Track: Engineering Education

Abstract

This research investigates the effect of gender, race, year of study, GPA, previous course grade and selected prerequisite knowledge on cohesiveness in first-year engineering students’ teams.

Background: Research shows that diversity hinders the development of cohesiveness, yet cohesiveness is positively associated with performance and satisfaction.

Purpose/Hypothesis: Modeling cohesion can lead to better strategies for forming teams. In this study we are going to investigate the effect of gender, race, year of study, GPA, previous course grade and selected prerequisite knowledge on the cohesiveness of teams and the extent to which each student feels cohesion while working in teams.

Design/Method: Multiple regression analysis was used to model the effect of individual characteristics on a student's perception of cohesion in their team. ANOVA is used to find the effect of team composition on cohesiveness.

Results: Hispanic/Latino students reported more cohesiveness in their teams, and students with selecting "Other" as their racial/ethnic identifier had significantly lower cohesion. Black students were observed to report a much higher cohesion, but the observation was not statistically significant. Since the population Black students was enough to prevent an underpowered analysis, the lack of significance is due to a high variability among Black student experiences.

Conclusions: The finding that underrepresented minorities perceive a higher level of cohesion than White students is intriguing and suggests future qualitative research. Keywords Cohesiveness, gender, race, teamwork