The effect of electronic platform on student engineering design team success

Grant:

Investigating Student Learning Grant (ISL)

Academic Year:

2012 - 2013 (June 1, 2012 through May 31, 2013)

Funding Requested:

$3,000.00

Project Dates:

Tue, 05/01/2012 - Wed, 05/01/2013

Applicant(s):

rootsr

Overview of the Project:

The proposed quasi-experimental study explores the effect of a TTI innovation, an online platform for team decision making, which I first implemented in my classroom Fall 2011. My Fall 2012 students (anticipated: ~60 students) working in ~12 teams of 4-5 students will be assigned to the online (Google docs, with chat feature) or the control (face-to-face) condition for a design negotiation that takes place at the beginning of a collaborative learning cycle in a first-year undergraduate engineering course. Transcripts of the resulting team design negotiations will be coded for member participation, level of critique, and application of engineering principles. Surveys of students after the project as well as evaluation of innovation evidenced in team decisions will also be evaluated. The results of this study may suggest pedagogical strategies for increasing minority participation in student groups and for increasing students' application of theoretical knowledge in a collaborative learning context. It is hoped that the project results will inform team-based active learning projects across the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan.

Final Report Fields

Project Objectives:

In this project, I wanted to determine whether the online chat environment would lead to "better" participation in my team conversations. In particular, I hoped to find that participation would be more balanced, with no one taking over a conversation and everyone contributing. I also hoped to find that women and non-native English speakers would be more likely to contribute in the chat interface.

Project Achievements:

I was very excited to find more balanced conversations in the chat environment. Women contributed more in the chat environment. I did not find a significant increase for non-native speakers of English, but I didn't have a large participant pool. Open-ended feedback from some non-native English speakers did suggest that the online chat made it easier for them to contribute.

Continuation:

I'm going to collect more data, including follow-up interviews with some participants, next year.

Dissemination:

I presented preliminary results in a brownbag meeting for my colleagues in January 2013. I presented more complete findings at the CRLT-Engin poster fair on March 20, 2013 and the ISL poster fair on May 6, 2013. I've also submitted this project for a poster fair through IEEE and to CCCC, and I am working on a manuscript to submit to a journal.

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