2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Over the course of several semesters, two different project-based learning approaches were used in two undergraduate engineering courses–a 100-level introductory course that covered a general education requirement on information literacy and a 300-level fluid mechanics course. One project (treatment) was an interdisciplinary service-learning project, implemented with undergraduate engineering and education students who collaborated to develop and deliver engineering lessons to fourth and fifth-grade students in a field trip model. The other projects (comparison) involved a team-based design project contained within each class. In the 100-level course, students selected their project based on personal interests and followed the engineering design process to develop, test, and redesign a prototype. In the fluid mechanics class, students designed a pumped pipeline system for a hypothetical plant. This study aimed to determine whether participating in the interdisciplinary project affected students’ evaluation of their own and their teammates’ teamwork effectiveness skills, measured using the Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) version of the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness(CATME). The five dimensions of CATME measured in this study are (1) contribution to the team’s work, (2) interacting with teammates, (3) keeping the team on track, (4) expecting quality, and (5) having relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs). The quantitative data from CATME were analyzed using ANCOVA analysis. Furthermore, since data were collected over three semesters and coincided with the pre, during, and post-phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was possible to examine the effects of the evolving classroom constraints over the course of the pandemic on the teamwork effectiveness skills of both the treatment and comparison classes.
Preliminary results suggest that students in the treatment classes perceived that their teammates had greater relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities than the comparison cohort. Engineering students in the treatment group also believed their team members were more capable of quality work than the engineering students in the comparison group. Moreover, preliminary results showed a significant drop in scores for expecting quality and having relevant KSA during the peak of COVID during online instruction and performance of both projects, followed by a rise in mean scores during the return to in-person classes. Reflections from available qualitative data were paired to help understand the quantitative data results further.