4.1 Team training
Positively this study demonstrates that the team training activities designed for an Australian 1st year biology course (Rasmussen et al., 2011) was also effective in a British 3rd year plant science course and allows for comparisons between studies (same team training sessions run by the same lecturer).
Interestingly there was a large difference in student perceptions of teamwork. While only 59% of first year students reported a positive attitude to team-work (Rasmussen et al., 2011), here 84% of our third year students reported positivity towards teamwork (and all had a positive experience in this team assignment). Despite this disparity the reasons for liking teamwork were similar with Learning/academic and shared workload/working as a team as the two most reported benefits in both studies followed by social/personal reasons. Similarly Wilson et al., (2018) found meeting new people (71%), sharing workload (67%), getting to work with friends (56%), Peer teaching experiences (54%) as the most common team-work benefits in science undergraduates (Wilson et al., 2018). However they found less than half their respondents reported positive teamwork experiences and less than 20% believed they achieved a better mark than if they worked individually (Wilson et al., 2018).
Unsurprisingly with their honours dissertations (in addition to other courses) being concluded parallel to this team assignment, our third-year students were less concerned with social or personal benefits of teamwork compared to the first year students (Rasmussen et al., 2011). While unequal workload was the most common detriment of teamwork in both studies, our third year students reported logistics and marks as more concerning than conflict or social issues which were both important to the first year cohort (Rasmussen et al., 2011). These seem to be common across institutions, year groups and science disciplines as scheduling meetings (logistics), unequal workload, relying on others, time management and conflict were also the most common detriments reported in (Wilson et al., 2018).
Including social interactions and an introduction to logistics, as implemented in the first Team Training Session, are important for encouraging the development of team synergies and a shared understanding of the task goals (Panteli et al., 2019). This will be equally important in virtual teams to overcome that sense of ‘working with strangers’ (Panteli et al., 2019). In contrast to our study, plan-making activities were only found to improve engagement early in semester (Kizilcec et al., 2020). One reason for this difference may be because students were not asked to follow up and reflect on their plan implementation and working as individuals (Kizilcec et al., 2020) there was less incentive to stick to a plan. In contrast our students were asked to reflect on their actions in Session 3 (using the same list of behaviours introduced in the first session) and working in teams where they were held accountable for their contribution encourages more consistent engagement.
There were also differences between cohorts in relation to the usefulness of each Team Training Session. In both BIOL1030 (Rasmussen et al., 2011) and Plants and the Soil Environment only a third of the respondents found the second Session (negotiation) useful. Interestingly while only 40% of the first year students found the first session (team forming) useful, 92% of the third years reported that it was useful with reasons such as “helped to establish people’s strengths and weaknesses” and “Great to have time to meet people that you are working with but might not know”. This emphasises that in diverse courses (and in programmes where some students spend a year in industry between second and third year) the students even at third year may not know each other.
While negotiating contribution was considered useful by the most students in the first year course (Rasmussen et al., 2011), it was the second least useful according to the third years. This may reflect that the third year students ‘leant’ on each other more for support as a result of lockdown and reported fewer conflicts (none reported in this class while more than a quarter reported team-conflict-related issues in the first years (Rasmussen et al., 2011)). It is also relevant to note that sharing emotions and feelings can help build camaraderie in a team (Ayoko et al., 2012). The exceptional circumstances created by COVID-19 may have forced our students into a situation where they felt it was acceptable to talk about how they were which may have helped move all the teams into a ‘performing’ state where they worked together to overcome complex problems. Similarly it may be that the training was enough to enable the students to overcome (at least smaller) conflicts before they became a problem using the non-personal mediation-style techniques. Ayoko et al., (2012) reported that teams moving into ‘storming’ tended to resort to personal attacks, which can damage self-confidence. However they noted that the successful teams used feedback-seeking or mediation behaviours (Ayoko et al., 2012) – the type of exercises included in our Team Training Session 2.
Our students also reported that ensuring the sessions were compulsory was important for regular team contact. Other studies have also reported that students appreciate regular allocated class time for teamwork (Wilson et al., 2018) and Gleadow et al., (2015) found that blog engagement increased when marks were also allocated for comments – further evidence that compulsory sessions or components need to be associated with marks to ensure success.
Since the marking criteria were presented as explicit rubrics with different expectations (and learning objectives) to the previous year’s essays it is unhelpful to compare the marks between cohorts. However it is useful to note that the video groups performed better than expected based on the rubric provided and expectations will be raised for the 2020-2021 cohort. Other studies have also found that multimedia activities are often more explicit in their expectations leading to improved learning outcomes (Mercer-Mapstone & Kuchel, 2015). Additionally when those multimedia tasks involve communicating to a non-science audience (as in our task) students also had a better understanding of the content (Mercer-Mapstone & Kuchel, 2015).
As highlighted by Andrew Churches (2008), videos and animation (implemented by several teams) are tasks creating knowledge (top of Blooms (digital) taxonomy). Videos are also good for encouraging team interaction, providing a multimodal educational experience (Visosevic & Myers, 2017). This paper is not focussed on the video as a mode of education but rather uses it as an example of an appropriate team assignment that incorporated explicit team skills and online collaboration training. For more detailed analyses of multimedia assessments see (Kuchel et al., 2014; Visosevic & Myers, 2017).
While COVID-19 was an extreme disruption, our students overcame the challenge, becoming cohesive teams and producing decent end products (videos). They even enjoyed the task and were engaged such that they all (except 2) logged in to watch online together in the last (non-compulsory) session. This raises an interesting (and potentially controversial) question about whether inflicting some controlled disruption may in fact better prepare our graduates for a changing world. By providing them with the tools to succeed they not only had a positive team experience but gained confidence for future challenges.