AdvAnCes In engIneerIng eduCATIon - Design and Validation of a Web-Based System for Assigning Members to Teams using Instructor-specified Criteria

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky

A significant body of research identifies team-composition characteristics that influence the success of individuals and teams in cooperative learning and project-based environments. While controlling these factors can improve learning experiences, instructors in large classes struggle to apply many criteria. The paper presents Team-Maker, a web-based tool that surveys desired criteria and uses a max-min heuristic to assign teams, and validates it against experienced faculty using the same criteria. Results show Team-Maker matches criteria more closely and can be used with CATME.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages28

Reading Time1 h 11 min

AccessFree to download

ABSTRACT

INTRoduCTIoN

Undergraduate engineering programs and teamwork

Team assignment methods

MeThodS of ASSIGNING STudeNTS To TeAMS: Who Should foRM TeAMS?

| Ad | vances in Engineering Edu | cation | | --- | --- | --- | | | | | SPRING 2010 Design and Validation of a Web-Based System for Assigning Members to Teams Using Instructor-Specified Criteria RichaRd a. Layton Rose-hulman institute of technology terre haute, indiana Misty L. LoughRy georgia southern university statesboro, georgia Matthew w. ohLand and geoRge d. Ricco Purdue university west Lafayette, indiana ABSTRACT A significant body of research identifies a large number of team composition characteristics that affect the success of individuals and teams in cooperative learning and project-based team environments. Controlling these factors when assigning students to teams should result in improved learning experiences. However, it is very difficult for instructors to consider more than a few criteria when assigning teams, particularly in large classes. As a result, most instructors allow students to self-select teams, randomly assign teams, or, at best, balance teams on a very limited number of criteria. This paper describes the design of Team-Maker, a web-based software tool that surveys students about criteria that instructors want to use when creating teams and uses a max-min heuristic to determine team assignments based on distribution criteria specified by the instructor. The TeamMaker system was validated by comparing the team assignments generated by the Team-Maker software to assignments made by experienced faculty members using the same criteria. This validation experiment showed that Team-Maker consistently met the specified criteria more closely than the faculty members. We suggest that Team-Maker can be used in combination with the Comprehensive Assessment of Team-Member Effectiveness (CATME) peer evaluation instrument to form a powerful faculty support system for team-based and cooperative learning and for a variety of research purposes. Internet access to both the Team-Maker and CATME systems is freely available to college faculty in all disciplines by selecting the “request faculty account” button at [https://www.catme.org](https://www.catme.org). Keywords: team assignment, teamwork, cooperative Learning, algorithm, Validation SPRING 2010 1 AdvAnCes In engIneerIng eduCATIon design and validation of a Web-Based system for Assigning Members to Teams using Instructor-specified Criteria INTRoduCTIoN undergraduate engineering programs were dominated by the paradigm of individual, rather than collective, excellence until the mid-1990’s ( hilborn 1994) . outcomes-based accreditation requirements that engineering programs develop students’ ability to function on multidisciplinary teams, implemented by the accreditation Board of engineering and technology (aBet 2009–10), encouraged the engineering education community to shift this paradigm. as a result, instructional methods in which students learn from one another by working in groups have quickly gained ground in engineering classrooms. note that although some authors use the terms “groups” and “teams”differently (Katzenbach and smith 1993), in this paper, we use them interchangeably. Various pedagogical approaches that use student teams have been shown to be effective for engineering education ( Felder 2000) . these include cooperative learning (Johnson 1998), collaborative learning (Bruffee 1993), and team-based learning (Michaelsen 2002) . team-based learning is treated as synonymous with cooperative learning in the engineering education literature (Felder 1993) . additional approaches, such as problem-based learning (woods 1996) and active learning (wankat 1993) are often used in conjunction with student teams, even though these approaches could be used while having students work individually. Because this emphasis on teaming has occurred relatively recently, there is limited research about what makes teamwork experiences successful in engineering education. there is a substantial body of research about the factors that

FAQs

What problem does the paper address about forming student teams?

It addresses the difficulty instructors face when trying to consider many team-formation criteria, especially in large classes, compared with self-selection, random assignment, or limited balancing.

What is Team-Maker and how does it assign students to teams?

Team-Maker is a web-based tool that surveys students about instructor-specified criteria and applies a max-min heuristic to determine team assignments based on distribution criteria.

How was Team-Maker validated in the study?

The paper validated Team-Maker by comparing its generated team assignments with assignments made by experienced faculty using the same criteria, finding Team-Maker met the specified criteria more closely.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky