Factors shaping teamwork skills development in tertiary engineering education: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

This systematic literature review forms the first part of a larger research project into teamwork skills development and aims to answer the following research question: What factors have been found to be significant to the development of teamwork skills in tertiary engineering courses? This was limited to tertiary engineering contexts and 59 papers were included in the final qualitative synthesis published between 2015 and 2022. Factors that were identified included planning, management, team-based factors, individual factors, project factors and time dependent factors that, through their dynamic interrelations, all contribute to what we conceive as teamwork skills development. Future research must focus on rich, nuanced and inclusive understandings of students at the individual level as well as the team level. To address modern challenges, engineering graduates must develop strong transversal skills related to teamwork, this review provides researchers and educators with a roadmap to advancing the body of teamwork research as well as developing the teamwork skills of engineering students.

KEYWORDS:

• Teamwork
• teaming
• teamwork skills
• systematic literature review

1. Introduction

1.1. Background

The success of large-scale engineering projects is built upon the internal successes of countless engineering teams. Such success is predicated upon how these teams effectively integrate their work efforts with employers and graduates placing emphasis upon the importance of teamwork related competencies (Passow 2012). Furthermore, accrediting bodies across the globe such as ABET, Engineers Australia and ENAEE further include the development of teamwork skills as core components of their program accreditation practices (ABET 2022; Engineers Australia 2019; European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE) 2024). Such large-scale projects are becoming increasingly important in the face of wicked problems like climate change and sustainable development. Engineers work at the forefront of such problems and consequently must be equipped with the necessary skills to thrive in team-oriented work environments. It is therefore the responsibility of tertiary education institutions around the globe to develop the teamwork skills of their engineering graduates during their time at university as to adequately prepare them for their future careers (Mann et al. 2020).

Teamwork in tertiary engineering programs has received much attention as a result, particularly over the past 20 years where research has focused largely on team formation, effectiveness, team-based learning (TBL) and peer feedback (Beddoes and Panther 2018; Beneroso and Erans 2021; Chowdhury and Murzi 2019; Cruz, Saunders-Smits, and Groen 2020). Adams et al. (2002), Davis and Ulseth (2013) and Davis et al. (2009) provide examples of how influential holistic approaches to teamwork can be, outlining conceptual frameworks of teamwork principles and performance factors. Similarly, Chowdhury and Murzi (2019) underscore the heuristic power of adopting a systematic literature review approach when teamwork is concerned, outlining teamwork attributes across disciplines. Despite this, there is a lack of such holistic and heuristic findings from diverse settings that are current and that can be applied to improve the teamwork skills of tertiary engineering students. This is largely a result of many studies adopting a relatively narrow lens of inquiry when it comes to these engineering teams. Previous research neglects to adopt a holistic view of teamwork encompassing influencing factors from student and pedagogical domains to guide and focus future research as well as engineering education pedagogies. Furthermore, simply focusing on assessing and identifying effective teamwork does not tell the whole story of teamwork skills development. As such this study seeks to address this gap in the current body of research by conceptualising teamwork skills in a broader sense, in doing so providing researchers and education practitioners with a guiding heuristic for both educating students and conceptualising further research in the field of teamwork skills development.

To achieve the aims of this research it is essential to appraise and summarise the current body of research that relates to teamwork skills development to inform future practices, thereby necessitating a systematic literature review approach (Borrego, Foster, and Froyd 2014). Systematic literature review methodologies have been widely applied to research in fields such as medicine, education and psychology with interest growing in interdisciplinary fields such as engineering education (Borrego, Foster, and Froyd 2015). As such, there is a clear need for systematic literature reviews in the field that are methodologically rigourous and transparent whose intent is to create and shape theory as opposed to restating previously established findings (Borrego, Foster, and Froyd 2015). Therefore, by applying a systematic literature methodology, this paper seeks to capture the current state of teamwork skills development research in the field of engineering education before synthesising these findings to addresses how significant influencing factors affect the development of tertiary engineering students’ teamwork skills.

1.2. Scope and research question

The scope of this research is limited to peer reviewed literature that specifically focuses on influencing factors related to teamwork skills development in tertiary engineering programs. As such it is necessary to define the specific conception of teamwork skills that is being applied in this work. Teamwork skills are referred to broadly in engineering education research where many prominent research outputs do not provide a specific definition (Chen, Kolmos, and Du 2021; Fini et al. 2018; Ribeiro and Mizukami 2005). Other papers have also been seen to conceptualise teamwork skills as a combination of individual aspects related to team functioning such as leadership, planning and one’s ability to overcome team conflict (Jun 2010). In line with the aims of this research we seek to incorporate studies that differ in their definitions of teamwork skills development to enrich the quality of any findings garnered. Consequently, we define teamwork skills as the ability for individuals within a team to work together towards a common goal or project in a constructive, healthy and effective manner. The development of such teamwork skills therefore encompasses phenomena that ameliorate the aforementioned definition of teamwork skills. The following research question is motivated by the previously stated aims, objectives and scope of this study:

RQ1: What factors have been found to be significant to the development of teamwork skills in tertiary engineering courses?

This study also outlines and analyses the demographics of the research outputs included in our synthesis including publication type, geographic diversity, engineering specialisation, year level, team size and research methods employed. In doing so, seeking to answer the following research question:

RQ2: What are the demographics of engineering education literature between and including the years of 2015 and 2022 with regards to publication type, geographic diversity, engineering specialisation, year level, team size and research methods employed?

This study was originally designed to additionally synthesise research findings pertaining to: (1) The measurement of teamwork skills development and (2) The various teaching strategies employed to develop teamwork skills. However, as the scope of this project expanded considerably, we have chosen to present the synthesis and findings related to these additional research objectives in a subsequent systematic literature review. In this current paper, we provide a detailed account of the identification, searching, screening, appraisal, and synthesis protocols for the entire ongoing project, encompassing a demographic analysis (RQ2) of all the included research outputs (n = 59). It’s important to note that this analysis covers not only those studies directly relevant to RQ1 but also lays the groundwork for the subsequent papers where we will delve into the additional research objectives stated above. This division allows us to maintain a more focused and comprehensive exploration of each research question.

1.3. Theoretical framework

A constructivist epistemology was applied throughout this study whereby the vast array of findings of all the final papers included in this synthesis were seen to elucidate different findings from a multitude of perspectives, approaches and backgrounds. Therefore, the nature of knowledge in this paper can be considered a human construction emanating from the interaction between the reported findings and perspectives of those authors whose work is included in the final synthesis as well as the research team conducting the qualitative meta-synthesis (Hoon 2013). Knowledge and findings in this instance are not taken to be completely objective and accurate by nature of being reported but rather the belief holds that knowledge is partial and co-constructed.

2. Methods

2.1. Design framework

A qualitative content analysis design framework was selected for this study due to its suitability to the exploration of relationships between concepts and content description within extant, secondary documents (Leech and Onwuegbuzie 2008). Over time, content analysis has transitioned from deriving quantitative data from qualitative sources (Krippendorff 2019) to embracing constructivist and interpretive approaches. Although historically linked to realist or empiricist paradigms (Hsieh and Shannon 2005), this research adopts a constructivist paradigm, acknowledging the existence of multiple realities within the various studies. Our focus as researchers is tied to meaning and more specifically the researcher’s construction of meaning from the included research articles in which interpretation and co-construction is imbedded in the data synthesis process (Patton 2002).

