2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Analyzing Patterns of Pre-Semester Concerns in First-Year Engineering Students

Presented at First-Year Programs Division Technical Session 3: Teamwork

This complete research paper investigates the relationship between pre-semester concerns and the experiences of students participating in team-based pedagogies environments within first-year engineering courses at a large public university using data from an institutional database and Tandem, a team support tool. The analysis focuses on various demographic factors, including gender, ethnicity, nationality, and season variation. Key findings reveal that issues such as ideas being heard by others and taking up a higher share of the workload to make up for my teammates are among students’ primary concerns. The study suggests implementing various solutions to enhance communication skills, improve teamwork outcomes, and support positive team dynamics.

Authors

Mr. Jeong Hin Chin http://orcid.org/0009-0005-4409-6045 University of Michigan [biography]

Jeong Hin Chin is a Master's student at the University of Michigan School of Information. Mr. Chin graduated with a triple major in Honors Data Science, Honors Asian Studies (Chinese), and Statistics from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) at the University of Michigan. He is interested in deep learning, machine learning, unsupervised clustering methods, and human-computer interaction in various disciplines such as Public Health, Psychometric, Engineering Education, Epidemiology, and Humanities.
Dr. Robin Fowler http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6161-0986 University of Michigan [biography]

Robin Fowler is a Technical Communication lecturer and a Engineering Education researcher at the University of Michigan. Her teaching is primarily in team-based engineering courses, and her research focuses on equity in communication and collaboration as well as in group design decision making (judgment) under uncertainty. She is especially interested in how power relationships and rhetorical strategies affect group judgment in engineering design; one goal of this work is to to understand factors that inhibit full participation of students who identify with historically marginalized groups and investigate evidence-based strategies for mitigating these inequities. In addition, she is interested in technology and how specific affordances can change the ways we collaborate, learn, read, and write. Teaching engineering communication allows her to apply this work as she coaches students through collaboration, design thinking, and design communication. She is part of a team of faculty innovators who originated Tandem (tandem.ai.umich.edu), a tool designed to help facilitate equitable and inclusive teamwork environments.
Christopher Brooks University of Michigan

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