2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Team formation sets the foundation for success (or struggle) in capstone design teams. Hence, a significant body of literature has been dedicated to developing best practices in team formation. Researchers have suggested the consideration of more than a dozen different factors including ethnicity, culture, gender, personality, schedule, academic ability, engineering maturity, motivation level, project preference, prior relationships between team members, and team member preference. Additional studies have documented the relative advantages and disadvantages of instructor-based and student-based team selection. Recently, Lane (2011) and Pearlstein (2020) developed and implemented hybrid methods that incorporate both student and instructor perspectives. Both researchers applied their methods to the formation of small (three person) teams of business students who worked on short-term class projects. Their results were promising enough to invite applications in other academic disciplines.

This paper presents an “academic practice / design intervention” that adapts and extends the work of Lane and Pearlstein to engineering capstone design team formation. It adopts their approach of incorporating both student and instructor perspectives in the team formation process. It extends their work by adding an experiential activity that offers insight into potential team dynamics. It also incorporates a reflective exercise that guides students toward more holistic teammate preferences.

The impact of this new team formation method is measured approximately five weeks after project launch when teams have completed their first major project milestone. Results from a CATME peer assessment show significant improvement in team cohesiveness relative to a control group.