Comparison of Teamwork Assessment Methods in Engineering Classes

Adam Barnes

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Conference: 2025 ASEE Southeast Conference
Location: Mississippi State University, Mississippi
Publication Date: March 9, 2025
Start Date: March 9, 2025
End Date: March 11, 2025
Conference Session: Professional Papers
Tagged Topic: Professional Papers
Page Count: 10
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--54210
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/54210
Download Count: 10

Paper Authors

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Adam Barnes University of Virginia

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Adam Barnes graduated with a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. He worked in small business and industry for 18 years before returning to Virginia Tech to teach engineering as a professor of practice. He then moved to Charlottesville and began teaching at the University of Virginia in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, where he has now been for 5 years.

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Abstract

The ability to work well in teams is consistently one of the most sought-after skills by employers, and so deserves serious attention in higher education courses. To evaluate the effectiveness of any program or module designed to teach teamwork requires a valid assessment tool. This is particularly important in engineering disciplines which must assess teamwork as part of their ABET accreditation. Because teamwork assessment is often subjective, it can be difficult to evaluate rigorously.

Teamwork assessment is often done with a survey of team members, ideally at multiple points during the project, although often it is only performed at the end. This is especially true of large classes, when the instructor cannot spend large amounts of time with each team, and for classes where teamwork occurs but is not the primary thrust of the class, as is the case in many engineering classes. The survey is relatively easy to implement, and there are a number of survey tools that streamline the process and make it applicable for a wide range of class sizes and subjects. However, the accuracy of the survey assessment by the students themselves can be problematic. First, many students don’t know what good teamwork really looks like; either they have not worked on a good team in the past or their team was not challenged to the point that the quality of the teamwork came into play. Second, students’ assessment of their peers may be too lenient, because they don’t want to hurt their teammates’ grade or feelings. Conversely it may be too harsh if the team members had a serious falling out or if one of the team members is prejudiced. But how often does this happen, and how much does it skew results? What is a reasonable threshold for success based on a team survey?

Fall semester 2024 I am teaching the Capstone Senior design course. Part of the project process is for each team to meet with the instructor on a weekly basis. This affords me the opportunity to regularly interact with each team which will allow me to assess team performance directly. In parallel, I will also be conducting teamwork surveys. This paper will compare the results and relative merits and limitations of each assessment method.

Citation
Format

Barnes, A. (2025, March), Comparison of Teamwork Assessment Methods in Engineering Classes Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Southeast Conference , Mississippi State University, Mississippi. 10.18260/1-2--54210

TY - CPAPER
AB - The ability to work well in teams is consistently one of the most sought-after skills by employers, and so deserves serious attention in higher education courses. To evaluate the effectiveness of any program or module designed to teach teamwork requires a valid assessment tool. This is particularly important in engineering disciplines which must assess teamwork as part of their ABET accreditation. Because teamwork assessment is often subjective, it can be difficult to evaluate rigorously.

Teamwork assessment is often done with a survey of team members, ideally at multiple points during the project, although often it is only performed at the end. This is especially true of large classes, when the instructor cannot spend large amounts of time with each team, and for classes where teamwork occurs but is not the primary thrust of the class, as is the case in many engineering classes. The survey is relatively easy to implement, and there are a number of survey tools that streamline the process and make it applicable for a wide range of class sizes and subjects. However, the accuracy of the survey assessment by the students themselves can be problematic. First, many students don’t know what good teamwork really looks like; either they have not worked on a good team in the past or their team was not challenged to the point that the quality of the teamwork came into play. Second, students’ assessment of their peers may be too lenient, because they don’t want to hurt their teammates’ grade or feelings. Conversely it may be too harsh if the team members had a serious falling out or if one of the team members is prejudiced. But how often does this happen, and how much does it skew results? What is a reasonable threshold for success based on a team survey?

Fall semester 2024 I am teaching the Capstone Senior design course. Part of the project process is for each team to meet with the instructor on a weekly basis. This affords me the opportunity to regularly interact with each team which will allow me to assess team performance directly. In parallel, I will also be conducting teamwork surveys. This paper will compare the results and relative merits and limitations of each assessment method.

AU - Adam Barnes
CY - Mississippi State University, Mississippi
DA - 2025/03/09
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Comparison of Teamwork Assessment Methods in Engineering Classes
UR - https://peer.asee.org/54210
DO - 10.18260/1-2--54210
ER -