2.2. Inclusion criteria

Systematic literature reviews seek to provide methodological transparency with highly reproducible guidelines such as formalised inclusion criteria being vital in documenting and implementing a researcher’s review methods (Borrego, Foster, and Froyd 2014). This process is one that is highly iterative with proposed inclusion criteria being appraised for the quality of the results that they produce by both researchers before being further refined (Cook and West 2012). Furthermore, any inclusion criteria should seek to reduce research bias by avoiding the exclusion of indeterminate and undesirable findings from research outputs (Petticrew and Roberts 2006).

Accordingly, we developed the following inclusion criteria to ensure the relevance, availability and rigour of research outputs considered in the subsequent database searches.

• Research participants situated within the tertiary engineering context (both undergraduate and post-graduate.)

• Peer reviewed conference or journal papers.

• Must be available in English.

• Explicitly studies the efficacy or significance of an intervention or influencing factor on one or more tertiary engineering students’ improvement of one or more teamwork skills or lack thereof.

• Available online.

• Published after 1/1/2015.

To ensure the availability and legibility of studies to both researchers, papers must have been published in English and available online. The cut-off date for included studies was set at 2015 in consultation with a member of the Faculty of Engineering’s library team as the deliberately broad search strategy yielded many results and this date provided the research team with a large but manageable corpus of recently published papers. Peer reviewed articles were exclusively selected to ensure the rigour of included studies and both undergraduate and postgraduate tertiary engineering settings were included to provide a holistic view of teamwork skills development in engineering programs.

2.3. Databases and search strategy

An initial scoping study was undertaken in consultation with a member of the Faculty of Engineering’s library team, leading to the recommendation to focus the search on the following databases:

• Compendex

• Inspec

• GeoBase

• SCOPUS

• ERIC

These databases have previously been used widely in similar systematic literature reviews within the engineering education field thereby further validating our final choice of search databases (Direito, Chance, and Malik 2021; Halls et al. 2022; Morelock 2017; Winberg et al. 2020).

The objectives and motivations of this initial scoping study closely align with the concept presented by Arksey and O’Malley (2005), which suggests that scoping studies are commonly employed to evaluate the feasibility of conducting a comprehensive systematic literature review. In this instance our initial scoping study aimed to properly explore and map the variety of research papers that were produced in each search.

A multitude of search terms were tested, and their corresponding results appraised for their relevance to our research questions. Table 1 below represents the final set of search terms that were used to search the SCOPUS database with searches in other databases adapted as required to functionally achieve the same search with the different database specific search engines. Furthermore, teamwork is often referred to in a study without being explicitly stated thus necessitating the inclusion of terms such as ‘team’ and ‘teams’ in addition to ‘teamwork’. Similar terms such as ‘group’ yielded results of lower relevance to our research questions and were generally concerned with other avenues of inquiry within a group setting. This study instead focuses on the mechanisms of teamwork as opposed to research that occurs in a group setting meaning that such terms were excluded from the final search.

Table 1. SCOPUS search terms (13/11/2022).

TITLE (‘engineering’)	AND TITLE (‘team’)	AND ALL (‘teamwork skills’)	AND ALL (‘engineering education’)	AND (LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2022))	AND (LIMIT-TO (LANGUAGE ‘English’))
	OR ‘teams’	OR ‘team effectiveness’		OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2021)
	OR ‘teamwork’	OR ‘team performance’		OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2020)
		OR ‘team functionality’		OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2019)
		OR ‘team dynamics’		OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2018)
				OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2017)
				OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2016)
				OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2015)

Our deliberately broad working definition of teamwork skills development outlined earlier allowed for a larger cross section to be taken of the current research that pertains to the progress that has been made in improving and comprehending how engineering students collaborate in teams. However, such a seemingly vague conception requires rigourous scoping to break it down into its defined components for further inquiry. Consequently, a plethora of key search terms were experimented with before concluding that ‘team effectiveness’ ‘team performance’ ‘team functionality’ and ‘team dynamics’ between them constituted most working definitions for what we refer to in this paper as teamwork skills development.

When papers were not available through the database in which they were found, specific journal editions or conference proceedings were searched. If such papers could still not be accessed, they were excluded from the data corpus.

2.4. Data extraction, filtering and processing

The initial search outlined above produced 289 research papers with the vast majority coming from SCOPUS. These research papers were then initially screened as to only include each paper once with 95 duplicates removed. Each of the two researchers independently undertook the abstract appraisal, and subsequent disagreements on abstracts were resolved through discussions, leading to a negotiated agreement. Out of the 194 articles, 118 were accepted by both researchers, 24 were rejected by both researchers and 52 articles were disagreed upon with 16 of these being ultimately included after the negotiated agreement process. Finally, the 134 papers that proceeded past the abstract evaluation process were read in full and appraised by one researcher. 20 of the final 59 full papers that progressed through this stage were appraised individually by both researchers and their relevance agreed upon in each case. This process can be seen in Figure 1 with the final papers proceeding to the synthesis stage being comprised of 21 Journal Articles and 39 Conference Papers.

Figure 1. PRISMA flowchart adapted from (Liberati et al. 2009).

The synthesis process of final papers included initial data familiarisation, rounds of coding, inter-coder reliability processes, code categorisation and re-categorisation. Data familiarisation involved the active, repeated readings of the papers to become familiar with the depth and breadth of the various research findings (Braun and Clarke 2006). Successive rounds of coding were largely unstructured with an eclectic combination of attribute, causation and holistic coding being applied (Saldaña 2013). Table 2 below gives examples of the various forms of coding applied.

Table 2. Examples of coding approach.

Coding method	Code	Coded text	Reference
Attribute	Qualitative	Using qualitative tools such as thematic analysis and text-driven content analysis, each case explores a different issue routinely experienced in undergraduate engineering design teams.	Barr and Clerck (2018)
Causation	Real World Context	Students also reported that having a real project that was demanding and industry-driven was helpful in engaging all team-members and working on their part of the project.	Murzi et al. (2020)
Holistic	Communication	Communication Communication among group members does not work, resulting in limited communication or not communication at all. Despite individual efforts to make the team successful, meetings focused heavily on complaint resolution. Other students do not support an individual’s opinions and dismiss them. Students reminded to be quiet by other students while working with the industry partner. Teams had issues with students providing feedback on the project. Students fight for a leadership position on the team and talk over each other in meetings. Lack of input from teammates on each other’s performance hinders improvement and makes moving forward difficult.	Lucietto et al. (2017)

Inter-coder reliability (ICR) and its use in qualitative research has been a contested issue for some time now. Proponents against its application in qualitative inquiry put forth that there is an innate epistemological incompatibility that inevitably arises when attempting to prove the ‘truth’ of a finding within an overarching methodology that generally rejects the concept of one singular truth (Braun and Clarke 2013; O’Connor and Joffe 2020). Conversely, opponents suggest that ICR adds to the attentiveness and dependability of the performed analysis and can develop trust that the coding of the data can go beyond the personal interpretation of a specific researcher (Kurasaki 2000). ICR serves as a form of signposting or certification for the trustworthiness of the analysis. Knowing that one’s coding will be compared to that of a colleague promotes consistently high coding standards, thus enhancing intra-coder reliability (O’Connor and Joffe 2020). Further research suggests that ICR can aid in embedding a higher degree of reflexivity within the data analysis process with disagreements being previously purported to be more valuable than final consistency (Barbour 2001).

