| Definition
A team is a small group of people with complementary skills who
are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach
for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.1
Although student teams may not satisfy all the requirements of this
definition, the degree to which they do often determines their effectiveness.
Introduction
Teamwork has become an integral part of many undergraduate
engineering curricula. Teamwork is highly valued by employers, facilitates
active and collaborative learning, helps build community among engineering
students, and is an outcome required for program accreditation.
This paper describes the team process check, a teaming assessment
instrument developed through the Foundation Coalition, and illustrates
its use at three schools: the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth,
Texas A&M University, and Arizona State University.
What is the
Team Process Check?
The team process check (TPC) serves as a self-report assessment
of a team's functioning and should be administered periodically
during the life of a team. The TPC aims to assess several areas
of functioning, such as communication, task management, decision
making, and conflict resolution. The instrument is a twenty-item
scale to which students respond by using five-point ratings. The
TPC has demonstrated good internal consistency and has yielded two
meaningful factors, one that assesses the team’s sense of
ability to get the job done well, and the other is related to interpersonal
relations, including communication and conflict resolution.
The TPC is intended to raise students’ awareness of important
team behaviors and to foster the process of self-appraisal necessary
for continuous improvement. The instrument can be used to highlight
areas of relative strength and weakness and can provide feedback
on two overarching dimensions of team functioning (sense of ability
and interpersonal relations) for the students and the faculty. Student
teams can compare their own team scores with class averages and
can use self-assessments as a basis for planning improvements. To
help others see how they might use the TPC in working with student
teams on their campus, reports from three different institutions
have been included:
• University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMD)
• Texas A&M University (TAMU)
• Arizona State University (ASU)
Ideally, this instrument can be used as a foundation for a structured
conversation about the team’s current functioning and pathways
to improvement.
The TPC can be administered on paper or on the Web. Students can
report on the functioning of the team as a whole or on their own
team behavior and the behavior of their team peers. Team training
material may be used as a companion to the TPC as a way of providing
a meaningful context from which students can self-assess their team’s
functioning. Team training material can be found on the Foundation
Coalition Web site or on a Web
site constructed at UMD (e-mail Ted
Powers for username and password). The team assessment process
should be incorporated into the structure of the class, and some
percentage of the students’ grades should be allocated to
teaming to encourage students to seriously engage in the assessment
process.
University
of Massachusetts Dartmouth
A number of studies using the Team Process Check have been
conducted or are under way at the UMD. UMD faculty members used
the instrument with classes of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and
seniors.
Recent studies at UMD established the validity of the TPC by correlating
it with several alternate measures of team functioning. For example,
the TPC was found to be correlated with faculty ratings of teams
and with another measure of team process, the Team Behavior Checklist,
developed by Dominick et al.2 UMD faculty found that
teams consistently reported significantly lower scores for sense
of ability than for interpersonal relations, suggesting the need
to focus on these areas for improvement. Based on their findings,
UMD faculty members believe that occasional meetings between faculty
and teams may improve team function. The TPC may be used to direct
discussions during these meetings. In this manner, the TPC provides
an opportunity for intervention and continuous improvement. Detailed
information about this study is available.3
In a new study, faculty members at UMD are using the TPC to assess
team functioning and to plan improvements to address areas of weakness.
The functioning of assessed teams is being compared to that of teams
not engaged in this assessment and improvement process. UMD also
will code the types of improvement plans that are generated and
explore the potential relationship of different types of plans to
outcome. To further validate the TPC, videotapes of teams engaged
in a design task are being examined, and TPC self-reports of team
functioning will be compared to the ratings of observers coding
these videos. This study will be reported.4
Texas
A&M University
The TPC was utilized in the second semester of a two-semester
senior capstone design course at TAMU. The TPC was used as a tool
to help a discordant team openly address internal problems. Team
members were introduced to the TPC, and each item in the TPC was
discussed by team members to arrive at mutually-agreeable understandings
of its meaning. Team members then completed the TPC and submitted
their completed instruments to a mediating professor who was not
their instructor that term. Completed instruments were sent to the
TAMU College of Engineering Assessment and Evaluation Office for
data entry, analysis, and summary. Results were summarized and returned
to the mediating professor. The mediating professor reported that
the group decision to use the TPC, experience of group review, and
discussion prior to completing the TPC had a positive effect on
the group. In addition, several team members expressed satisfaction
with the discussion process.
Arizona
State University
Faculty members at ASU used an earlier version
of the TPC to examine how a teaming learning component impacted
female engineering students. Research revealed gender differences
and identified innovative teaming practices that empowered
students and provided a more equitable learning environment
for female students.
In 1997–98 freshmen responded to a survey that gained
attitudinal data on teaming practices. The results (Fig. 1)
indicated that females felt less strongly about virtually
every aspect of teaming in the classroom. Females in 1997–98
felt that faculty members were not providing adequate team
training and were less likely to agree that faculty members
were monitoring and assessing their team's performance. In
response to this, two formal strategies were implemented during
1998–99 to help improve female teaming responses: adoption
of the TPC and “Team Time.” The TPC was administered
to student,s and results were used at meetings between the
team and instructor. The process allowed students to collect
data on how their team was functioning, enabled faculty to
review student concerns and issues, and used feedback to facilitate
team performance. Team Time, a designated time-period outside
of class, allowed time for formal team training, provided
time to work in teams, and enabled faculty members to monitor
team performance and formally meet with teams to discuss team
issues or concerns.
In 1998–99, students felt more strongly that faculty
members monitored and assessed their teaming skills, compared
to 1997–98. In fact, student perceptions associated
with monitoring their teaming skills were higher in 1998–99
than in any other academic year at ASU. Female responses not
only were more positive, they exceeded the males’ on
all teaming questions in 1998–99 (Fig. 2). Because instructors
adopted the teaming assessment, females felt that a process
was adopted through which they could voice their teaming concerns.
The TPC was regarded as an “insurance policy”
in the event a crisis occurred and often prevented problems
before they escalated.
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Survey questions:
Q26 I received formal instruction on basic team skills.
Q27 I was assigned to work in groups on a regular basis.
Q28 My instructors monitored and assessed my teaming skills.
Q35 Working in assigned teams helped me understand the material
presented in class.
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