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Assessing Levels of Psychological Safety and Teamwork Satisfaction in Engineering Senior Capstone Teams

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Inclusive Leadership: A Panel Discussion

Tagged Division

Engineering Leadership Development Division (LEAD)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

13

DOI

10.18260/1-2--42301

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/42301

Download Count

133

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Paper Authors

biography

Kenneth Lamb P.E. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

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Kenneth is the Director of the Student Innovation Idea Labs and a Professor at Cal Poly Pomona as well as a licensed Professional Engineer in Nevada with experience working on a variety of water, stormwater, and wastewater system projects.

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biography

Kyle G. Gipson James Madison University

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Dr. Kyle Gipson is an Associate Professor at James Madison University (United States) in the Department of Engineering (Madison Engineering). He has taught courses pertaining to topics for first-year engineering, materials science and engineering, engineering design, systems thinking and engineering leadership development. He has a PhD in Polymer, Fiber Science from Clemson University. His research background is in the synthesis of polymer nanocomposites and engineering education. He was trained as a Manufacturing Process Specialist within the textile industry, which was part of an eleven-year career that spanned textile manufacturing to product development.

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Seth Claberon Sullivan Texas A&M University

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Seth Sullivan is the Director of the Zachry Leadership Program in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. Prior to joining the university, he worked in consulting in the private sector and as an analyst in the U.S. Government. He’s earned master’s degrees in business administration and international affairs.

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Abstract

Developing a team into a learning organization has been shown to create high-performing teams. Amy Edmondson’s work showed that forming a learning organization requires a psychologically safe environment. The current research comes from studies into industry and professional organizations, but there is little work showing if teams of students develop psychologically safe teams. The current study is a work-in-progress collaboration between three different engineering colleges focusing on improving teamwork experiences in senior capstone teams. Driving the current study are two questions: What is the state of psychological safety and teamwork satisfaction in engineering capstone teams? What teamwork-related instruction do faculty provide their senior capstone teams? The data collected also help us determine if different student populations experience different levels of psychological safety on their capstone teams. The results help us establish a satisfactory level of psychological safety and teamwork satisfaction and they show that the majority of students actually work on teams with satisfactory levels of psychological safety and teamwork satisfaction. Data from faculty at the three institutions show that a minority of engineering faculty require their teams to complete teamwork contracts as the primary teamwork intervention. A smaller minority of faculty provide team building exercises/practice as well as self-awareness, team awareness, interpersonal dynamics, conflict resolution, or negotiation instruction to their senior capstone students. Future work will focus on assessing the impact of specific interventions to improve psychological safety in senior capstone teams and provide tools to faculty to implement more intentional teamwork interventions for their capstone teams.

Lamb, K., & Gipson, K. G., & Sullivan, S. C. (2023, June), Assessing Levels of Psychological Safety and Teamwork Satisfaction in Engineering Senior Capstone Teams Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--42301

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