Berezin, J. D., & Kokernak, J. (2015, June), Communication Among Undergraduate Engineers on a Self-directed Team During a Product Decision Meeting  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23703

\bibitem{asee_peer_23703}
  Berezin, J. D., \& Kokernak, J. (2015, June), \emph{Communication Among Undergraduate Engineers on a Self-directed Team During a Product Decision Meeting}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.23703

Jared David Berezin and Jane Kokernak.  "Communication Among Undergraduate Engineers on a Self-directed Team During a Product Decision Meeting".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://peer.asee.org/23703 Internet.  11 Mar, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_23703}
  Jared David Berezin and Jane Kokernak.
  "Communication Among Undergraduate Engineers on a Self-directed Team During a Product Decision Meeting".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://peer.asee.org/23703 Internet.  11 Mar, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_23703
author = "Jared David Berezin and Jane Kokernak"
title = "Communication Among Undergraduate Engineers on a Self-directed Team During a Product Decision Meeting"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/23703}
number = {10.18260/p.23703}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -          Rhetorical Practices of Idea Advocacy and Collective Decision         Making by Undergraduate Engineers on Student Design TeamsIn the XXX University mechanical engineering capstone course, students work in design teamsto propose ideas for new products, select a few for development and testing, and ultimatelychoose one, as a team, to build and test as an alpha prototype. While the team project exists inmany engineering capstone courses, XXX University’s course is unique in that individualstudent teams are atypically large, comprising 18-25 students. Moreover, teams are nearautonomous—students lead their own team meetings, during which they discuss work tasks,report progress, and make design decisions. Engineering and communication instructors arepresent but have an observational and advisory role. In team meetings, students draw on theirown experience as communicators and receive little explicit instruction on effectivecommunication for decisions, such as how to deliver statements of preference, opinion, fact,concern, and analysis; pose questions to teammates and instructors; and describe design sketches.While teams of approximately 20 undergraduate students with a high degree of autonomy overinternal team operations and decision-making might seem ripe for internal fragmentation andindecisiveness, these atypically large teams ultimately choose single products to pursue, andsuccessfully develop working prototypes, with a few team members occasionally forming theirown startup companies. Although we have noticed the success of these large student teams, wehave not studied specific factors, such as communication practices, that contribute to theeffective design process.In this study we seek to observe and understand the specific role of communication in theproduct design process of two separate teams. Our naturalistic study will qualitatively andquantitatively examine the respective team members’ communication behavior and rhetoricalchoices during two pivotal team decision-making events: 1) a three-hour lab meeting in which all24 team members, who had previously been working on different products in sub-teams,collectively decide on one product to iterate and build; and 2) a technical decision makingmeeting, in which students choose the final design direction for an alpha prototype. Ascommunication instructors embedded in these teams, we will audio record the meetings in orderto observe, analyze, and characterize students’ spoken communication, and collect materials,such as sketches and models, that students may use as illustration or evidence. We will alsointerview a subset of students after the first recorded meeting to elicit their reflection on theirown and their peers’ communication choices. By studying how engineering studentscommunicate and advocate for ideas to their peers during critical decision-making moments, ourfindings aim to increase knowledge about large team practices in design education, in order tohelp educators better understand students’ approaches to communication and improve teamcommunication pedagogy in the field of engineering.
AU  - Jared David Berezin
AU  - Jane Kokernak
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Communication Among Undergraduate Engineers on a Self-directed Team During a Product Decision Meeting
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/23703
DO  - 10.18260/p.23703
ER  -