Development of a Teamwork Skill Scale for Engineering Students

Engineers have to work with many people, each with various level of knowledge, as a team because most work in the engineering field involves complex projects. To teach teamwork skills properly in engineering schools, the teamwork skill levels of students should be assessed. Many professors have measured teamwork skills in their classes, yet they still have questions as to how they can teach and measure teamwork skills. This study aims to identify teamwork skills and their subordinate areas necessary for engineering students as well as to develop the appropriate scales to measure such skills. To achieve such goals, a literature review and survey were conducted. Teamwork skills and their subordinate areas were reviewed. A survey was administered to 343 students of three engineering schools in the Republic of Korea and a factor analysis was conducted. The scale was completed with five factors, each of the common and individual skills. Reliability, collaboration, a sense of responsibility, listening courteously, and adaptability were selected as the common skills; and for the individual skills, the roles of leader, innovative executor, coordinator, terminator, and judge were suggested. The abilities needed for each role were defined as leadership, problem-solving ability, interpersonal relationship ability, communication ability, and decision-making ability. The components of the teamwork skills that were developed in this study can be used to measure teamwork skills and as preliminary data for the development of education programs needed to concretely improve the teamwork skills of students.