A new group-formation method for student projects

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2009

Authors

José Borges (Author) FEUP; Teresa Galvão Dias (Author) FEUP; João Falcão e Cunha (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: European Journal of Engineering Education

Vol. 34 No. 6

Pages: 573-585

ISSN: 0304-3797

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Indexing

Scopus - 17 Citations

INSPEC

Scientific classification

FOS: Social sciences > Educational sciences

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-007-S9A

DOI: 10.1080/03043790903202967

Abstract (EN): In BSc/MSc engineering programmes at Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), the need to provide students with teamwork experiences close to a real world environment was identified as an important issue. A new group-formation method that aims to provide an enriching teamwork experience is proposed. Students are asked to answer a questionnaire to evaluate their teamwork profiles and are assigned to groups by an algorithm aiming to achieve maximum diversity within groups and homogeneity among groups. The profile diversity/complementarity within a group is an important factor to promote members' commitment and coordination in order to achieve the proposed goals. The proposed method is compared to a standard self-selection method for three engineering programmes in three academic years. The results show that, with the new method, there are a higher number of medium ranked groups which surpass the expectation and that, contrary to some students' beliefs, the method does not have a negative impact on the overall final marks. © 2009 SEFI.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific