2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

To supplement classroom learning and prepare students to transition from school to industry, many undergraduate engineering students participate in team-based design projects, both in design-focused courses and as extracurricular activities. These projects can be largely organized and run by students, and there is a wide range of projects with different team sizes, objectives, and organization. Then, it is not surprising that student expectations and experiences vary significantly across the different projects. In this work, to inform best practices for student-organized design project teams, we investigate students’ perspectives on how their team is organized, the relationships among team members, conflict resolution methods, and psychological safety.

We interviewed five students at a four-year, research-intensive, public university about their involvement in undergraduate engineering team projects that are student-organized outside of their regular coursework. We asked each student four background questions regarding their major, years involved in projects, and how their role on the team was chosen or assigned. We asked another fifteen questions related to their team’s organization, relationship with other students, conflicts and resolutions, and psychological safety within the team. The students interviewed played different roles within their projects (e.g., project manager, technical lead, general team member, etc.) and participated on teams with different goals; some aimed to participate in international design competitions while others set internal goals, perhaps with a faculty advisor.

From thematic analysis of interview responses, despite no two projects being organized the same way, some patterns surfaced. Students tended to enjoy working in smaller groups compared to bigger ones because they were more efficient at problem-solving. Additionally, to address both technical and personal disagreements, interviewees said they were comfortable speaking openly in meetings and after incidents occurred, indicating good psychological safety with teammates. We hope to use the results of this work to develop recommendations and best practices for student-organized engineering design project teams to provide a welcoming and effective learning environment for all students involved.