Predicting Teamwork Performance in Collaborative Project-Based Learning

Abstract

Pulse of the Profession, published by Project Management Institutes (2017), reported that failed projects always lacked (a) clearly defined objectives to measure progress and (b) poor communication between team members. Minimizing communication costs and maximizing trust levels are essential to improve the efficiency of team performance. This study’s objectives required including how to formulate the problem and design the theoretical framework. The approach used involved a five-step team formation model with related definitions, including initial team forming, depending on group size, team agreement, role assignment, and team performance. The Predicting Teamwork Performance (PTPA) system was developed to help identify the functional roles of each member automatically. Role assignment provided a strong positive effect on team projects, while the role identification mechanism can assign team members responsibilities for some role(s) to enable learning. Self-assessment was used to identify team members’ strengths and weaknesses so that team leaders could easily recognize suitable types of roles for each member. Three primary team performance indicators—”Good”, “Pass” and “Marginal”—were reflected in the teamwork collaboration outcomes. The Predicting Teamwork Performance system reveals information about those outcomes through 1) individual performance indicator; 2) teamwork performance indicator; 3) personal skill sets results; 4) recommended skill sets improvements. The relationship between those indicators and practical roles was examined as analytical information for further project team formation.