Ongoing ICR throughout the qualitative analysis process was conducted to concurrently refine our codes thereby ensuring precision (Marks and Yardley 2004) as well as to consistently entrench and promote reflexivity in the analysis process. Established methods of calculating ICR are plentiful with commonly used methods including the Kappa Coefficient where generally accepted levels of inter coder reliability range from 80-90% (Saldaña, 2013). Our coding approach was inductive, starting with the data to derive meaning (Patton 2002). Due to the absence of an a-priori codebook or code list, quantitative calculation of inter-coder reliability was deemed inappropriate for this study. Instead, an emerging set of codes underwent progressive changes as more data was coded. To address this, we employed group consensus as a method of dialogical intersubjectivity, aligning with researchers who view quantitative metrics of inter-coder reliability as unsuitable for interpretive qualitative studies (Saldaña, 2013). This approach closely mirrored the negotiated agreement approach outlined in Campbell et al. (2013) which is reported to be advantageous in applications where the subtlety of captured meaning is prioritised as well as in situations where there is a significant difference in coding experience between the coders (the two coders in this instance being a Professor and an Undergraduate Research Assistant). Both researchers individually and inductively coded 16 of the final 59 papers that were included in the meta-synthesis and overall agreement with respect to meaning was undertaken on a paper-by-paper basis. This sample made up just over 27% of the entire data corpus with recommendations generally falling in the range of 10-25% (O’Connor and Joffe 2020). The initial agreement categorisation for the 16 papers was 10 in full agreement, 4 in comprehensive agreement and 2 in little agreement before a negotiated agreement process brought all papers to the ‘Full Agreement’ category.

2.5. Critique, appraisal and synthesis

Systematic literature reviews, at their core, rely heavily on the critiquing and appraisal of the data corpus in question. This in turn is often predicated on and formalised by both rigid and more general quality criteria for included studies (Haddaway et al. 2015; Spencer et al. 2003; Xiao and Watson 2019). Quality assessment whether it be quantitative or qualitative is historically lacking in systematic literature reviews within engineering education ultimately impacting the strength of conclusions and methodological transparency of testing research outputs that aim for generalisation (Borrego, Foster, and Froyd 2015; Xiao and Watson 2019). Systematic literature reviews such as the one presented in this work instead seek to be richly descriptive and critical in nature and as such should not be constrained by rigourous quality assessment of included literature as to include the full breadth of relevant studies from the full array of research approaches (Xiao and Watson 2019). This lack of formalised quality criteria ensures epistemological and paradigmatic consistency within our study which is constructivist in its approach to qualitative content analysis. This approach was also deemed necessary as to avoid methodological incoherence where more ‘true’ or ‘correct’ interpretations may lead qualitative researchers into experiencing ‘positivist creep’ as outlined in Braun and Clarke (2023). Therefore, all studies included following the full-text appraisal process were deemed to be relevant and their content interpreted consistently without relative prioritisation. The synthesis of included studies (n = 59) utilised NVivo R1.7 for successive rounds of coding as well as categorisation and re-categorisation as outlined previously in our methodology. Throughout this process codes were categorised and re-categorised into a hierarchy of highly detailed and specialised categories within the research question as well as demographic information and proposed future work.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Type of publication

The inclusion criteria applied to this search included only peer-reviewed conference papers and journal articles. Conference papers (n = 38) constituted the majority of studies included in the subsequent synthesis which is to be expected in systematic literature review studies in the field (Direito, Chance, and Malik 2021; Morelock 2017). Proceedings from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) annual conferences (n = 16) and the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) conferences (n = 7) were the most commonly included publications as is consistent in the field (Jamison et al. 2022). Journal articles (n = 21) were included from a wide array of publications with the International Journal of Engineering Education being the most frequently included (n = 6). The proportionally high number of journal articles included in this study further adds to the validity and rigour of subsequent results obtained from the synthesis process as conference proceedings can tend to report initial findings or work in progress papers (Morelock 2017).

Included studies focused on student teams from 22 countries with teams from institutions based in the USA making up 50% of studied populations which is to be expected given the high proportion of ASEE publications as well as the dominance of the US in engineering education research outputs globally (Guimarães and Lima 2021; Higuera Martínez, Fernández-Samacá, and Serrano Cárdenas 2021). Figure 2 highlights this in addition to showing the very even distribution of research outputs from other nations.

Figure 2. Geographic diversity of included research outputs.

3.2. Specialisation

Figure 3 shows that general engineering subjects or multi-specialisation studies constitute 44% of the analysed studies due to the inclusion of first-year programs (34%) and students from various year levels (19%, as seen in Figure 4). This trend indicates a focus on early year levels prior to students choosing a specialisation and a preference for collecting data across different specialisations. A third of the studied populations are from software, computer, and ICT specialisations, highlighting the growing research interest in software engineering teams and the recognised need for effective teamwork education within these fields (Avila, Van Petegem, and Libotton 2021).

Figure 3. Summary of studied engineering specialisations.

Figure 4. Summary of year levels studied.

3.3. Population

59% of the subjects studied were first or final year engineering students, with a focus on first and final year groups. This emphasis likely comes from the need to equip first year students with essential teamwork skills for their studies due to an initial lack of teamwork skills (Havenga and Swart 2022), and the application of project or challenge-based learning in capstone units to develop crucial competencies like teamwork for graduates (Charosky et al. 2022). Therefore, research on developing teamwork skills is significantly shaped by the educational needs and learning outcomes of both first and final year engineering courses. Consequently, second and third year specific research is scant accounting for only 16% of the included studies in this paper.

3.4. Team size

The overall frequency of team sizes studied across included articles can be seen in Figure 5. In some instances, multiple team sizes were studied and therefore coded to multiple size frequencies as to more accurately depict the frequencies of all sizes studied. Teams of 4–5 are seen to be the most common in this study with much larger teams of up to 15 students also being studied, albeit much more infrequently. Group sizes of 3–6 are generally preferred in tertiary engineering courses to develop teamwork skills whilst avoiding issues related to task division and student satisfaction whilst being large enough to ensure the reliability of peer feedback metrics (Boelt, Kolmos, and Holgaard 2022; Hanley 2023; MacLeod and van der Veen 2020; Secules 2023). These results therefore show good congruency with generally accepted team allocation practices as previously established in the relevant literature.

Figure 5. Frequency of studied team sizes.

3.5. Research methods

Quantitative research methods were widely employed within this sample as can be seen in Figure 6 with only 10% of included studies being purely qualitative in nature whilst 46% and 44% using quantitative and mixed methods respectively. Previous engineering teamwork oriented systematic literature reviews have highlighted the relatively even prevalence of qualitative and quantitative research methods (Hindiyeh, Ocloo, and Cross 2022). Engineering education as a field of study, however, is one that is dominated by quantitative inquiry with very few purely qualitative research designs being historically employed (Koro-Ljungberg and Douglas 2008). Such assertions may seem contradictory but instead they help shed light on researchers’ growing propensity to employ mixed methods in engineering education research with a view to liberating oneself from the constraints associated with either mode of investigation (Reeping et al. 2019). Therefore, the distributions of employed research methods identified in this study are consistent with accepted methodological trends within engineering education and teamwork literature.

Figure 6. Research methods employed.

3.6. What factors have been found to be significant to the development of teamwork skills in tertiary engineering courses?

Factors deemed to be significant to teamwork skills development was widely coded and studied in this project, with 398 individual references being coded over 46 of the included 59 research outputs. Team factors, individual factors, planning and management, time dependent factors and project topology factors were identified as the most prominent categories that related to this research question as can be seen in Figure 7. These initial findings show that teamwork skills development is studied from numerous perspectives, studying student related factors in addition to contextual, temporal and teamwide influences. It can be inferred that this represents a more holistic conception of teamwork skills on the part of engineering education researchers in recent years who readily acknowledge the participatory role of both student and educator in the co-dependent and contextually driven process of teamwork skills acquisition and refinement.

Figure 7. Conceptual mapping of factors linked with teamwork skills development.

Team factors were predominant in the sub-categories identified with numerous detailed studies exploring the impact of team formation, team dynamics, communication and contribution on students’ teamwork skills development. This provided a nuanced view of team related factors and their role as antecedents for mediating teamwork skills over the lifetime of a team, from formation to inter-team interactions and consequent team dynamics. Consequently, the synthesised literature broadens our understanding of students’ teamwork skills development at different stages of team collaboration.

Individual factors were similarly studied widely within the data corpus of included studies, centring around identity, personality types, motivation and feedback. Diversity of ethnicity, gender and other factors were studied thereby drawing attention to how diverse individuals experience teamwork skills development in engineering courses as well as how this is impacted by their identity and differences from the norm. Personality type as a research focus also helped elucidate a more nuanced conception of the individual and detailing the mediating role of background and individual traits in the development of teamwork skills. Furthermore, the weight of findings related to student motivation and giving or receiving feedback provides an insight into the prominent mechanisms through which individuals engage with coursework and develop their teamwork skills as a result.

3.6.1. Time management and planning

Planning and management was a prominent category of analysis within the included studies. Time management in particular was deemed to be an invaluable enabling factor to the development of teamwork skills with critical implications for non-traditional learning environments.

3.6.1.1. Time management

Students’ ability to plan and manage their own work efforts as well as those of the team has proven to be a considerable determinant of teamwork skills and ultimate team success. Students directly report completing tasks and assignments within a reasonable amount of time as a strong metric for measuring the success of a team (Thompson 2017). This perspective is mirrored by researchers and educators who associate the late delivery of projects with poor team functioning and a lack of team success (Petkovic et al. 2014), whilst underscoring the importance of time management in addressing this (Fajarillo, Moussa, and Li 2021). Additionally, time management also presents itself as a challenge throughout engineering students’ studies which is particularly concerning in recent years following the increased reliance on virtual learning environments where students are unable to plan and manage their team’s progress as easily (Fouché and Müller 2021; Presler-Marshall, Heckman, and Stolee 2022). Time management therefore presents itself as a mediator between collaboration and consequent teamwork skills development, a key link that must be supported and strengthened over all year levels of study and especially in learning environments where consistent face to face interaction within groups is not possible.

3.6.2. Team factors

Team factors were considered by numerous studies included in this synthesis from initial team formation to subsequent contribution, communication and resultant team dynamics ultimately providing a cross sectional view of how teamwork skills are developed at a teamwide level.

3.6.2.1. Contribution

Contribution exists at the core of team-based work with engineering teams being no different with numerous included studies delineating its component parts and influence on the development of students’ teamwork skills. Furthermore, students hold contribution as an important prerequisite for overall team success (Menekse, Purzer, and Heo 2019; Robal 2018). This holds true across numerous studies which outline the lack of contribution or contribution equity amongst team members as a leading cause of personal issues such as conflict as well as poor overall team success (Barr and Clerck 2018; Mostafapour and Hurst 2020; Thompson 2017). However, it is proposed by some that the role of contribution equity in mediating team success is not so definite and simple, providing scope to investigate the nuances of contribution equity further (Maliashova, Sultanova, and Sanger 2022). Eggert et al. (2014) investigated failure modes of engineering teams through discourse analysis which highlighted the potential absence of a direct correlation between balanced participation and learning opportunities. Instead, one of their studied teams with high levels of contribution equity was more prone to irrelevant off-topic discourse thereby leading to discursive inefficiency and made the team more unproductive. These findings highlight the need for teams’ contribution equity to be redefined as to include further forms or metrics of team member contribution ultimately constructing a more precise and representative conception of contribution equity.

3.6.2.2. Communication

Strong communication skills play an important role in allowing students to integrate their work efforts and ultimately develop teamwork skills. Whilst this importance is well documented, communication is not perceived as a critical skill by engineering students whilst simultaneously being a great challenge (Fouché and Müller 2021; Robal 2018). Such a disconnect between perceived importance and competency is concerning given the weight of evidence that suggests that team health and success is closely linked to effective communication (Fajarillo, Moussa, and Li 2021; Lucietto et al. 2017; Mostafapour and Hurst 2020; Petkovic et al. 2014; Presler-Marshall, Heckman, and Stolee 2022), disproportionately so amongst less satisfied teams (Dzvonyar et al. 2018). Many studies analyse the volume or frequency of communication in coming to this conclusion, however this does not tell the whole story of effective communication (Ibrahim et al. 2017). Teams need to communicate and negotiate in a constructive manner especially when presented with conflict (Pertegal-Felices et al. 2019). This must involve discourse that is relevant and facilitates knowledge sharing (Eggert et al. 2014) as well as the ability to understand and implement different communication strategies in practicing mature communication (Murzi et al. 2020). Therefore, teamwork skills development requires effective, contextually relevant, meaningful and mature communication rather than simply focusing on the amount of communication that takes place.

3.6.2.3. Team formation

The development of teamwork skills has been linked to team formation practices, a well-documented area in the literature. Team formation practices range from loosely defined instructor criteria to highly rigid and specific literature-based programs, with common themes identifiable in the included literature. Students’ grades or cumulative GPAs are mainly used in two ways to construct effective teams: to form academically diverse teams and to create teams with similar grades.

Results indicated that high achieving students were less satisfied with the contributions of less high achieving students in their team when compared with solely high achieving teams who also exhibited better project success in the same unit (Zhang et al. 2014). While Zhang et al. (2014) suggest that academically similar students collaborate more effectively, Michalaka and Golub (2016) found high achievers can motivate peers, increasing their contributions, despite some reliance from lower achievers on their higher-achieving teammates. This study also echoes the previously mentioned frustrations regarding under contributing team members whilst providing evidence of lower academically achieving students feeling as though they could rely completely on the effort of more high achieving students.

