Evaluating Individuals in Team Projects

Dawn Wilkins & Pam Lawhead

Computer & Information Science

The University of Mississippi

992ofe06 비서교육 전공 5 학기 이 은정 Dec. 5, 2001

** This material was prepared by Dawn Wilkins & Pam Lawhead

Outline

• Motivation for Team Projects

• Data Sources

• Evaluation Terms

• Survey Techniques

• Conclusions

Motivation for Team Projects

• Can do more complex projects

• Improve students’ communication skills

• Increased retention

• Teamwork skills important to industry

Assumptions

• Not concerned with team management issues or the team process itself

• Belief that at least some portion of each student’s grade is based on his or her contribution to the project

Challenges in Evaluating Individuals

• Must gather helpful, valid and comprehensive data

• Must ensure that a student cannot sabotage the grade of another student based on dislike rather than the student’s work on the project

Data Sources

• Team deliverables– Minutes from team meetings– Written reports and oral presentations– Transcripts of e-mail and group listservs

• Feedback from team members

• Sponsor feedback, if applicable

Collecting Information• Formative and/or summative• Gather via hardcopy, e-mail, web-based, or

face-to-face• Team members evaluate:

– self, individuals, whole team, sponsor

• Whole team evaluates:– self, sponsor

• Sponsor evaluates:– team, individuals

Evaluation TermsPersonal Characteristics

Honest

Responsible

Resilient

Enthusiastic

Displays common sense

Exhibits self discipline

Open-minded

Tolerant of ambiguity

Trustworthy

Diligent

Willing to take risks

Driven to achieve

Effective writer

Tolerance for uncertainty

Willing to learn

Self confident

Decisive

Sense of humor

Curious

Patient

Evaluation TermsPeople/Team competencies

Negotiating skills

Willingness to cooperate

Handles conflict well

Does fair share

Respects others

Communicates effectively

Communicates openly

Communicates honestly

Motivates others

Mentors others

Leadership skills

Team player

Empathetic

Offers constructive criticism

Good listening skills

Participates fully

Has vision

Accepts criticism

Availability

Candid

Evaluation TermsProblem solving skills/attributes

Technically competent

Breadth of perspective

Focuses on key issues

Insight

Original

Analytical

Decision maker

Action oriented

Effective planner

Problem solving experience

Effective organizer

Stays on task

Creative

Adept researcher

Focuses on improving product

Intellectual

Aggressive

Attention to detail

Survey Techniques

• Scales

• Ranking

• Matching

• Sentence completion, Fill-in, Listing

• Short Answer

• Journal writing and Essay

Scales• Likert-style scales are easy to use, simple

and fast, but inflexible• Can select categories from previous tables• Possible scales (definitions helpful):

– Excellent, Very Good, Acceptable, Low, Poor– Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly

Disagree

Ranking• Simple and effective• Helpful when evaluator is hesitant to use

words with negative connotation (uncooperative, irresponsible)

• Examples– Divide up $1000 among team members– Which two members of your team were best at

making decisions? Best writers? Who would you go to for technical advice?

Matching• Good when evaluators are not creative at

expressing ideas, or when evaluation time is short

• Examples– Using Evaluation Terms provided, indicate 3

strengths and 3 weaknesses for each team member

– Match teammates to job titles (Director, Doer, Watcher, Judge, Mediator, etc …)

Sentence completion &Fill-in & Listing

• Requires more effort on the part of the evaluator than previous

• Doesn’t “put words in mouth” of evaluator

• Examples– The three most important contributions of

<teammember> are ___, ___ and ___.– The strengths of <teammember> are: ____

Short Answer• Open-ended and flexible, but requires

some thought from evaluator

• Examples:– The five best things this team did were ...– The greatest obstacle overcome by this group

was ...– In the future, who in your group would you like

to work with again? Why? Who would you NOT like to work with again? Why?

Journal writing & Essays

• Journal writing allows students to showcase successes and think through problems

• Helps students recall process for evaluation (possibly a postmortem team evaluation)

• Most importantly, gives them practice writing

Conclusions

• Team experiences are important

• Evaluation is HARD!

• Visit our website:

http://www.cs.olemiss.edu/teameval