Abstract Although teamwork is being integrated throughout engineering education because of the perceived benefits of teams, the construct of psychological safety has been largely ignored in engineering research. This omission is unfortunate because psychological safety reflects collective perceptions about how comfortable team members feel in sharing their perspectives, and it has been found to positively impact team performance in samples outside of engineering. While prior research has indicated that psychological safety is positively related to team performance and outcomes, research related to psychological safety in engineering teams is less established. There is also a lack of comprehensive methodologies that capture the dynamic changes that occur throughout the design process and at each time point. In light of this, the goal of the current study was to understand how psychological safety might be measured practically and reliably in engineering student teams over time. In addition, we sought to identify factors that impact the building and waning of psychological safety in these teams over time. This was accomplished through a study with 260 engineering students in 68 teams in a first-year engineering design class. The psychological safety of the teams was captured for each team over five time points over the course of a semester long design project. The results of this study provide some of the first evidence on the reliability of psychological safety in engineering teams and offer insights as to how to support and improve psychological safety.
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How long until we are psychologically safe.
This paper investigates team psychological safety (N=34 teams) in a synchronous online engineering design class spanning 4 weeks. While work in this field has suggested that psychological safety in virtual teams can facilitate knowledge-sharing, trust among teams, and overall performance, there have been limited investigations of the longitudinal trajectory of psychological safety, when the construct stabilizes in a virtual environment, and what factors impact the building of psychological safety in virtual teams. The results of this study identified that the construct of psychological safety took more time to become a reliable construct in virtual design teams, but once it stabilized, it did not change. Additionally, qualitative findings point to issues with communication and conflict across various stages of the design process in the development of psychological safety. Finally, we identify potential interventions to enhance team mental model development in the early phases of virtual teaming to support team psychological safety.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1825830
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10383413
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Design Computing and Cognition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Although teamwork is being integrated throughout engineering education because of the perceived benefits of teams, the construct of psychological safety has been largely ignored in engineering research. This omission is unfortunate, because psychological safety reflects collective perceptions about how comfortable team members feel in sharing their perspectives and it has been found to positively impact team performance in samples outside of engineering. Engineering team research has also been crippled by “snap-shot” methodologies and the resulting lack of investigation into the dynamic changes that happen within a team over course projects. This is problematic, because we do not know when, how, or what type of interventions are needed to effectively improve “t-shaped” engineering skills like teamwork, communication, and engaging successfully in a diverse team. In light of these issues, the goal of the current study was to understand how psychological safety might be measured practically and reliably in engineering student teams over time. In addition, we sought to identify the trajectory of psychological safety for engineering design student teams and identify the potential factors that impact the building and waning of psychological safety in these teams. This was accomplished through a 4-week study with 12 engineering design teams where data was captured at six time points. The results of this study present some of the first evidence on the reliability of psychological safety in engineering student populations. The results also help begin to answer some difficult fundamental questions on supporting team performance in engineering education.more » « less
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Improving team interactions in engineering to model gender inclusivity has been at the forefront of many initiatives in both academia and industry. However, there has been limited evidence on the impact of gender-diverse teams on psychological safety. This is important because psychological safety has been shown to be a key facet for the development of innovative ideas, and has also been shown to be a cornerstone of effective teamwork. But how does the gender diversity of a team impact the development of psychological safety? The current study was developed to explore just this through an empirical study with 38 engineering design student teams over the course of an 8-week design project. These teams were designed to be half heterogeneous (either half-male and half-female, or majority male) or other half homogeneous (all male). We captured psychological safety at five time points between the homogenous and heterogenous teams and also explored individual dichotomous (peer-review) ratings of psychological safety at the end of the project. Results indicated that there was no difference in psychological safety between gender homogenous and heterogenous teams. However, females perceived themselves as more psychologically safe with other female team members compared to their ratings of male team members. Females also perceived themselves to be less psychologically safe with male team members compared to male ratings of female team members, indicating a discrepancy in perceptions between genders. These results point to the need to further explore the role of minoritized groups in psychological safety research and to explore how this effect presents itself (or is covered up) at the team level.more » « less
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Improving team interactions in engineering to model gender inclusivity has been at the forefront of many initiatives in both academia and industry. However, there has been limited evidence on the impact of gender-diverse teams on psychological safety. This is important because psychological safety has been shown to be a key facet for the development of innovative ideas, and has also been shown to be a cornerstone of effective teamwork. But how does the gender diversity of a team impact the development of psychological safety? The current study was developed to explore just this through an empirical study with 38 engineering design student teams over the course of an 8-week design project. These teams were designed to be half heterogeneous (either half-male and half- female, or majority male) or other half homogeneous (all male). We captured psychological safety at five time points between the homogenous and heterogenous teams and also explored individual dichotomous (peer-review) ratings of psychological safety at the end of the project. Results indicated that there was no difference in psychological safety between gender homogenous and heterogenous teams. However , females perceived themselves as more psychologically safe with other female team members compared to their ratings of male team members. Females also perceived themselves to be less psychologically safe with male team members compared to male ratings of female team members, indicating a discrepancy In perceptions between genders. These results point to the need to further explore the role of minoritized groups in psychological safety research and to explore how this effect presents itself (or is covered up) at the team level.more » « less
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Psychological safety has been shown to be a consistent, generalizable, and multilevel predictor of outcomes in performance and learning across fields. While work in this field has suggested that psychological safety can impact the creative process, particularly in the generation of ideas and in the discussions surrounding idea development, there has been limited investigations of psychological safety in the engineering domain. Without this knowledge we do not know when to fostering psychological safety in a team environment is most important. This study provides the first attempt at answering this question through an empirical study with 53 engineering design student teams over the course of a 4- and 8-week design project. Specifically, we sought to identify the role of psychological safety on the number and quality (judged by goodness) of ideas generated. In addition, we explored the role of psychological safety on ownership bias and goodness in the concept screening process. The results of the study identified that while psychological safety was not related to the number of ideas a team developed, it was positively related to the quality (goodness) of the ideas developed. In addition, while no relationship was found between psychological safety and ownership bias during concept screening, the results showed that teams with high psychological safety selected a higher percentage of their team members ideas.more » « less
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