2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

As highlighted in the Engineer of 2020 report, essential parts of engineering education include teamwork, communication, and management skills. Among these, teamwork is considered a key skill due to the complexity and scale of engineering problems. It is a must-have ability that potential employers seek in students. Furthermore, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) requires students to have the ability to function in high-performing teams, as stated in ABET (students' outcome 5): "students must be able to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives." Therefore, engineering schools must prepare students with teamwork skills and incorporate teamwork as a significant part of their engineering curricula (ABET, 2021).
Team participation is typically evaluated through peer evaluations or through instructor observation of individual team members. Several tools have been developed to assess individual performance, such as the Team Effectiveness Questionnaire (TEQ) or the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME). These assessment tools are based on self-reflections or peer evaluations. However, the efficacy of these tools has been questioned.
At the University of XXX, the Measurement and Instrumentation course covers the design and development of products containing multiple sensors and actuators. Students in this course work in teams to collaboratively develop these products. While each team member is responsible for their individual parts of the project, the integration of these parts requires a significant amount of teamwork. In this study, we propose indirect evaluations of teamwork by assessing the functionality and quality of the product, team presentation, and project report. We investigated 9 final projects involving 31 students and compared the indirect team evaluation with peer evaluations. The details of our findings will be discussed. Based on our findings, we conclude that peer evaluation alone may not be a reliable or comprehensive source of team evaluation.