Michalaka and Golub (2016) noted that students reacted negatively to team allocation based on academic achievement. However, academically diverse teams foster emergent leadership (Marshall et al. 2016), supporting Michalaka & Golub’s findings that high achievers often motivate their teammates rebutting the notion that all academically diverse teams will create social loafers. Additionally, academically diverse teams have been seen to achieve more positive course outcomes such as understanding and interest in laboratory courses, in doing so, drawing attention to how these teams can contribute to improved student learning and engagement (Vasquez et al. 2020). Whilst some mixed results were attained from included studies centred around team formation practices involving student grades, the weight of evidence points to the advantages of forming academically diverse teams over academically homogenous teams. Ultimately this would be to inspire less academically successful students to become more engaged in projects, develop technical interest, contribute through the emergent leadership of high achieving students being conscious of potential social loafers and student frustrations.

Student leadership in engineering teams often lacks specific, targeted analysis. The examined studies looked into team leader behaviours and how they influence team satisfaction and performance. Resistance to delegation and domineering individualism can hinder team climate, making followers feel limited and viewing their leader as abrasive (Presler-Marshall, Heckman, and Stolee 2022). Effective delegation, on the other hand, empowers teams, especially during challenges (Murzi et al. 2020). Leadership styles that are integrative and adjust to team needs foster shared responsibilities (Maliashova, Sultanova, and Sanger 2022; Presler-Marshall, Heckman, and Stolee 2022). Recognising the pivotal role of leadership during team formation is crucial to empowering leaders to autonomously support their team and delegate efficiently.

Whilst student personality types (particularly Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI) and their implications regarding the makeup of teams has been widely studied in the field, there is a lack of consensus over the optimal way to allocate students to teams or whether such a method even exists. Most of these inquiries base their research on the assumption that a variety of personality types is beneficial for team performance as larger differences in personality parameters provides teams with a bigger pool of capabilities from which to draw upon (DuPont and Hoyle 2015; Havenga and Du Toit 2019). While many studies found no outcome differences in cognitively diverse teams (Michalaka and Golub 2016), processes like collective team identity, embracing a diversity mindset, and establishing team norms can enhance diversity-related teamwork skills (Havenga and Du Toit 2019). As working in diverse teams is highly likely in the workforce, students can cultivate these skills in tertiary engineering programs by engaging in cognitively diverse teams and following supportive processes.

Team sizes typically range from 4–5 students, as shown in Figure 5. While project constraints influence team size, teams with over 6 members often face collaboration and communication challenges (Kearney, Damron, and Sohoni 2015). It is recommended to maintain smaller team sizes or encourage larger groups to create sub-teams for better efficiency (Murzi et al. 2020).

3.6.2.4. Team dynamics

Team dynamics exist at the nexus of individual and team-based factors, referring to the specific climate or constructed social environment within a team. Upon the synthesis of included literature, it was found that healthy and effective team dynamics rely on team cohesion and a lack of personal as well as work related conflict that ultimately instils psychological safety within its members. Students place high importance on team cohesion and the development of interpersonal rapport within teams, ultimately constructing inclusive working environments and team success when achieved (Batista Abreu and Read-Daily 2020; Thompson 2017). This assertion is supported by further findings relating the presence of personal conflict to team-related issues ultimately acting as a barrier to success, affecting less satisfied teams to a higher degree thereby creating a negative feedback loop within these teams (Dzvonyar et al. 2018; Eggert et al. 2014; Kimpton & Maynard, 2023; Lucietto et al. 2017; Mostafapour and Hurst 2020; Petkovic et al. 2014). Breaking this loop and avoiding interpersonal conflict can be achieved through the practicing of and educating about constructive controversy where conflict is a growth opportunity for students (Abbasi, Wolfand, and Vijlee 2022). Such teams who practice constructive controversy and in turn co-construct cohesive teams can create psychologically safe environments where students are able to feel secure in taking interpersonal risks and participating in team discourses (Murzi et al. 2020). This is a persistent issue in tertiary engineering teams and something that is often cited as being critically important for eventual team success (Lescott 2022; Maliashova, Sultanova, and Sanger 2022). Therefore, equipping students with the necessary tools to engage in constructive controversy can create psychologically safe team environments and healthy team dynamics which is critical in the eventual success of tertiary engineering teams.

3.6.3. Time dependent

In addition to studying the specific factors that enable the development of teamwork skills, it is similarly critical to understand how this may occur in a longitudinal fashion. As such, there were numerous findings related to how students’ teamwork skills developed over time as they gained teamwork experience.

Research has also tended to explore students’ experiences of teamwork in a longitudinal fashion through two avenues. The first of which is teamwork experience, focusing on how teamwork skills develop over the course of multiple units or years as students experience working in several different teams. The second being team tenure where students’ development of teamwork skills is analysed across the duration of a set team’s working relationship. When considered together, both factors reveal the various antecedents to ameliorations of student teamwork skills over the course of their studies. Longer team tenure is something which students have reported to be highly beneficial for the development of team cohesion as well as their teamwork skills (Thompson 2017; Vasquez et al. 2020). Variability amongst student peer feedback scores have been seen to decrease because of such team tenure, indicating that students can more accurately understand their teammates’ and their contributions after interacting with them over longer periods of time (Stidham et al. 2018; Zhou et al. 2019; Zhou, Wei, and Ohland 2022). Accurate peer feedback is vital for students to be able to reflect on their teamwork skills and consequently focus on any areas of improvement, highlighting the inherent advantages of designing team-based projects that have high levels of team tenure. Despite students with higher levels of teamwork experience often rating their peers’ performance more favourably, there remains common shortcomings regarding the time management skills of senior and capstone engineering students (Pasha-Zaidi et al. 2015). These students often cite time pressures from other subjects for their poor commitment to their teams whilst only showing effort towards the team’s work before final deadlines (Friess and Goupee 2020; Lucietto et al. 2017). These findings concerning team tenure and teamwork experience indicate that whilst students can provide more accurate feedback to their peers the longer they work with them, students tend to be more generous in their assessments in later years and more committed to meeting project deadlines rather than creating healthy and effective teams.

3.6.4. Project topology

Teamwork, almost exclusively being enacted through project work in engineering, can heavily depend on the details of projects themselves. Throughout our synthesis there were examples of this, illuminating ways in which the context, delivery, and content of student projects can act as antecedents to teamwork skills development.

A multitude of different types of engineering projects have been applied in tertiary settings from purely theoretical to industry based. As such, enquiries have sought to understand the implications that various project contexts have on students’ development of teamwork skills. Students perceive these team-based projects to be the most effective way to develop their teamwork skills thereby further underlining the importance of their context (Thompson 2017). Perceived relevance of engineering technology, or practical engineering work, within projects has been previously linked to the improvement of students’ teamwork skills as well as the alignment of students’ interest and skills with assigned project tasks (Bond, Raju, and Sankar 2015; Mostafapour and Hurst 2020). Furthermore, challenging real-world industry projects have previously increased student engagement and improved the ability of students to work effectively in teams (Murzi et al. 2020). To further develop students’ teamwork skills, educators should aim to provide projects that involve highly relevant technical content, are in-line with students’ interests and abilities, are challenging, have a real-world context and involve industry where appropriate whilst ensuring that such industry projects avoid ongoing ambiguity regarding their scope (Lucietto et al. 2017).

3.6.5. Individual factors

Most included research outputs that addressed factors related to the development of teamwork skills focused their analysis on team-based factors as outlined previously. There is however a wealth of research that instead focused the scope of their inquiry on individual factors within teams. The influencing roles of personality, identity, motivation and individual feedback practices were the most prominent within these included studies.

