Ground Rules in Team Projects: Findings from a Prototype System to Support Students

Whatley, JE

Abstract

Student team project work in higher education is one of the best ways to develop team working
skills at the same time as learning about the subject matter. As today’s students require the freedom
to learn at times and places that better match their lifestyles, there is a need for any support
for team project work to be also available online. Team working requires that the task roles as
well as the maintenance roles are taken into consideration, in that social interactions are just as
important as carrying out the tasks of the project.
The literature indicates that groupware, whilst effective in supporting the task roles, provides limited
support for the maintenance roles of team working in the work place. As groupware was not
specifically designed for student team working, it provides limited support for maintenance roles
in student team projects. Virtual learning environments similarly provide support for completing
the task roles. Many researchers have found that students experience difficulties with their team
project work that reduce the perceived benefits of working in a team. It is proposed that helping
students to agree on ground rules at the start of a project will improve team cohesion.
This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a prototype system to help students to
agree on ground rules as they start their team projects. The system was tested with teams of students
carrying out information systems team projects, using an interpretive case study research
approach. In this case the teams had the additional problem of being composed of students from
across three years of their undergraduate degree programmes, so they did not always have prior
knowledge of each other’s preferences. We were trying to establish how useful this software tool
would be to these student teams, in starting their project work.
The findings showed that some of the student teams did find the ground rules function useful, but
the team leaders were the ones who most appreciated its potential. The students may use the outputs
in very different ways, but even just looking at the ground rules appeared to get team members
thinking about their expectations for team working. Student teams do not often start by
thinking about norms, but this study shows a positive benefit of encouraging teams to agree on
ground rules at the start of their projects.

Citation

Whatley, J. (2009). Ground Rules in Team Projects: Findings from a Prototype System to Support Students. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 8, 161-176

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: Apr 9, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Journal: Journal of IT Education
• Print ISSN: 1547-9714
• Publisher: Informing Science Institute
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 8
• Pages: 161-176
• Keywords: ground rules, student team; project, information systems, case study
• Publisher URL: http://www.jite.org/documents/Vol8/JITEv8p161-176Whatley714.pdf