Commitment is a multi-dimensional construct that has been extensively researched in the context of organizations. Organizational and professional commitment have been positively associated with technical performance, client service, attention to detail, and degree of involvement with one’s job. However, there is a relative dearth of research in terms of team commitment, especially in educational settings. Teamwork is considered a 21stcentury skill and higher education institutions are focusing on helping students to develop teamwork skills by applied projects in the coursework. But studies have demonstrated that creating a team is not enough to help students build teamwork skills. Literature supports the use of team contracts to bolster commitment, among team members. However, the relationship between team contracts and team commitment has not been formally operationalized.This research category study presents a mixed-methods approach towards characterizing and operationalizing team commitment exhibited by students enrolled in a sophomore-level systems analysis and design course by analyzing team contracts and team retrospective reflections. The course covers concepts pertaining to information systems development and includes a semester-long team project where the students work together in four or five member teams to develop the project deliverables. The students have prior software development experiences through an introductory systems development course as well as multiple programming courses. The data for this study was collected through the team contracts signed by students belonging to one of the 23 teams of this course. The study aims to answer the following research question: How can team commitment be characterized in a sophomore-level system analysis and design course among the student teams?A rubric was developed to quantify the team commitment levels of students based on their responses on the team contracts. Students were classified as high or low commitment based on the rubric scores. The emergent themes of high and low commitment teams were also presented. The results indicated that the high commitment teams were focused on setting goals, effective communication, and having mechanisms in place for timely feedback and improvement. On the other hand, low commitment teams did not articulate the goals of the project, they demonstrated a lack of dedication for attending team meetings regularly, working as a team, and had a lack of proper coordination while working together.
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Team-based instructional change in undergraduate STEM: characterizing effective faculty collaboration
Abstract Background Team-based instructional change is a promising model for improving undergraduate STEM instruction. Teams are more likely to produce sustainable, innovative, and high-quality outcomes than individuals working alone. However, teams also tend to involve higher risks of failure and can result in inefficient allocation of valuable resources. At this point, there is limited knowledge of how teams in the context of STEM higher education should work to achieve desirable outcomes. Results In this study, we collect semi-structured interview data from 23 team members from a total of 4 teams at 3 institutions across the USA. We analyze the results using a grounded theory approach and connect them to the existing literature. This study builds upon the first part of our work that developed a model of team inputs that lead to team outcomes. In this part, we identify the mechanisms by which input characteristics influence teamwork and outcomes. Team member data expand this initial model by identifying key aspects of team processes and emergent states. In this paper, we present five team processes: strategic leadership, egalitarian power dynamics, team member commitment, effective communication, and clear decision-making processes, that shape how teams work together, and three emergent states: shared vision, psychological safety , and team cohesion , that team members perceived as important aspects of how teams feel and think when working together. Conclusions This work furthers our understanding of how instructional change teams can be successful. However, due to the highly complex nature of teams, further investigation with more teams is required to test and enrich the emerging theory.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1914857
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10310200
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of STEM Education
- Volume:
- 8
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2196-7822
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00273-4
