Exploring Effective Team Formation Strategies for First-Year Engineering Projects

Rui Li; Jack Bringardner; Victoria Bill

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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: First-Year Programs Division Technical Session 3: Teamwork
Tagged Division: First-Year Programs Division (FYP)
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47408

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Paper Authors

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Rui Li New York University

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Dr. Li earned his master's degree in Chemical Engineering in 2009 from the Imperial College of London and his doctoral degree in 2020 from the University of Georgia, College of Engineering.

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Jack Bringardner Colorado School of Mines orcid.org/0000-0002-5980-384X

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Jack Bringardner is a Teaching Associate Professor and Director of Education Innovation at Colorado School of Mines in the Engineering, Design, and Society Department. He teaches the first-year engineering Cornerstone design course. His primary focus is developing curriculum, mentoring students, and engineering education research, particularly for project-based courses, the first-year engineering experience, and student professional skills. He is active in the American Society for Engineering Education and serves on the First-Year Programs Division Executive Board and was the past Webmanager for the ASEE First-Year Programs Division and the First-Year Engineering Experience Conference. He is on the Executive Steering Committee for the Vertically Integrated Projects Consortium. Prior to working at Colorado School of Mines, he was the Assistant Dean for Academics and taught Introduction to Engineering and Design at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

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Victoria Bill Colorado School of Mines

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Victoria Bill is the Director of the MakerSpace Lab and an Adjunct Professor in the First-Year Engineering Program at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. She studied electrical engineering and received her B.S. from the Ohio State University and her M.S. from the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Engineering Education from the Ohio State University.

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Abstract

This complete evidence-based paper presents a comparative study on student team formation in a first-year design course at a large private university. Many of the first-year students are not familiar with the concept of group projects. It is important to deliver the message to first-year students that those who utilize individual knowledge and strengths in collaborative efforts could potentially achieve greater success than an individual can achieve alone. Team-based exercises are frequently used in educational institutes to promote cooperative and collaborative learning. When it comes to team diversity, a challenging task would be calling for the input and knowledge of people who have distinctive viewpoints and backgrounds to foster insight and innovation. This study used two approaches to investigate the research question: What would be a better approach to form first-year student project teams with fewer team issues: motivation-driven (self-forming) or background-driven (instructor-led)? In the first approach, called the motivation-driven (MD) approach, students volunteered to promote their project ideas in front of the classroom and invited other students to join the project. In the second approach, called the background-driven (BD) approach, students were asked to put down their first and second preferences for the projects, and the instructor facilitated team formation according to their project preferences, gender, racial, social, and academic backgrounds. Overall, five teams were formed with the MD approach, while 18 teams were formed with the BD approach. The team dynamics were closely monitored by CATME (Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness) throughout the semester. Students completed peer evaluations at three checkpoints over the semester. The comparative analysis between the two approaches was conducted on the five team dimensions: contributing to the team’s work, interacting with teammates, keeping the team on track, expecting quality, and having relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities. According to the peer comments collected over two semesters, the teams that have been formed by BD approaches encountered more task and meeting scheduling issues compared to MD teams. The initial analysis revealed that the student teams formed by the motivation-driven approach encountered fewer team issues than the ones formed by the background-driven approach.

Citation
Format

Li, R., & Bringardner, J., & Bill, V. (2024, June), Exploring Effective Team Formation Strategies for First-Year Engineering Projects Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47408

TY - CPAPER
AB - This complete evidence-based paper presents a comparative study on student team formation in a first-year design course at a large private university. Many of the first-year students are not familiar with the concept of group projects. It is important to deliver the message to first-year students that those who utilize individual knowledge and strengths in collaborative efforts could potentially achieve greater success than an individual can achieve alone. Team-based exercises are frequently used in educational institutes to promote cooperative and collaborative learning. When it comes to team diversity, a challenging task would be calling for the input and knowledge of people who have distinctive viewpoints and backgrounds to foster insight and innovation. This study used two approaches to investigate the research question: What would be a better approach to form first-year student project teams with fewer team issues: motivation-driven (self-forming) or background-driven (instructor-led)? In the first approach, called the motivation-driven (MD) approach, students volunteered to promote their project ideas in front of the classroom and invited other students to join the project. In the second approach, called the background-driven (BD) approach, students were asked to put down their first and second preferences for the projects, and the instructor facilitated team formation according to their project preferences, gender, racial, social, and academic backgrounds. Overall, five teams were formed with the MD approach, while 18 teams were formed with the BD approach.
The team dynamics were closely monitored by CATME (Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness) throughout the semester. Students completed peer evaluations at three checkpoints over the semester. The comparative analysis between the two approaches was conducted on the five team dimensions: contributing to the team’s work, interacting with teammates, keeping the team on track, expecting quality, and having relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities. According to the peer comments collected over two semesters, the teams that have been formed by BD approaches encountered more task and meeting scheduling issues compared to MD teams. The initial analysis revealed that the student teams formed by the motivation-driven approach encountered fewer team issues than the ones formed by the background-driven approach.

AU - Rui Li
AU - Jack Bringardner
AU - Victoria Bill
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Exploring Effective Team Formation Strategies for First-Year Engineering Projects
UR - https://peer.asee.org/47408
ER -