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1. Exploration of gender diversity effects on design team dynamics

   Milovanovic, J; Gero, John S (April 2019, Human Behavior in Design)

   This article introduces and applies a methodology to analyze the effect of team diversity on team design cognition. We explore team diversity in relation to team members’ gender. We studied two types of teams: heterogeneous teams composed of one female and one male mechanical engineering student and homogeneous teams of two male mechanical engineering students. We analyzed 28 design protocols using the Function-Behavior-Structure ontology to code protocols and measure team cognitive design behavior. We found that male design students in the mixed teams tend to dominate the design activity. Also, we found that mixed teams showed significantly more co-design activity compared to male only teams. 

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2. Exploration of gender diversity effects on design team dynamics

   Milovanovic, Julie; Gero, John S. (January 2019, Human Behavior in Design)

   This article introduces and applies a methodology to analyze the effect of team diversity on team design cognition. We explore team diversity in relation to team members’ gender. We studied two types of teams: heterogeneous teams composed of one female and one male mechanical engineering student and homogeneous teams of two male mechanical engineering students. We analyzed 28 design protocols using the Function-Behavior-Structure ontology to code protocols and measure team cognitive design behavior. We found that male design students in the mixed teams tend to dominate the design activity. Also, we found that mixed teams showed significantly more co-design activity compared to male only teams. 

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3. Exploration of gender diversity effects on design team dynamics

   Milovanovic, J and (April 2019, Human Behavior in Design)

   This article introduces and applies a methodology to analyze the effect of team diversity on team design cognition. We explore team diversity in relation to team members’ gender. We studied two types of teams: heterogeneous teams composed of one female and one male mechanical engineering student and homogeneous teams of two male mechanical engineering students. We analyzed 28 design protocols using the Function-Behavior-Structure ontology to code protocols and measure team cognitive design behavior. We found that male design students in the mixed teams tend to dominate the design activity. Also, we found that mixed teams 

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4. Comparing Student and Sponsor Perceptions of Interdisciplinary Teams’ Capstone Performance

   https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2020-22099  

   Krishnakumar, Sandeep; Berdanier, Catherine; McComb, Christopher; Parkinson, Matthew; Menold, Jessica (August 2020, ASME 2020 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference)

   The purpose of this work is to investigate the relationship between the disciplinary diversity of capstone design teams and perceptions of success and engineering design abilities. Capstone design programs are effective environments for students to collaborate with industry sponsors on authentic design problems. They provide students with the opportunity to hone their technical and professional skills, often in teams. Previous work has demonstrated that interdisciplinary teams outperform within-discipline teams on complex open-ended tasks, but struggle to communicate across disciplinary boundaries. They also report lower levels of team cohesion and satisfaction with final outcomes. The results of the mixed-methods study conducted with 58 capstone design teams for this paper indicate that team diversity may be inversely related to students’ beliefs in their abilities to construct a prototype. Preliminary qualitative analysis suggests that students tend to divide prototyping tasks based on disciplinary background and struggle to integrate design efforts for complex systems, particularly during later stage design. 

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5. A Diversity Index to assess college engineering team performance

   Rodriguez, Joaquin; Dukes, April; Keith, John A. (January 2022, 2022 ASEE - North Central Section Conference)

   A Diversity Index (DI) was developed to quantify eight minority categories (“Women”, “Non Male/Female”, “Afro-American”, “Hispanic”, “Asian/other ethnicity” “LGBQT”, “Disabilities”, and “First Generation”) in contrast to the standard “White American male”. This index is compared with a Minority Index (MI) based only on the ratio of “Non White American male” to the total of group members, which exhibits poor representation for diversity when teams are heavily conformed by minority representatives. In addition, the Diversity Index includes a tuning parameter to adjust for the impact of multiple diversities on the same individual. The Diversity Index has been calculated for four junior courses on Reactive Process Engineering and four senior capstone courses on Process Control and Process Design during the last three years (2019-21). Each course included at least two semester-long projects for 4-6 member teams. The Diversity Index was used to assess the performance of 69 self-selected teams, performing 37 technical projects and 101 outreach projects total. Assessments included relations with grades, peer-grading, team experience, and scope of activities. The analysis provides a quantitative approach to the impact of diversity on team performance. Reliability on some data is still difficult to validate. This study has relied mainly on the instructor interactions with students. In order to protect the students’ personal information, the proposed Diversity Index outputs a quantitative value without exposing the diversity source, and thus promoting more honest, secure and respectful participation. A new step is in progress to offer a “diversity rewarded” option to motivate students to select team members providing for larger inclusion and diversity. 

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