A Pilot Investigation of Functional Roles on Engineering Student Teams

项目团队正在迅速成为工程专业学生的主要学习环境。 从教育的角度来看，积极的团队项目经验可以激励学生在更高的水平上表现。 什么因素的定义，具体有助于成功的团队经验，在工程教育需要进一步的定义和实证研究。 关于团队的文献中最一致的方面之一是团队角色对成功团队运作的重要性。团队角色的重要性背后的概念是，如果一个团队要茁壮成长，就必须有某些可预测的过程和行为。 提高团队成员对这些角色的认识和培训，可以提高适当行为发生的机会，并提高团队实现目标的机会。 这个项目是一个探索性的研究，旨在更好地理解和经验证明工程项目团队的功能角色的重要性。 本研究采用焦点小组为基础的各种工程团队类从大一到大四的调查。 此外，主要工程学科，妇女，少数民族，专业工程师和学生谁不坚持在工程项目的焦点小组正在进行，以了解这些不同的选区在团队经验和角色的个别差异。 此外，首席调查员正在对顶点课程的教员进行个别访谈。 如果存在和重要性，以团队运作和学生学习的功能性角色的经验支持，然后试点研究将遵循一个更大规模的建议，以创建一个心理测量适当的评估措施，用于评估学生的功能性角色的表现。

The project team is fast becoming a primary learning environment for engineering students. From the perspective of education, positive team project experiences can motivate students to perform at higher levels. The definition of what factors specifically contribute to a successful team experience in engineering education requires further definition and empirical study. One of the most consistent aspects of the literature on teams is the importance of team roles to successful team functioning. The notion behind the importance of team roles is that certain predictable processes and behaviors must occur if a team is to thrive. Increasing the awareness and training of team members to these roles improves the chances that the appropriate behaviors will occur and the team will meet its goals. This project is an exploratory study seeking to better understand and empirically demonstrate the significance of functional roles on engineering project teams. This study uses a focus group based investigation of a variety of engineering team classes from freshman to seniors. In addition, focus groups of major engineering disciplines, women, minorities, professional engineers, and students who do not persist in an engineering program are being conducted to become aware of individual differences in the team experience and role taking by these diverse constituencies. Additionally, the instructors of the capstone courses are being individually interviewed by the Principle Investigators. If the presence and importance to team functioning and student learning of functional roles is empirically supported, then the pilot study will be followed by a larger scale proposal to create a psychometrically appropriate assessment measure for evaluating student performance in functional roles.