The Influence of Participation in a Multi-Disciplinary Collaborative Service Learning Project on the Effectiveness of Team Members in a 100-Level Mechanical Engineering Class

Engineers need to develop professional skills, including, but not limited to the ability to work successfully in teams and the ability to communicate within and outside of their discipline, in addition to required technical skills. Thus, a collaborative multi-disciplinary service learning project referred to as Ed+gineering was implemented in a 100-level mechanical engineering course. In this collaboration, mechanical engineering students, primarily in the second semester of their freshman year or first semester of their second year, worked over the course of a semester with education students taking a foundations course to develop and deliver engineering lessons to fourth or fifth graders. Students in comparison engineering classes worked on a team project focused on experimental design for a small satellite system. The purpose of this study was to determine if participating in the Ed+gineering collaboration had a positive effect on teamwork effectiveness and satisfaction when compared to the comparison class. In both team projects, the five dimensions of the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) system were used as a quantitative assessment. The five dimensions of CATME (contribution to the team’s work, interacting with teammates, keeping the team on track, expecting quality, and having relevant Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs)) as well as team satisfaction were examined in the treatment group (n = 61) and comparison group (n = 49). ANCOVA analysis was used to assess the quantitative data from CATME. Preliminary results suggest that students in the treatment classes had higher team member effectiveness and overall satisfaction scores than students in the comparison classes. Qualitative data from reflections written at the completion of the aforementioned projects will be used to explore these results.