3.6.5.1. Personality type

Personality and the diversity of personalities within teams has been a main area of focus in team formation literature whilst receiving relatively little attention at the individual level. Included studies which aimed to address this made use of Jungian and big five personality types in addition to using student case studies from their own group experiences. Self-awareness concerning one’s individual personality type is critical for group work in better understanding one’s relative strengths and weaknesses. This is particularly true for those students who may feel isolated or different in helping them attain a more in depth understanding of how their specific strengths can create value within their team (Pieterse, Stuurman, and Eekelen 2021). The assertion that it is self-awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses related to personality rather than one’s specific personality that acts as an indicator for teamwork skills is further supported by evidence showing no significant correlations between personality traits and skills related to teamwork (Tang 2020). This is exemplified by Barr and Clerck (2018) who identify a student whose perfectionist behaviours pose the threat of causing some members to become social loafers. In this instance it is the student’s relative weakness of being a perfectionist that impacts on the team functioning that could be avoided through greater self-awareness. Teamwork skills, therefore, cannot be considered as simply being innate to students of certain personality types and not to others. Teamwork skills are instead predicated upon self-awareness of strengths and weaknesses that arise from different personality traits that allow students to understand their potential for unique contributions as well as any shortcomings that may hinder the performance of their team.

3.6.5.2. Identity

Identity regarding gender and ethnicity were considered in the included literature in addressing how individuals were able to engage in teamwork skills development. Whilst some research indicates the lack of statistically significant differences between genders in terms of teamwork performance, multiple lenses of inquiry are necessary to add detail to this picture (Zhang et al. 2014). It must be noted that all included studies only studied gender through the binary gender paradigm of female and male identifying students thus constraining the potential richness and inclusiveness of relevant assertions made in this review. Female students were found to be more objective and consistent in their peer feedback practices with lower levels of relationship variances (Zhou et al. 2019). Furthermore, female students exhibited a tendency to provide higher peer assessment scores when compared to males whilst also being associated with greater levels of teamwork effectiveness (Bond, Raju, and Sankar 2015; Pasha-Zaidi et al. 2015). Peer feedback is a useful tool which must be compared with student experiences and outcomes to be contextualised. A common theme throughout these included papers was a lack of team satisfaction from female students because of male dominated engineering culture and a lack of support. This was evident in the research of Barr and Clerck (2018) who detailed incidents of female students experiencing marginalisation due to their gender. In this study female students were ignored unless their contributions were desperately needed by other male students as well as being assigned non-technical gender-stereotyped roles within their teams despite their strong technical capabilities. This sentiment is echoed by the tendency of male students to focus on project grades and task distribution as factors related to successful teamwork as opposed to female students who also more widely see the value in transversal skills such as helping behaviours and the productivity of the team (Pasha-Zaidi et al. 2015). This speaks to the privilege of male students within engineering teams who may tend to overlook their female classmates through unrecognised biases as well as being too outcome focused in their group work. Support is needed for non-male identifying engineering students not just at a broader unit, course and institutional level but also on the ground within teams with strategies such as the implementation of project managers significantly increasing these students’ perceived teamwork effectiveness (Fajarillo, Moussa, and Li 2021).

Students from a range of ethnic backgrounds have diverse experiences and the impact that one’s particular background may have on teamwork skills should be considered as such. Research on this topic was relatively scant within the final data corpus meaning that synthesised findings relating to ethnicity are very limited. Relevant research did suggest that students from historically marginalised ethnic backgrounds have the potential to harbour lower perceptions of their own teamwork skills (Bond, Raju, and Sankar 2015). Furthermore, ethnic minority students have also been perceived to have significantly lower teamwork skills from their classmates, highlighting the necessity for teaching pedagogies to go beyond simple team-based learning approaches (Beneroso and Erans 2021). Such negative stereotypical perceptions are damaging to efforts that strive for inclusion, representation and retention of these students and underscore the urgent need for cultural change and pedagogical support in tertiary engineering programs.

3.6.5.3. Motivation

The barrier that is the lack of motivation of individual team members on developing teamwork skills was commonly raised in the included research. Team members’ lack of motivation towards group projects is oftentimes the greatest source of discontent and interpersonal conflict within teams (Pertegal-Felices et al. 2019). As previously discussed, motivation can fluctuate and consequent communication issues disproportionately affect teams with existing low levels of satisfaction underscoring the importance of fostering student motivation early in project timelines (Dzvonyar et al. 2018; Lucietto et al. 2017). To achieve this, it is crucial to consider aforementioned project topography factors when delivering content as well as ensuring that unsatisfied teams are identified as soon as possible and supported to maintain their project motivation.

3.6.5.4. Feedback

Providing and receiving constructive feedback is incredibly important in developing teamwork skills, yet it is a practice that students consistently struggle with. For the most part students are unfamiliar with both providing and receiving high quality feedback, finding the process uncomfortable (Friess and Goupee 2020). This results in team membership skills regarding feedback practices being one of the most frequently reported problems related to teamwork (Mostafapour and Hurst 2020). Students must be provided with the resources to be able to engage in effective giving and receiving of feedback to truly understand the principles of feedback before being able to practice them (Khatsrinova and Fakhretdinova 2021).

3.7. Future work

A core function of a systematic literature review is not simply to synthesise findings but also to identify and motivate future avenues of research based on the current state of the field. This process was achieved in two parts, firstly by coding for suggested areas of future work within the included studies and secondly by using the findings from the completed synthesis to identify any further research gaps. Figure 8 provides a visual depiction of these identified research areas of individual factors, team factors, research methods and frameworks and teaching pedagogies.

Figure 8. Conceptual mapping of areas of future work.

The call for further research into individual factors that influence teamwork skills development speaks to a desire within the community to gain a richer understanding of how transversal and non-cognitive skills impact teamwork skills development. Inquiry regarding student motivation and interest were often called for within the context of ensuring healthy communication and conflict practices as well as academic engagement (Anwar and Menekse 2020; Konak et al. 2015; Pertegal-Felices et al. 2019; Tang 2020). Furthermore, analysis regarding students’ questioning behaviours is also sought after within the included literature (Menekse and Purzer 2016). Determinants of commitment and focus, especially in the context of first year students’ academic socialisation is similarly sought with a view to constructing supportive interventions in this space (Tang 2020). Such research holds great potential in strengthening organisational and disciplinary identity, thereby addressing issues of attrition in engineering courses (Tang 2020). When considered alongside aforementioned attention to motivation, interest, communication, engagement, commitment and identity construction it is clear to see that researchers and educators alike are calling for more nuanced research that is explanatory in its approach to detailing the factors that mediate conflict and mature communication within teams.

