Preparing Career-ready Students by Building Effective Virtual Teamwork Skills

As the food industry becomes globally connected, it is essential to provide Food Science students with experience working in virtual teams before they enter the workforce. Working in teams virtually brings extra challenge due to a lack of face-to-face interactions. FSHN 230, Professional Issues in Food Science (asynchronously online), provided students the opportunity to practice virtual teamwork skills. Low, medium, and high dosage team projects allowed for experiential learning and practice in virtual teamwork. Team effectiveness (psychological safety, dependability, structure and clarity, meaning, and impact) was closely monitored using team members’ evaluations of the team at the middle and end of the semester. Students' perceptions of learning were assessed using a survey at the end of the instructional period. Across all teams, students were most likely to report experiencing psychological safety and dependability in their virtual teams and least likely to report experiencing the work as meaningful. Across all teams, students were most likely to perceive the virtual team project as assisting with learning about food science-related careers. As higher education continues to create real-world simulations to teach skills, such as virtual teamwork, more effort may be needed to help students connect classroom activities and career-ready skills to real-world expectations.