2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Team-based design projects are widely used in introductory engineering courses to allow first-year engineering students to build both technical and collaboration skills. As novice collaborators, interpersonal conflict with teammates is a common challenge for students. In our work, we use the term engagement-related team conflict to refer to problems that arise from a report that a team member is disengaged from the team (i.e., not contributing as expected). Responding to team conflict promptly is a logistical challenge when the student-to-instructor ratio is high, as is often the case with large-enrollment introductory engineering courses.

The study context is a required first-semester Introduction to Engineering course taken by approximately 700 students every fall semester at a large public R1 university. The lead instructor (PI of this project) uses ~30 undergraduate teaching assistants to provide additional instructional support. Because the teaching assistants are engineering undergraduates who have previously completed the course, they serve as near-peer mentors (NPMs) for students in the course. This NSF PFE: RIEF project has three research questions:
RQ1: What are the root causes and common characteristics of engagement-related team conflicts in introductory engineering courses?
RQ2: Given a mixed-reality simulation of engagement-related team conflict, how do NPMs facilitate discussions that aim to diagnose and intervene in instances of team conflicts?
RQ3: What features of a coaching program are essential to improve the efficacy of NPMs in responding to reports of disengaged team members with strategies that promote persistence and development of professional habits for all team members?

In our previous paper in the NSF Grantees Session at the 2025 ASEE Annual Conference, we presented results from two different survey instruments developed to address RQ1 by collecting confidential end-of-semester reflections on team conflict from both students and NPMs. To address RQ2, we developed a scenario involving a fictional team of five student avatars with peer-evaluation surveys that indicate that three student avatars were not contributing as expected by their teammates. We recruited 15 former NPMs as study participants, who were provided details about this scenario. Using Mursion®, a mixed-reality simulation platform, each study participant facilitated one-on-one discussions with three student avatars and a team discussion with all five student avatars to understand and help mitigate the conflicts. Participants completed four surveys to provide information about (1) their background, (2) their experiences prior to the simulation, (3) their experience of the simulated one-on-one discussion, and (4) their experience of the simulated team discussion. We are currently analyzing data generated from the surveys and discussion transcripts. This paper presents preliminary findings from the surveys. The results offer important insights into the characteristics of the RQ2 sample and participant reflections on discussing engagement-related conflict.