AC 2007-2721: SPONTANEOUS GROUPS VERSUS LONG-TERM TEAMS: AN INVESTIGATION USING COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING IN A FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING COURSE

ABET requires that engineering graduates be able to work on multi-disciplinary teams and apply mathematics and science when solving engineering problems. One manner of integrating teamwork and engineering contexts in a first-year foundation engineering course is through the use of Model-Eliciting Activities (MEAs) – realistic, client-driven problems based on the models and modeling theoretical framework. This study looks at the quality of student team solutions to Model-Eliciting Activities and team effectiveness, specifically interdependency (cooperation among team members to accomplish a task), goal-setting (team sets outcome goals and sub-goals to accomplish tasks), and potency (shared belief that team members can accomplish their goals) when teams were spontaneously formed versus teams that had been working together previously.

[1]  Mark N. Hoover,et al.  Principles for Developing Thought-Revealing Activities for Students and Teachers , 2000 .

[2]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  Weighted kappa: Nominal scale agreement provision for scaled disagreement or partial credit. , 1968 .

[3]  Grant Wiggins,et al.  Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance , 1998 .

[4]  A. N. Franzblau,et al.  A primer of statistics for non-statisticians. , 1958 .

[5]  Moshe Barak,et al.  Aspects of Teamwork Observed in a Technological Task in Junior High Schools. , 1998 .

[6]  Paul R. Yost,et al.  Potency in groups: articulating a construct. , 1993, The British journal of social psychology.

[7]  P.K. Imbrie,et al.  A framework for posing open-ended engineering problems: model-eliciting activities , 2004, 34th Annual Frontiers in Education, 2004. FIE 2004..

[8]  P. K. Imbrie,et al.  The Quality Of Solutions To Open Ended Problem Solving Activities And Its Relation To First Year Student Team Effectiveness , 2006 .

[9]  Karl A. Smith,et al.  Teamwork and Project Management , 2005 .

[10]  T.J. Moore,et al.  Assessment of Team Effectiveness During Complex Mathematical Modeling Tasks , 2006, Proceedings. Frontiers in Education. 36th Annual Conference.

[11]  H. Diefes-Dux,et al.  Developing model-eliciting activities for undergraduate students based on advanced engineering content , 2004, 34th Annual Frontiers in Education, 2004. FIE 2004..

[12]  Richard Lesh,et al.  A Models and Modeling Perspective on the Role of Small Group Learning Activities , 2003 .

[13]  David W. Johnson,et al.  Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom , 2006 .

[14]  Henry L. Tosi.  A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance , 1991 .

[15]  P. K. Imbrie,et al.  Assessing Team Effectiveness , 2005 .