Team dynamics feedback for post-secondary student learning teams: introducing the “Bare CARE” assessment and report

Abstract

Team-based learning is recognized as an important opportunity for teamwork skill development, experiential learning, and learning from peers. However, team-based learning presents many challenges. One important challenge involves the accurate, reliable and valid assessment of team health. With such diagnostics, students could receive formative feedback and engage in meaningful goal setting, adjustment and action planning. Moreover, instructors could identify teams in distress and in need of support. We examine the team CARE assessment, which is a team diagnostic on ITPmetrics.com that assesses communication, adaptability, relationships and education/learning. Although the team CARE assessment has been used extensively in educational contexts, the assessment is lengthy and time-consuming to complete. We offer a shorter version, that we call the Bare CARE assessment, by utilizing psychometric analyses and content validity to eliminate the least useful items. We find that the Bare CARE is reliable and valid when considering correlations with teamwork variables and team performance (i.e. grades). Our sample of 61,549 students working in 14,601 teams offers state-of-the-art validation evidence using a large sample that ensures stable and robust results. We discuss the implications for use in pedagogy and future research.

Keywords:

• Teamwork
• peer feedback
• peer evaluation
• peer assessment
• team dynamics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Thomas A. O’Neill, PhD. Tom is the Director of the Individual and Team Performance Lab and Associate Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at the University of Calgary, Canada. Dr. O’Neill has built the state-of-the-art evidence-backed teamwork assessment platform, ITP metrics.com, which provides mechanisms for conducting automated peer feedback, team dynamics feedback, conflict management styles, and personality reports. Currently, 225,000 assessments have been taken by over 100,000 team members.

Leah Pezer is currently a PhD student in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Calgary. Her research interests include leadership development, improving team functioning, and optimizing performance in the workplace.

Lorena Solis is a current PhD student at the University of Calgary, specializing in Industrial Organizational Psychology. Her research interests include social justice, diversity and inclusion, and team dynamics.

Nicole Larson is a PhD candidate in Industrial Organizational Psychology at the University of Calgary. Her research interest includes team process dynamics, team learning, and intra-team trust.

Nicoleta Maynard is an Associate Professor and the Director of Engineering Education at Monash University. In her role as Director of Engineering Education at Monash University, Nicoleta Maynard leads curriculum design and program development to strengthen the engineering design across the faculty, and leads a community of practice which brings together students, academic staff, and industry partners to explore new design practices.

Glenn Dolphin is the Tamaratt Teaching Professor in Geoscience, in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Calgary. He researches using the history and philosophy of geology to teach geoscience concepts and also about the nature of science. He is also interested in how the use of scientific metaphors influence how novices learn scientific concepts. He has been involved with ITP Metrics for several years as team-based learning is a major teaching strategy, especially in very large (300-400) students.

Robert W. Brennan holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Calgary. He is currently Professor of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Calgary, is President of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA-ACEG), and holds the NSERC Chair in Design Engineering. His research interests range from engineering education to intelligent automation and control systems.

Simon Li, PhD. Dr. Li’s research interests include intelligent and autonomous systems, sustainable manufacturing systems, energy engineering, HVAC systems and building energy modeling, engineering education, engineering design education