Teamwide factors including collaboration, team cohesion and team formation similarly warrant further research. Participatory levels, discourse and peer evaluations were all noted as important areas of future research in understanding the component collaborative mechanisms through which satisfied and effective teams are created and maintained (Baughman, Hassall, and Xu 2019; Eggert et al. 2014; Marshall et al. 2016). More specifically Barr and Clerck (2018) highlight the influence of personality-based team formation practices and suggest studying how to balance dominant behaviours and foster collaboration. Furthermore, Abbasi, Wolfand, and Vijlee (2022) emphasise researching perceived team interactions and education on constructive controversy for optimal team cohesion. Researchers expressed an interest in understanding the antecedents and outcomes of team cohesion, specifically regarding instructor interventions regarding teamwork skills development (Pieterse, Stuurman, and Eekelen 2021; Tamayo Avila, Van Petegem, and Snoeck 2022). Team formation, making up a large portion of the earlier discussion, was similarly a common area of proposed future research. The body of included research seemed to acknowledge that there is no perfect formula for team formation and instead suggested that future research focused on the development of programs that would automate team formation practices based on educator preferences (DuPont and Hoyle 2015; Dzvonyar et al. 2018). Despite this there remains clear interest in teamwork outcomes based on student characteristics such as diversity of identity (Bezuidenhout 2020; Løvold, Lindsjørn, and Stray 2020).

Teaching pedagogies and academics’ access to resources has also been called for, especially in the wake of COVID-19 which has seen drastic changes to the complexion of educational delivery in engineering (Khatsrinova and Fakhretdinova 2021). Such a call to action necessarily involves studying different delivery of projects, especially regarding online learning environments as well as the advancement of comprehensive forms of peer-evaluation (Barr and Clerck 2018; Bezuidenhout 2020; Ciloglugil, Balci, and Atman Uslu 2020; Robal 2018; Shaikh 2021). Furthermore, future research needs to refine the pedagogical implementation of mentor and manager interventions as to support student design projects in the most effectual manner possible (Gyory, Cagan, and Kotovsky 2019; Iacob and Faily 2020).

Included research outputs in this study were largely quantitative thus necessitating future descriptive qualitative research designs and methods as to elucidate more rich, in-depth findings. This assertion was also made by certain included studies, specifically calling for interviews, focus groups and observations in future teamwork research (Barr and Clerck 2018; Zhu, Taylor, and Derk 2019). Additionally, there is a strong need for longitudinal studies across units, year levels and entire degrees (Anwar and Menekse 2020; Bezuidenhout 2020; Lucietto et al. 2017; Michalaka and Golub 2016; Murzi et al. 2020; Presler-Marshall, Heckman, and Stolee 2022). This is understandable given the logistical constraints associated with such long-term studies as well as the temporal nature of teamwork skills development.

While demographic diversity is often discussed in the included studies, more nuanced approaches are essential. Many studies recommend further exploration into the impacts of interventions on gender and ethnic diversity, primarily to address the white-male dominance in engineering and include underrepresented groups (Abbasi, Wolfand, and Vijlee 2022; Baughman, Hassall, and Xu 2019; Kirn et al. 2017; Løvold, Lindsjørn, and Stray 2020; Michalaka and Golub 2016). Current research rarely considers the intersectionality of identities like gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. Furthermore, research in the field of teamwork also largely fails to divorce itself from a binary gender paradigm as discussed previously. Ensuring inclusivity in engineering research is vital due to the field’s challenges with minority representation and marginalisation. Therefore, future research simply must acknowledge unique identities in studying diversity through an intersectional lens to better understand all student experiences (Ong, Jaumot-Pascual, and Ko 2020).

3.8. Limitations

This systematic literature review has attempted to address numerous limitations that commonly arise within such studies. Highly detailed and transparent methodologies, methods and protocols have been reported in this paper with a view to instilling as much transparency as possible. Furthermore, selective outcome reporting and researcher bias has been addressed by including deliberately broad definitions, inclusion criteria as well as avoiding the application of highly prescriptive quality criteria as to value all findings based on their merit (Borrego, Foster, and Froyd 2014). The absence of grey literature as well as student theses and dissertations are limitations of this study as emerging and non-formalised peer-reviewed research may have provided insights into emerging findings and areas of research (Direito, Chance, and Malik 2021). Various search strategy limitations such as the selection of databases as well as the constraint of only including articles written in English may also be considered limitations to this study.

4. Conclusions

The reported systematic literature review provides insights into the factors that are associated with teamwork skills development in tertiary engineering contexts. This review focuses on providing a rigourous theoretical basis for future research into teamwork skills development within engineering education as well as distilling important considerations for educational practitioners. There are diverse factors that are related to teamwork skills development including planning, management, team-based factors, individual factors, project factors and time dependent factors. Future research must focus on rich, nuanced and inclusive understandings of students at the individual level as well as teams as a whole. This should be achieved through the incorporation of qualitative research designs that further seek to explore the longitudinal nature of teamwork skills development.

Acknowledgements

We would like to extend our gratitude to the Faculty of Engineering and the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Monash University for their unwavering support and funding throughout the course of this research.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Callum Kimpton

Callum Kimpton is a PhD candidate and Research Assistant in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Monash University. He is a member of the Monash Engineering Education Research Knowledge Advancement Team which is an engineering education research group led by his supervisor Professor Nicoleta Maynard. His research focuses on using qualitative methodologies to study teamwork and masculinity within engineering culture.

Nicoleta Maynard

Nicoleta Maynard is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and a Director of Engineering Education at Monash University. Nicoleta is also the CDIO chair for Australia and New Zealand and leads the Monash Engineering Education Research Knowledge Advancement Team. Her main areas of research include STEM education, PBL and teamwork.

Appendix

Table 3. Summary of included studies.

