2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In this Complete Research paper, we share results from our larger study of how experienced near-peer mentors (NPMs) who manage design teams facilitate one-on-one discussions with students on design teams in conflict. These design teams are part of a large (ca. 650-student) first-year undergraduate engineering design course at our university; 28 NPMs each mentor approximately five five-person teams in the course. The one-on-one discussions aimed to gather student perspectives on the reason(s) for the conflict and their ideas about how to resolve it. The conflict of focus is what others in the literature have termed “social loafing,” i.e., when a student on a team does not contribute their fair share to the team. We refer to this as engagement-related conflict. However, those who are perceived to be disengaged from a team might be experiencing logistical issues, marginalization, or disinterest in the major. Inquiry by NPMs is needed to discern the cause of this perceived social loafing. One unique aspect of this study is that it employs a mixed-reality simulation for the NPMs to engage in discussions with student avatars.
Twelve undergraduate engineering majors with experience as NPMs in one or more design-based courses participated in the study. We used the Mursion® mixed-reality simulated environment to create interactive student avatars from the same design team with whom each of the study participants would interact via one-on-one discussions. One of those, Ciara, is the focus of the present study. The student avatars’ voice and movement were controlled in real time by highly trained simulation specialist or “sim” using computer-connected hardware and Mursion® software. The sim in this study is the first author and a member of the engineering education community.
We provided materials to all study participants prior to engaging in the simulation session. The materials describe a fictional team of five students enrolled in the course whose Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) peer evaluations suggest that Ciara and two other student avatars may not be contributing fully to the team. The materials also include the goal of the discussions—to understand the student avatars’ “side of the story” along with the three reasons why students may be perceived as disengaged from the team. What participants may find in their discussion with Ciara is that she is facing logistical issues, with the team not being considerate of her position as a student who commutes.
Each participant signed up for a video-recorded session during which they facilitated a discussion with Ciara and two other avatars, in varying order. Discussions with each avatar were between 6 and 15 minutes. We used iterative qualitative analysis of discussion transcripts to determine 1) whether the NPMs inquired about logistics, marginalization, or interest during their discussion with Ciara; and 1) what statements of support they provided to Ciara during the discussion. We used subcodes to further describe logistics questions and supportive statements. We used qualitative content analysis to characterize the range of each code and subcode across participants.
All the participants asked at least two questions regarding whether Ciara was experiencing logistical challenges on her team. Three participants (25%) inquired about her interest in being an engineering major or in course, and four participants (33%) asked if she was feeling marginalized on her team. One of the participants, Dallas (a pseudonym), elicited or probed about all three of these possible reasons; Dallas asked 11 questions related to logistics. Contrastingly, four participants asked two questions about logistics but no questions about interest or marginalization. All but one participant (92%) offered supportive statements to Ciara, with Dallas offering the most such statements.
This work has significance in that it introduces the simulated environment coupled with transcript analysis as a tool for studying NPMs’ discussions with students who are experiencing conflict in design teams. It suggests that while experienced NPMs use a variety of strategies to explore, more work is needed to help NPMs learn to ask a wide range of questions and approach discussions in a supportive and exploratory manner. Further, this study supports our ongoing work to develop professional learning opportunities to help NPMs to practice facilitating discussions with students to resolve conflict and do so in a way that is equitable and inclusive.