Collaborative Research: Faculty and Student Practices that Shape the Regulation of Teamwork, Psychological Safety, and Conflict in First-Year Engineering Teams

About This Grant

This project will address a critical need in engineering education by improving how students learn to collaborate effectively on teams—a skill essential for success in today’s complex, multidisciplinary professional contexts. Employers consistently rank teamwork as one of the most critical skills for engineering graduates; however, many new engineers feel unprepared to navigate interpersonal challenges in real-world projects. Despite widespread adoption of project-based learning (PBL) involving teamwork, instructional methods frequently emphasize evaluating final products rather than guiding the teamwork process itself, leaving students to learn vital teamwork skills through trial and error. Such limited guidance results in common challenges, including unequal participation, unresolved conflicts, and inadequate psychological safety—the belief that team members can safely take interpersonal risks without fear of negative consequences. These issues are particularly pronounced for first-year students, who often enter college with limited teamwork experience and find themselves poorly equipped to manage conflicts effectively. By investigating how students and faculty collaboratively shape psychological safety, manage conflicts, and adapt teamwork behaviors, this research aims to provide critical insights into fostering healthier, more productive team environments. The findings will directly support faculty in implementing effective instructional strategies, better preparing engineering graduates for collaborative workplaces. This work aligns closely with the National Science Foundation’s Research in the Formation of Engineers (RFE) program, advancing innovative teaching practices and developing essential professional competencies for engineers. This project will utilize a multiple-case study design involving two distinct first-year engineering courses, one each at Virginia Tech and Rochester Institute of Technology. The research will address three primary questions: (1) How do students foster psychological safety, manage conflict, and regulate team performance in first-year engineering teams? (2) How do students' perceptions of psychological safety influence their conflict management strategies and teamwork regulation? (3) How do faculty instructional and assessment practices influence students' teamwork behaviors, psychological safety, and conflict management? Employing an adapted version of Rousseau et al.’s (2006) integrative framework of teamwork behaviors, the project will collect comprehensive data in the form of student interviews, focus groups, team communication artifacts, and instructional materials. Analysis will involve inductive thematic methods and deductive framework application to identify the connections between faculty practices and student teamwork behaviors. The intellectual merit of this research lies in advancing the understanding of teamwork processes and faculty roles in supporting the adaptation of teamwork. Specifically, it contributes new knowledge on the intersection of instructional practices and student teamwork regulation, with a particular emphasis on psychological safety—an area that has been extensively studied in organizational behavior but remains under-explored in engineering education contexts. Broader impacts include enhancing engineering instructional practices, specifically improving faculty readiness to teach and manage teamwork. Beyond publications, the findings of this work will also be disseminated through workshops, which will equip faculty with actionable strategies for supporting student teamwork across engineering curricula, from introductory courses to capstone projects, ultimately contributing to more supportive and professionally effective teamwork environments. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.