2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This research paper is motivated by the observation that team-based pedagogies are becoming more ubiquitous in engineering classrooms. ABET’s requirement for engineering graduates to demonstrate a capability to work effectively in diverse teams and the industry’s increasing reliance on intra- and inter-departmental teams has contributed significantly to this. In particular, engineers of today are expected to work effectively in global teams with members from different backgrounds including country of origin, race, gender, and first language. In this regard, the ability to discern the similarities and differences between team members and using those to cohesively work together has become crucial. In academic environments too, students face diverse teams as the demographics of engineering colleges evolves to be more inclusive.

When assigning teams in classrooms, evidence has pointed instructors to avoid student-selected teams or random-assignment and rely on criteria-based team assignments instead. Traditionally, instructors have chosen various criteria like academic performance, skills, prior knowledge in the topic area, demographics, personality types, learning preferences, and even schedules to divide students into homogeneous or heterogeneous teams. Lack of cultural competency and awareness, however, can often lead to team dysfunction in academic settings when students face difficulty in interacting with each other due to language and cultural differences. Some studies have retroactively investigated the cultural competency of members in teams formed using traditional criteria. But, the literature shows little to no evidence on the impact of using cultural competency as one of the criteria for creating teams in engineering classrooms. This research attempts to fill this gap and examine team dynamics as a result of this. The research question investigated in this study is: how do team dynamics differ in teams that have been formed to represent homogeneity and heterogeneity in cultural competency respectively, in addition to traditional criteria?

The study is situated in a first-year introductory engineering course at a large, public, midwestern, R1 university with a class size of about 1450 students divided into about 27 sections. Student teams are usually formed in the beginning of the semester based on prior knowledge of programming and computing skills in addition to other demographics. In an experimental design, an additional criterion of cultural competency was added where sections of the course had teams with: homogeneous, heterogeneous, and random (control) cultural competency. Cultural competency was examined using the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale short form (M-GUDS-S) which measures a single construct of Universal- diversity orientation (UDO) with three factors. Team dynamics were measured using instruments of team effectiveness at the end of the semester. The paper discusses the evidence of reliability and validity of the self-reported instruments with an analysis of differences in the team dynamics of sections based on homogeneous, heterogeneous, and control group of M-GUDs score. The study discusses the implications of assessing the cultural competencies of students in the context of teamwork in engineering classrooms and how different cultural competencies of students in a team impacts teamwork and in turn student learning.