Designing Inclusive Teamwork Activities to Improve International Masters Students’ Teamwork Skills in Chemical Engineering

Ya He; Mohammad Zandi

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: Inclusivity, Mentorship, and Entrepreneurial Thinking
Tagged Division: Chemical Engineering Division (ChED)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47145

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Paper Authors

biography

Ya He University of Sheffield orcid.org/0000-0002-9856-7405

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I am a PhD candidate in engineering education at the University of Sheffield. With a strong academic background in engineering and a genuine passion for educational advancement, I decided to specialise in engineering education, seeking to contribute to the enhancement of pedagogical practices within the engineering and science domain. My current PhD research is focused on investigating overseas students’ learning experience in engineering master programmes at UK universities. Before joining the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield, I worked as an educational consultant in China. Alongside research, I worked as a graduate teaching assistant (GTA) in multiple labs in the Faculty of Engineering and joined a research group of inclusive research culture in the Department of Electronic and Electric Engineering.

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Mohammad Zandi P.E. University of Sheffield

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Abstract

As higher education continues to expand internationally, the number of overseas students studying at Western universities has increased in recent years. The trend of growth in overseas students studying one-year engineering postgraduate taught (master’s) programmes in the UK is particularly evident. Most of these overseas students are from China, and their cultural and educational backgrounds are generally different from those known in Western societies, which may have an impact on their academic performance. It is also well known that the successful completion of an engineering project often depends not only on how much you have learned from books but also on the seamless integration of teamwork skills and technical knowledge. Hence, it is indeed a challenge for engineering educators to effectively teach teamwork skills to students with different backgrounds, particularly in highly internationalised (mixed Chinese and Western) teaching and learning environments. On the other hand, with the increasing complexity of the engineering industry in the real world, university graduates not only need to acquire professional knowledge but also need to possess good transferable skills to ensure their academic success and enhance their career readiness. In this study, we designed a workshop approach to provide international chemical engineering master’s students with the opportunity to develop teamwork skills and attempted to analyse and define appropriate team roles and dynamics from the students’ team performance in higher education classrooms. In order to further optimise the existing teaching of chemical engineering project design and emphasise collaborative problem-solving in a team, we integrated board games and hands-on projects into the workshop to engage students in different learning activities. Subsequently, after students completed each of the activities, we introduced a teamwork assessment questionnaire that enabled students to evaluate their performances and strengths in working with others. At the early stage of the study, we combined the Belbin Team Role Test to further understand the personality tendencies of master's students in teamwork. Preliminary findings suggest that most overseas students (mainly Chinese) participating in the programme have a social-oriented personality. Therefore, this study will also draw on the Belbin team roles as a basis for exploring and developing a new definition of the appropriate role description and analysis of master’s students in a UK university. This study highlights the importance of transferrable skills training in postgraduate engineering education and provides a framework for curriculum design aimed at enhancing engineering students' teamwork and collaborative skills, particularly in international teaching and learning environments.

Citation
Format

He, Y., & Zandi, M. (2024, June), Designing Inclusive Teamwork Activities to Improve International Masters Students’ Teamwork Skills in Chemical Engineering Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47145

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - As higher education continues to expand internationally, the number of overseas students studying at Western universities has increased in recent years. The trend of growth in overseas students studying one-year engineering postgraduate taught (master’s) programmes in the UK is particularly evident.  Most of these overseas students are from China, and their cultural and educational backgrounds are generally different from those known in Western societies, which may have an impact on their academic performance. It is also well known that the successful completion of an engineering project often depends not only on how much you have learned from books but also on the seamless integration of teamwork skills and technical knowledge. Hence, it is indeed a challenge for engineering educators to effectively teach teamwork skills to students with different backgrounds, particularly in highly internationalised (mixed Chinese and Western) teaching and learning environments. On the other hand, with the increasing complexity of the engineering industry in the real world, university graduates not only need to acquire professional knowledge but also need to possess good transferable skills to ensure their academic success and enhance their career readiness. 
In this study, we designed a workshop approach to provide international chemical engineering master’s students with the opportunity to develop teamwork skills and attempted to analyse and define appropriate team roles and dynamics from the students’ team performance in higher education classrooms. In order to further optimise the existing teaching of chemical engineering project design and emphasise collaborative problem-solving in a team, we integrated board games and hands-on projects into the workshop to engage students in different learning activities. Subsequently, after students completed each of the activities, we introduced a teamwork assessment questionnaire that enabled students to evaluate their performances and strengths in working with others.
At the early stage of the study, we combined the Belbin Team Role Test to further understand the personality tendencies of master&#39;s students in teamwork. Preliminary findings suggest that most overseas students (mainly Chinese) participating in the programme have a social-oriented personality. Therefore, this study will also draw on the Belbin team roles as a basis for exploring and developing a new definition of the appropriate role description and analysis of master’s students in a UK university. This study highlights the importance of transferrable skills training in postgraduate engineering education and provides a framework for curriculum design aimed at enhancing engineering students&#39; teamwork and collaborative skills, particularly in international teaching and learning environments.
AU  - Ya He
AU  - Mohammad Zandi P.E.
CY  - Portland, Oregon
DA  - 2024/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Designing Inclusive Teamwork Activities to Improve International Masters Students’ Teamwork Skills in Chemical Engineering
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/47145
ER  -