Team Project Experience Research Articles

Critical Success Factors Affecting Project Performance: An Analysis of Tools, Practices, and Managerial Support

This study examines success factors for a team project. The influence of three success factors—(1) project management tools, (2) project management best practices, and (3) managerial support on the performance of individuals, teams, and projects was measured. We surveyed 121 business students with team project experience. Exploratory factor analysis confirms that success factors (project management tools, project management best practices, and managerial support) in a project tend to respond more to individual team members’ performance compared to team performance and project performance. Our findings indicate that project management tools, project management best practices, and support are equally important to success during project implementation. We also find that harmonious relationships among team members lead to extrinsic motivation within project teams and enhance team and project performance. However, most of the time, the system—not the individual—causes a project to fail. Therefore, this study suggests that project managers make a clear plan and agenda by utilizing project management tools.

Equal But Not Equitable: Self-Reported Data Obscures Gendered Differences in Project Teams

Contribution: This paper argues for a shift in how students’ team project experiences are assessed. Findings from this paper suggest that it is not enough to consider student-reported data in assessing team dynamics; hidden gendered behavior may be impacting students in ways that students do not realize or report. Background: Although the number of women in engineering is rising, difficulties still exist for female students in electrical engineering and computer science, particularly in team projects. Male and female students may have very different project experiences, due to differing levels of confidence/self-efficacy, difficult team dynamics, or inequitable task division. Research Questions: This paper aimed to elucidate what differences exist in the project experience between male and female students, considering self-reported measures (engineering confidence/self-efficacy, time spent on task, and team satisfaction) and observational study. Methodology: Students completed pre/post-project surveys, weekly logs, and post-project interviews to report and discuss their engineering confidence/self-efficacy, project task selection, and team satisfaction. This paper reports a case study of one student team, observed by a researcher throughout the project course. Findings: While student-reported data implied a lack of gender division (male and female students had the same levels of confidence, completed the same project tasks, and were similarly satisfied with their teams), the observational study implied that the student-reported data may not be telling the whole story. Given the difficult team dynamics observed in the student team (but not reported by students), findings suggest that difficult gender dynamics may go unrecognized by students.

Students’ Team Project Experiences and Their Attitudes Towards Teamwork

Purpose: The aim of the study is to evaluate the influence of team project experiences of students (presence and role of a leader; fairness in team projects; conditions supporting teamwork created by a university) on their attitudes towards teamwork, especially the perception of teamwork effectiveness and the preference of working in teams.

Team Project Experiences in Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS)

Providing students with the professional, communication, and technical skills necessary to contribute to an ongoing software project is critical, yet often difficult in higher education. Involving student teams in real-world projects developed by professional software engineers for actual users is invaluable. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has emerged as an important approach to creating, managing, and distributing software products. Involvement in a FOSS project provides students with experience developing within a professional environment, with a professional community, and has the additional benefit that all communication and artifacts are publicly accessible. Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) projects benefit the human condition in some manner. They can range from disaster management to microfinance to election-monitoring applications. This article discusses the benefits and challenges of students participating in HFOSS projects within the context of undergraduate computing degree programs. This article reports on a 6-year study of students' self-reported attitudes and learning from participation in an HFOSS project. Results indicate that working on an HFOSS project increases interest in computing. In addition, students perceive that they are gaining experience in developing software in a distributed environment with the attendant skills of communication, distributed teamwork, and more.

컴퓨팅 사고 프레임워크 기반 방과후 스크래치 팀프로젝트 경험의 분석

컴퓨팅 사고 프레임워크 기반 방과후 스크래치 팀프로젝트 경험의 분석

Enhancing Learning Through an Interprofessional Project Competition

This article describes the process of using an interprofessional team project to address one of the most commonly occurring challenges in health care delivery--medication reconciliation. We describe the planning and execution of the process and the lessons learned from the experience. The intent of this article is to document the significance of each process and the importance of each member involved in the process, and to act as a guideline for institutions planning similar interprofessional team project experiences for students.

Student Team Project: Gender Differences in Team Project Experience and Attitudes Toward Team-Based Work

The development of favorable behaviors and attitudes in team-based work is crucial in hospitality and tourism education. In this article, the authors examine the gender difference in team project experience and attitudes toward team-based work among students majoring in hospitality management. Female students have attitudes toward team-based work that are more negative than male students. Also, gender is a significant moderator in that female students' perception of a group's teamwork, in comparison with that of male students, is more significant in predicting student attitudes. Implications of these findings for hospitality and tourism educators are discussed.

