Work in progress — A feedback system for peer evaluation of engineering student teams to enhance team effectiveness

Developing students teaming skills has become common place in engineering education as a pedagogical tool to facilitate learning of technical content as well as to prepare students for professional practice. Engineering faculty typically determine the degree to which students have had an effective team experience by indirect methods such as homework or project grades along with self report team member peer-evaluations. Such methods tend to place a greater emphasis on the outcome (or product) of teaming rather than on the process of teaming itself. The use of standalone peer-evaluations to indirectly determine team effectiveness has also been shown to be problematic, since students are not typically taught how to properly evaluate their peers. This lack of training generally results in a significant amount evaluation bias. This research presents a theoretical framework to indirectly measure team effectiveness using a calibrated peer evaluation system The system provides students feedback on their rating ability as well as quantifies (as a 1st order approximation) their evaluation bias. The system can be used by faculty for early identification of dysfunctional teams as well as to determine the degree to which students are engaged in effective team behaviors.