating required discussion sections, grading formative assignments, reviewing CATME results, and answering student questions. They are instrumental in ensuring that students get personalized support in the large-enrollment class environment. PMs in this course have noted difficulties in dealing with team conflicts among their mentees. We are motivated by the need to develop a coaching program for PMs to help students in design teams experiencing engagement-related conflicts.

This paper characterizes student team conflicts from one semester of this course using three data collection mechanisms—CATME peer evaluation surveys, and two novel survey instruments: Student Team Reflection (STR) and Peer Mentor Observation (PMO). The STR and PMO surveys were used to collect reflections on team conflict at the end of the semester, from the students’ and PM’s perspectives, respectively. The CATME surveys provided data about students’ perceptions of teamwork issues during the semester. This study focused on teams with complete STR and PMO data sets. Results show that while some teams improve their conflict by the end of the semester, some others stagnate with respect to their conflict. PMs are generally not aligned with their students in diagnosing the team conflicts. Additionally, while students report evaluating their peers using CATME, the ratings seem insufficient to alert the PM to the presence of team conflict.

This study is part of a larger National Science Foundation-funded project that aims to identify the root causes of student team conflicts and explore how near-peer mentors respond to reports of student team members not contributing as expected. With this, we seek to develop an evidence-based coaching program for PMs that promotes strategies for identifying and responding to student conflicts in design teams.
AU  - Haritha Malladi
AU  - Marcia Gail Headley
AU  - Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue
CY  - University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland
DA  - 2025/07/27
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Full Paper: Characterizing Conflicts in Student Design Teams in an Introductory Engineering Course
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/55243
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--55243
ER  -