Abstract
The ability to work effectively on a team is highly valued by employers, and collaboration among students can lead to intrinsic motivation, increased persistence, and greater transferability of skills. Moreover, innovation often arises from multidisciplinary teamwork. The influence of personality and ability on undergraduate teamwork and performance is not comprehensively understood. An investigation was undertaken to explore correlations between team outcomes, personality measures and ability in an undergraduate population. Team outcomes included various self-, peer- and instructor ratings of skills, performance, and experience. Personality measures and ability involved the Five-Factor Model personality traits and GPA. Personality, GPA, and teamwork survey data, as well as instructor evaluations were collected from upper division team project courses in engineering, business, political science, and industrial design at a large public university. Characteristics of a multidisciplinary student team project were briefly examined. Personality, in terms of extraversion scores, was positively correlated with instructors’ assessment of team performance in terms of oral and written presentation scores, which is consistent with prior research. Other correlations to instructor-, students’ self- and peer-ratings were revealed and merit further study. The findings in this study can be used to understand important influences on successful teamwork, teamwork instruction and intervention and to understand the design of effective curricula in this area moving forward.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-16) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Fostering effective teamwork in the curriculum is a necessity
Oral presentation scores were positively correlated to the maximum extraversion, mean GPA, and maximum GPA scores of the group
The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of personality and ability on teamwork, team performance, and individual performance on a team, in a multidisciplinary student sample
Summary
Fostering effective teamwork in the curriculum is a necessity. The ability to work effectively on a team is highly valued by employers, in addition to communication and problem-solving skills (Thomas and Busby 2003; National Academy of Engineering 2004). Students working as a team towards a common goal achieve more than if they work alone (Johnson and Johnson 1999). Collaboration among students can lead to intrinsic motivation, increased persistence, and greater transferability of skills (Pfaff and Huddleston 2003). Innovation is often sparked by teamwork involving the intersection of multiple disciplines (Haragon 2003; Denison and Kahn 1996). Teamwork is a learning outcome that is required for all engineering programs that are accredited by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology programs (ABET)
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