Interdependence and Integration Learning in Student Project Teams: Do Team Project Assignments Achieve What We Want Them To?

Building from research on learning in workplace project teams, the authors work forward from the idea that the principal condition enabling integration learning in student team projects is project complexity. Recognizing the challenges of developing and running complex student projects, the authors extend theory to propose that the experience of reciprocal interdependence between team members enhances student integration learning and that reciprocal interdependence can be decoupled from project complexity. At the individual level, reciprocal interdependence is an interpersonal experience that can develop even in noncomplex tasks. Integration learning can therefore occur even in unrealistic, abstract, short-run student team project assignments. This matters because it gives educators additional options for structuring student project team assignments to generate the desired learning outcomes. The authors find support for the proposed theory by comparing data from abstract student projects to data from realistic student projects and real-life product development projects.