2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Complete Evidence-based Practice paper will determine whether scaffolding the assignments in a team project improved student perceptions of teamwork.
Teamwork is an important skill for engineering students and is often a key component of first-year engineering courses. Research has shown that to foster development of teamwork skills, activities should be carefully structured with ample opportunities for practice, constructive feedback, monitoring and reflection [1]. One well-established way to develop teamwork skills is cooperative learning, which is a structured form of group work [2]. Cooperative learning is based on five important tenets: mutual interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face supportive interaction, guided practice of interpersonal skills, and regular self-assessment of team functioning [3]. Oakley et al. [4] provide a comprehensive guide for developing effective teams in college classes based on research in collaborative and cooperative learning. They describe best practices for forming diverse teams, instruction in teamwork, dealing with conflicts, and using peer ratings.
At Blind University, all first-year engineering students take an introductory course which covers a variety of topics including critical thinking, professionalism, ethics, and teamwork. Typically, this course is taught during the Fall semester and has an enrollment of nearly 500 students. As a desired pedagogical outcome, teamwork is integrated into the course in two, multi-week team projects throughout the semester. The first is a 4-week project in which teams of 4-5 students investigate one of the Grand Challenges of Engineering (14 global challenges facing engineers in the 21st century [5]). Students are instructed to explore the key problems the Challenge seeks to address and describe recent engineering solutions to address their chosen Challenge. The final project products are a written report and a recorded video.
For many years we have followed the recommendations by Oakley et al. [4] regarding team formation, establishing expectations, instruction in teamwork, and use of peer ratings. However, even with this guidance, many teams struggled to balance the workload amongst group members. Several groups had one or two students write the bulk of the report. In addition, due to the large enrollment of the course, it was difficult to monitor individual teams’ development and work progression.
To address these teamwork challenges, in Fall 2023, instructors scaffolded the teamwork assignments in the Grand Challenge project, with the goal of fostering more effective collaboration within teams. Scaffolding is a well-established instructional technique used to simplify challenging tasks [6]. Instead of being asked to coordinate teamwork from the beginning of the assignment, students were first assigned an individual research assignment (adding an individual accountability component). Specifically, each team member was expected to research the Challenge as well as one recent engineering solution. Then, in class, students shared their research with their teammates and developed an outline for the report as a team (adding face-to-face supportive interaction). Finally, after draft reports were written, a second in-class activity had teams evaluate their reports using a critical thinking rubric. In this way, the entire team could discuss the overall report before final submission.
At the end of each team project, students are asked to evaluate their teammates using the peer-evaluation software CATME [7]. Students rate themselves and their teammates on a variety of teamwork dimensions.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether scaffolding the teamwork improved student perceptions of teamwork, specifically in peer ratings of team member performance and overall team satisfaction scores. Student CATME ratings in 2023 were compared to those from 2022 (students completed the same project in 2022 without the scaffolded assignments). Preliminary descriptive results indicate improvements in average peer ratings and team satisfaction scores (as measured by CATME). Additionally, the percentage of students not participating or with low contributions is lower in 2023 than in 2022. Results will be analyzed with established statistical tests (t tests for scalar perception values and a chi-squared test for low-contribution frequencies). Detailed analysis procedures and results will be presented in the full paper.

References
1. D. Woods, R. Felder, A. Rugarcia, and J. Stice, “The future of engineering education III. Developing critical skills,” Chemical Engineering Education, vol. 34(2), pp. 108-117, 2000.
2. M. Prince, “Does active learning work? A review of the research,” Journal of Engineering Education, pp. 223-231, July 2001.
3. K. Smith, “Cooperative learning: effective teamwork for engineering classrooms,” Frontiers in Education Conference, session 2b5, pp. 13-18, 1995.
4. B. Oakley, R. Felder, R. Brent, and I. Elhajj, “Turning student groups into effective teams,” Journal of Student Centered Learning, vol. 2(1), pp. 9-34, 2004.
5. National Academy of Engineering, “NAE Grand Challenges for Engineering”, https://engineeringchallenges.org/ (accessed Nov. 1, 2023).
6. J. van de Pol, M. Volman, and J. Beishuizen, “Scaffolding in teacher-student interaction: A decade of research,” Educational Psychology Review, vol. 22, no. 3. 2010.
7. M. Ohland, M. Loughry, D. Woehr, L. Bullard, R. Felder, C. Finelli, R. Layton, H. Pomeranz, and D. Schmucker, “The comprehensive assessment of team member effectiveness: development of a behaviorally anchored rating scale for self- and peer evaluation,” Academy of Learning Management & Education, vol. 11(4), pp. 609-630, 2012.