3.2 Students see structured team training as useful.
To determine which components of the course are important as seen by the
students we asked them to select which activities through semester they
found useful and why (Figure 6A). We also asked them what they would do
differently in future team experiences (Figure 6B); how much they used
different aspects of Microsoft Teams (Figure 6C) and whether they used
any additional software (Figure 6D).
Even though this is a third-year course, of the four Team Training
sessions (which were all compulsory) the first session (about getting to
know your team) was chosen as useful by 11/12 respondents. Half the
respondents selected Team Training Session 3 (reflection on progress)
and 5 selected Team Training Session 4 (negotiating author order) as
useful. Even though the students said they experienced no conflict
(Supplementary Material 5A) a quarter of the respondents still chose
Team Training Session 2 (negotiation tips) as useful. These responses
demonstrate that each session is considered useful to at least a third
of the respondents (Figure 6A).
During week 2 (when the first Team Training session was run) the
students were also given a tutorial on using Microsoft Teams. Even
though the Microsoft Teams platform was having technical difficulties
and only returned as the class ended, 9 of the 12 respondents still said
this session was useful. They were provided with a handout with
screenshots to help them (Supplementary Material 2). Similarly, the
poster session with feedback was considered useful by 8 of the
respondents (Figure 6A).
Interestingly 11 of the 12 respondents felt that having the sessions
compulsory was useful (Figure 5A) Reasons for this included: “…
ensured all the team would try to be present” (ID1) “..ensured we had
deadlines in the back of our heard throughout the process” (ID2),
“…made it easier to organise group meetings” (ID5),
“…necessary to keep everyone on track” (ID8). These indicate
that even though the reason these sessions were made compulsory was to
ensure everyone did the training, the students found them important for
‘ensuring’ in-person meetings (Supplementary Material 5C).
Positively, the reasons given for why the reflection activity was useful
[“Team reflection gave chance for people who were lacking behind to
pull their weight” (ID5), “Team reflection allowed us to see where we
stood and what we need to work on still” (ID2; Supplementary Material
5C)] – are the goals that the activity was designed to meet. One
student commented that Team Training Session 3 (reflection activity)
“came too early for our group” (ID7) – however the tasks described
actually refer to the fourth session (discussing contributions). This
confusion possibly came about because they were reminded during the
third session that they would be discussing contributions in the final
session.
A few students also commented on sessions they felt were less useful –
in particular negotiation (Team Training Session 2): “The negotiation
session I found to have its heart in the right place but didn’t feel
very effective. I think it was because we didn’t always believe the
arguments we were putting forward” (ID10), “our team worked well
together so didn’t need negotiation session or reflection” (ID11). In
future additional tasks (for example getting the students to think about
something they may have disagreed on in the assessment and discuss how
they came to a solution) may help widen the benefit of that session in
particular. However, a third of the respondents still felt the session
was useful (Figure 6A).
For comparison to our previous research (Rasmussen et al., 2011) we used
the same codes for open responses to what they would do differently in
their next team experience (Supplementary Material 5D). All the
responses fell within these categories with 8 references to behaviours
around group organisation such as “Add each other on social media”
(ID4), “Always set small goals and keep the team updated” (ID6),
“Plan more and start earlier on” (ID12). Workload division, ways to
approach tasks and problems; and personality traits were also mentioned
– mostly in the context of the first Team Training Session. For
example: “Discuss early the strengths and weaknesses of the team
members, and the expectations of how the team and the members will
perform both alone and together.” (ID7); “Division of labour earlier
on” (ID8); “be organised from the start about delegating work to team
members (ID11; Supplementary Table 5D). Of particular note was a comment
about personal behaviour which demonstrates a very mature attitude
“Check-up quietly with other group member just to see if they are doing
okay or if they need support with the workload” (ID1). This behaviour
is mentioned in the first and third Team Training Sessions, however the
COVID-19 situation made this a necessary behaviour in several groups and
highlighted how problems can be dissolved before there is friction with
an informal friendly (non-task-related) chat.
When asked about which features of Microsoft Teams the students used the
most, unsurprisingly uploading files was used the most (they also had to
upload the final video in this way). Perhaps more surprising was that
only half the respondents said they used the Posts function (text chats
that everyone can see) a lot or all the time (Figure 6B) and only 3 used
the Microsoft Teams mobile app a lot or all the time (Figure 6B). This
may be because 6 also mentioned they used WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger
(Figure 6C).