The use of community-based non-profit organizations in information systems capstone projects

Complaints often expressed about undergraduate computer science or information systems programs,,, is that students graduate with adequate technical skills but often lack an understanding of organizational processes, team project experience, and the ability to integrate information technology in an organizational setting. To address this, educators have historically created service-learning group projects, which leverage local organizations. These types of projects can be very rewarding for students and offer excellent educational opportunities for the students within the group. Educators who have taught service-learning group projects know there are significant problems with using this type of project. These problems include: motivation of students to do their best work, fair individual and overall group assessment, appropriate workload for a semester, and minimizing disruptive outside influences. In addition, the creation of new projects on a continuous semester basis would be very useful for the instructor of a project course. To solve these issues and problems, the following capstone course design was used with success at Grand Valley State University (GVSU). A socially-relevant, community-based assignment with local non-profit organizations provided the basis for the capstone information systems project course described in this paper. This project course produced working applications for actual clients that gave students a unique capstone experience.

HCI at Stanford University

HCI at Stanford University

Teamxchange: A Team Project Experience Involving Virtual Teams and Fluid Team Membership

TeamXchange, an online team-based exercise, is described. TeamXchange is consistent with the collaborative model of learning and provides a means of fostering enhanced student learning and engagement through collaboration in virtual teams experiencing periodic membership changes. It was administered in an undergraduate Organizational Behavior course over two 4-week sessions using WebCT classroom support technology. Quantitative and qualitative results demonstrate some support for the exercise objectives. Specifically, learning of course material, learning about teamwork, and confidence for working in virtual teams were enhanced among those without prior experience working in virtual teams. Team cohesiveness and social loafing behavior were lower in fluid teams than in stable teams. Finally, introverted individuals perceived themselves as having more influence and their teams as more cohesive and communicative than did more extraverted individuals. These results suggest the potential value of TeamXchange, especially for those who have not previously been exposed to virtual teams or who are normally more reticent in face-to-face team or large-class settings. Exercise implications and lessons learned are discussed.

Enhancing team knowledge

Information technology projects are growing in complexity and require teams to solve problems and develop solutions. With current undergraduate, computer science and information systems curricula, students graduate with technical skills, but lack team project experiences. We have identified and developed team knowledge modules that are being taught to students in an effort to increase awareness of team process fundamentals and build the foundation of an effective team player. In this paper we present the challenges that we face with team projects and then discuss team knowledge modules that are being taught to incoming freshmen to engage students in a curriculum that requires team projects in each course. We conclude with our assessment results and show comparisons of student team knowledge by instruction and experience.

In Search of a Model for Effective Group Projects: From the MPA Student Perspective

Group or team work has become a staple element of workplace environments, and research has indicated that groupwork imparts many benefits to employers and students/employees alike. In response, public affairs programs have increasingly incorporated group projects into the MPA learning experience, but insight into how students perceive team activities is limited.This article addresses that knowledge gap with an analysis of the experience of more than 100 students in diverse team class activities in a variety of courses at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.The analysis identifies the characteristics that make the team project experience more satisfying to students and therefore more effective and useful in future groupwork.

Evaluating student team project experiences

The first two courses in the computer science major at Rose-Hulman (Algorithm & Program Design and Data Structures) each have a five-week team-programming project as a component of the course. At the end of the projects, in addition to their program code, each team has to submit a user's manual and a technical manual for their product, and give a 15-20 minute oral presentation. The students are also required to evaluate the project experience on an individual basis.To facilitate the project evaluation, I designed three forms. One form is given to each team leader to complete, one form is given to the other team members, and the third form is used by me to evaluate (i.e., grade) the project. The general team member evaluation form asks the student if, in the student's opinion, everyone contributed his or her fair share to the project, how they viewed their time commitment to the project, what the strengths and weaknesses of their team leader were, to summarize the team dynamics on the project, and to comment on how worthwhile the project was. The evaluation form the team leaders complete asks them about the contributions of their team members; recommendations for "pay raises," "promotions," and "dismissals;" team dynamics; their strengths and weaknesses as team leaders; and how worthwhile the project was. The form I use to evaluate the projects has areas for me to comment on their oral presentation, the software quality, the program design, and the documentation, as well as provide a numeric grade in each area.