2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This is a work in progress. To instruct design abilities in undergraduate engineering students, it is common for programs to engage in problem-based learning projects. In addition, project-based instruction is often done with students in teams and these teams have formal or informal leadership structures. In this context, the success of the student project is usually attributed to the mindset of the leader, management styles, team dynamics that are cultivated by the leader, as well as a clear team structure and goals. This vertically operating leadership model is manifested as an individual activity in opposition to the concept of shared leadership. The latter form of leadership talks about a distributed form of influence amongst a group of people. This article portrays a descriptive case study that looks to understand some of the traits and pitfalls behind leading and co-leading dynamics in a 12-to-18-month biomedical engineering design course. After the pandemic, we’ve seen an increasing interest in formally sharing decision-making amongst our teams of 5-8 undergraduate students. This has made us rethink the leadership model for our Design Teams in biomedical engineering course. Qualitative one-to-one interviews with co-leaders and solo leaders enable a more granular understanding of the traits that come with sharing leadership while solving an open-ended biomedical engineering health problem. Preliminary data suggest that whilst co-leading has certain drawbacks, it has benefits regarding the protection of mental health, the complementation of skills, and the division of course workload.