Who Are the Good Team Players?

Abstract

Working in teams, especially on multidisciplinary projects, is becoming more and more common in engineering as well as in other work environments. However, despite the importance of “team-work” in engineering design, there is little data on the characteristics of “good” and “poor” team players. This paper presents preliminary results from an ongoing, horizontal study of this issue in two engineering design courses, one at the sophomore level and the other at the senior level. Individual demographic, academic, personality (Myers-Briggs type indicators) and personal data, as well as interest and skill level, were gathered for the entire class. The data for those individuals judged to be above average team players and those judged to be below average team players were then compared. Some of the conclusions reached are listed below: • The women tended to be better team players than the men. • The better team players tended to be older, with more work and hands-on experience and either Caucasian or Hispanic. • The better team players tended to have higher college and high school GPAs and higher SAT Verbal scores but lower SAT Analytical scores. • The better team players tended to have better drawing abilities and, perhaps most important of all, were better self-critics of their own drawing abilities. As a result of these conclusions several specific recommendation are made which may improve the ability of some students to work more effectively in groups. However, these conclusions and recommendations are based on very limited data, and further study is needed.