#	Citation	Publication	Country	Specialisation	Population	Methods	Relevant themes
1	(Tamayo Avila, Van Petegem, and Snoeck 2022)	IEEE Transactions on Education	Cuba	Software	3rd and 4th Year	Mixed Methods	Team Cohesion
2	(Zhou et al. 2019)	International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management	USA	General	1st Year	Quantitative	Gender, Team Tenure
3	(Havenga and Du Toit 2019)	PAEE ALE	South Africa	General	1st Year	Qualitative	Team Formation, Team Responsibility
4	(Pertegal-Felices et al. 2019)	IEEE Access	Spain	Computer and ICT	2nd Year	Mixed Methods	Communication, Team Formation, Leadership Style, Project Topology, Motivation
5	(Baughman, Hassall, and Xu 2019)	Journal of Engineering Education	USA	Mechanical	2nd Year	Quantitative	Team Dynamics
6	(Robal 2018)	2018 28th EAEEIE Annual Conference (EAEEIE)	Estonia	Computer and ICT	Postgraduate	Quantitative	Contribution
7	(Barr and Clerck 2018)	2018 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (ProComm)	USA	Mechanical	Final Year	Qualitative	Personality, Contribution, Gender
8	(Ibrahim et al. 2017)	2017 7th World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF)	USA	Mechanical	Final Year	Quantitative	Communication
9	(Dzvonyar et al. 2018)	2018 ACM/IEEE International Workshop on Software Engineering Education for Millennials	Germany	Software	Final Year and Postgraduate	Mixed Methods	Motivation, Communication, Conflict, Team Formation,
10	(Stidham et al. 2018)	ASME 2018 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference	USA	Mechanical	Final Year	Quantitative	Team Tenure
11	(Maliashova, Sultanova, and Sanger 2022)	International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning	Russia	Chemical	Final Year	Quantitative	Contribution, Conflict, Team Formation, Leadership, Psychological Safety
12	(Azizan et al. 2018)	Education for Chemical Engineers	Malaysia	Chemical	3rd Year	Mixed Methods	Project Topology
13	(Thompson 2017)	2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)	USA	General	1st Year	Mixed Methods	Team Tenure, Project Topology, Contribution, Team Cohesion, Team Formation, Planning and Management
14	(Pears, Daniels, and Cajander 2017)	2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)	Sweden	Software	Not Specified	Qualitative	Project Topology
15	(Kirn et al. 2017)	2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	General	1st Year	Mixed Methods	Team Formation, Ethnicity
16	(Lucietto et al. 2017)	2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	General	Final Year	Mixed Methods	Motivation, Project Topology, Conflict, Communication, Time Pressure
17	(Polk et al. 2017)	2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	General	Final Year	Quantitative	Team Formation
18	(Samsuri et al. 2017)	Chemical Engineering Transactions	Malaysia	Chemical	1st Year	Quantitative	Planning and Management, Team Cohesion, Team Tenure
19	(Menekse and Purzer 2016)	2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	General	1st Year	Quantitative	Contribution
20	(Michalaka and Golub 2016)	2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	General	Final Year	Mixed Methods	Team Formation, Motivation, Personality
21	(Marshall et al. 2016)	ACM Transactions on Computing Education	South Africa	Software	Final Year	Mixed Methods	Team Formation
22	(Konak et al. 2015)	2015 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)	USA	General	All year levels	Quantitative	Self-Efficacy
23	(Eggert et al. 2014)	2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) Proceedings	USA	General	1st Year	Mixed Methods	Contribution, Conflict, Communication
24	(Zhang et al. 2014)	2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) Proceedings	UK and China	Software	1st Year	Quantitative	Team Formation, Gender
25	(Petkovic et al. 2014)	2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) Proceedings	USA and Germany	Software	Not Specified	Quantitative	Planning and Management, Communication, Conflict
26	(Bond, Raju, and Sankar 2015)	Twenty-first Americas Conference on Information Systems	USA	General	1st Year	Quantitative	Gender, Project Topology, Ethnicity
27	(DuPont and Hoyle 2015)	2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	Mechanical	Final Year	Quantitative	Team Formation, Personality
28	(Liu et al. 2015)	2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	India, South Korea, Israel, China, USA	General	All year levels	Quantitative	Team Formation
29	(Jimenez-Useche, Ohland, and Hoffmann 2015)	2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	General	1st Year	Quantitative	Team Formation, Ethnicity
30	(Pasha-Zaidi et al. 2015)	International Journal of Engineering Education	UAE	General	1st Year	Mixed Methods	Gender, Teamwork Experience
31	(Kearney, Damron, and Sohoni 2015)	Advances in Engineering Education	USA	Computer and ICT	Undergraduate	Qualitative	Group Development Stages, Team Formation
32	(Abbasi, Wolfand, and Vijlee 2022)	2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	General	1st Year	Quantitative	Conflict, Constructive Controversy
33	(Fajarillo, Moussa, and Li 2021)	2021 ASEE Annual Conference	USA	Biomedical	1st and Final Year	Quantitative	Gender, Planning and Management, Communication
34	(Shaikh 2021)	Heliyon	Pakistan	Software	Final Year	Mixed Methods	Team Formation
35	(Pieterse, Stuurman, and Eekelen 2021)	SIGCSE ‘21: The 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education	Netherlands	Software	Final Year	Mixed Methods	Personality
36	(Lescott 2022)	2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	General	1st Year	Mixed Methods	Psychological Safety, Engagement
37	(Fouché & Müller, n.d.)	7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd’21)	South Africa	General	1st Year	Mixed Methods	Planning and Management, Communication
38	(Khatsrinova and Fakhretdinova 2021)	International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning	Russia	Software	Postgraduate	Quantitative	Feedback
39	(Beneroso and Erans 2021)	European Journal of Engineering Education	UK	General	3rd Year	Quantitative	Ethnicity
40	(Bezuidenhout 2020)	2020 IFEES World Engineering Education Forum – Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC)	South Africa	General	3rd Year	Mixed Methods	Peer Review, Self-Awareness
41	(Zhou, Wei, and Ohland 2022)	2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	Australia	Civil	Final Year	Quantitative	Team Tenure
42	(Batista Abreu and Read-Daily 2020)	2020 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition	USA	Computer and ICT	1st Year	Mixed Methods	Planning and Management, Contribution, Team Cohesion
43	(Pazos et al. 2020)	2020 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition	USA	General	All year levels	Mixed Methods	Team Formation
44	(Friess and Goupee 2020)	IEEE Transactions on Education	USA	General	Final Year	Mixed Methods	Teamwork Experience, Feedback
45	(Iacob and Faily 2020)	Proceedings of the 51st ACM technical symposium on computer science education (SIGCSE 2020)	UK	Software	All year levels	Mixed Methods	Team Formation, Team Dysfunction
46	(Chaijum 2020)	European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education	Thailand	Electrical	All year levels	Quantitative	Brainstorming, Project Topology
47	(Presler-Marshall, Heckman, and Stolee 2022)	ICER ‘22: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research	USA	Software	3rd Year	Qualitative	Self-Reflection, Planning and Management, Accountability, Communication, Team Formation, Leadership, Mental Health, Contribution
48	(Beddoes 2020)	Australasian Journal of Engineering Education	USA	General	Undergraduate and Postgraduate	Qualitative	Interdisciplinarity, Team Cohesion
49	(Løvold, Lindsjørn, and Stray 2020)	International Conference on Agile Software Development	Norway	Software	2nd Year	Quantitative	Team Formation
50	(Anwar and Menekse 2020)	International Journal of Engineering Education	USA	General	1st Year	Quantitative	Reflection, Team Tenure
51	(Tang 2020)	Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning	Malaysia and Australia	General	1st Year	Quantitative	Commitment, Personality
52	(Vasquez et al. 2020)	International Journal of Engineering Education	USA	Chemical	All year levels	Mixed Methods	Team formation, Team Tenure
53	(Ciloglugil, Balci, and Atman Uslu 2020)	International Journal of Engineering Education	Turkey	Computer and ICT	2nd Year	Mixed Methods	Reflection
54	(Mostafapour and Hurst 2020)	International Journal of Engineering Education	Canada	General	Final Year	Mixed Methods	Planning and Management, Role Clarity, Interest, Conflict, Contribution, Communication
55	(Murzi et al. 2020)	International Journal of Engineering Education	Australia	Civil	Final Year	Mixed Methods	Planning and Management, Psychological Safety, Accountability, Communication, Contribution, Leadership, Project Topology
56	(Menekse, Purzer, and Heo 2019)	International Journal of STEM Education	USA	General	1st Year	Mixed Methods	Contribution
57	(Zhu, Taylor, and Derk 2019)	2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition	USA	General	1st Year	Quantitative	Project Topology, Team Dynamics
58	(Gyory, Cagan, and Kotovsky 2019)	Research in Engineering Design	USA	Mechanical	1st Year	Mixed Methods	Project Topology, Feedback
59	(Miner et al. 2021)	2021 ASEE Annual Conference	USA	Civil	3rd Year	Quantitative	Project Topology, Team Tenure