NSF Award 1431694
The broad goal of this work is to study the effectiveness of various teamwork training interventions. This research requires the use of a common model of teamwork and a system for training, collecting ratings data, and providing feedback. We will leverage the NSF’s prior investment in the CATME system, which meets the research criteria and automates some of the data collection and feedback, which will aid in executing the research protocol consistently. Seven empirical studies will determine the effect sizes of training, practice in teams, practice rating, and feedback interventions on cognitive development (improvement of team skills) and metacognitive development (improvement of self- and peer-evaluation skills).
Outcomes. We focus both on cognitive skills related to team-member effectiveness and on metacognitive skills that enable competent self- and peer-evaluation of team members’ effectiveness. An intermediate knowledge-level outcome affects both—developing an improved cognitive model of teamwork. Students must learn what skills are necessary for effective teamwork to be able to develop and evaluate them.
Strategies. To achieve these outcomes, we have several strategies. Frame-of-reference training, which is well-established and empirically supported, will align students’ cognitive model of teamwork with ours by teaching students the ways team members can contribute effectively to teams in the five key areas summarized earlier. Experience working in teams and evaluating teamwork will improve team skills and self- and peer-evaluation skills. Experience in teams increases as students work on multiple teams. Rating practice will be accomplished by showing students descriptions or videotapes of fictitious team members and having them rate the contributions these fictitious team members make, in addition to rating themselves and their real teammates following work in teams. Finally, we will examine how the degree to which and manner in which feedback on team skills is provided affect student outcomes.
This presentation (Executive Summary and Poster) will provide a valuable update on this project, share various lessons for classroom practice, and provide guidance to other faculty who seek to use CATME in their research.
Matthew W. Ohland is Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He has degrees from Swarthmore College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Florida. His research on the longitudinal study of engineering students, team assignment, peer evaluation, and active and collaborative teaching methods has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation and his team received Best Paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education in 2008 and 2011 and from the IEEE Transactions on Education in 2011 and 2015. Dr. Ohland is an ABET Program Evaluator for ASEE. He was the 2002–2006 President of Tau Beta Pi and is a Fellow of the ASEE and IEEE.
Daniel M. Ferguson is CATME Managing Director and the recipient of several NSF awards for research in engineering education and a research associate at Purdue University. Prior to coming to Purdue he was Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Ohio Northern University. Before assuming that position he was Associate Director of the Inter-Professional Studies Program [IPRO] and Senior Lecturer at Illinois Institute of Technology and involved in research in service learning, assessment processes and interventions aimed at improving learning objective attainment. Prior to his University assignments he was the Founder and CEO of The EDI Group, Ltd. and The EDI Group Canada, Ltd, independent professional services companies specializing in B2B electronic commerce and electronic data interchange. The EDI Group companies conducted syndicated market research, offered educational seminars and conferences and published The Journal of Electronic Commerce. He was also a Vice President at the First National Bank of Chicago [now J.P. Morgan Chase], where he founded and managed the bank’s market leading professional Cash Management Consulting Group, initiated the bank’s non-credit service product management organization and profit center profitability programs and was instrumental in the breakthrough EDI/EFT payment system implemented by General Motors. Dr. Ferguson is a graduate of Notre Dame, Stanford and Purdue Universities, a special edition editor of the Journal of Engineering Entrepreneurship and a member of Tau Beta Pi.
Misty L. Loughry, Ph.D. is a Professor of Management in the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College. She studies peer control, peer evaluation, and teamwork. She earned her Ph.D. from University of Florida.
David J. Woehr is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Management at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1989. Dr. Woehr served on the faculty of the Psychology Department in the I/O Psychology program at Texas A&M University from 1988 to 1999 and as a Professor of Management at the University of Tennessee from 1999 to 2011. He has also served as a Visiting Scientist to the Air Force Human Resource Laboratory and as a consultant to private industry. Dr. Woehr is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Association for Psychological Science (APS). His research on managerial assessment centers, job performance measurement, work related attitudes and behavior, training development, and quantitative methods has appeared in a variety of books, journals, as papers presented at professional meetings, and as technical reports. Dr. Woehr currently serves as editor for Human Performance as well as on the editorial boards for Organizational Research Methods, and the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology
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