2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This evidence-based practice paper shares the methodology and findings of a workshop on conflict management that was piloted in three interdisciplinary engineering design courses that include first through fourth-year students. The workshop was designed to collect real-time student reflection data through Mentimeter, an instructional technology designed to promote class engagement.

Background: Emerging literature from Industrial and Organizational (I/O) Psychology has highlighted the importance of effective conflict management on team performance. Teaching students how to effectively manage conflict and establish inclusive, psychologically safe team environments are essential skills for effectively working on teams in preparation for the workplace, as emphasized by ABET and professional engineering organizations. Despite this, literature suggests that many engineering instructors have limited training and confidence in facilitating learning experiences that help students develop teamwork skills, including conflict management skills. While conflict management is a large field of research, there has been minimal research on instructional strategies for teaching conflict management skills to engineering students. The purpose of this paper is to share the methodology and findings of a conflict management workshop that was delivered to engineering students in three different project-based learning courses involving year-long design projects: a first-year foundations of engineering course, an interdisciplinary design course for first through four-year students from multiple majors, and a senior interdisciplinary engineering capstone course. Students’ primary conflict management strategies are understood using the Dual Concern Model, which aligns conflict along two dimensions of concern for self (assertiveness) and concern for others (cooperativeness) with five conflict management strategies: Forcing, Problem-Solving, Compromising, Avoiding, and Yielding.

Methods: The workshop leveraged scenario-based learning and Mentimeter to foster engagement and collect real-time reflection data. Before each class, students took the Dutch Test for Conflict Handling, which identified the extent to which students use the five different conflict management approaches. At the beginning of the workshop, students were introduced to conflict management approaches and encouraged to reflect on how they typically handle conflict. Next, students were introduced to two scenarios involving task, relationship, and process conflict. The scenarios were developed and specifically related to an engineering context with real-world situations students may encounter as a design team. During each scenario, students assumed a randomly assigned role and then role-played the scenario in groups of four to five. Mentimeter was used to collect student reactions to each scenario, reflections about their experience in their assigned role, solutions their team came up with, and key takeaways from the workshop, all in real-time.

Findings: This paper shares the methodology for creating a scenario-based workshop and collecting data using Mentimeter. The quantitative results indicated that students aim to use a Problem Solving approach as their primary conflict management strategy. The qualitative responses from student reflections about the workshop showed that many students expressed a desire to move along the cooperative and assertive spectrum of the Dual Concern Model. Students discussed the importance of communication, indicating movement along the cooperation dimension. Additionally, students discussed movement along the assertive spectrum and were surprised that Forcing can be used as an effective conflict management strategy. Students also recognized the trade-offs involved when using different conflict management approaches and the importance of empathy when managing conflict. The implications of these findings are discussed in the paper along with directions for future research.