Students’ Needs for Multidisciplinary Student Teamwork Teaching and Learning in Interdisciplinary Higher Education: Relational Competences and Educational Design Needs

Abstract

Teamwork competence is an essential competence in today’s world, in which multidisciplinary teams address the most pressing complex socio-environmental issues of our time. Higher education institutes must offer explicit teaching in teamwork competence in multidisciplinary student teams (MSTs). The student perspective on learning MST teamwork competence is under-researched. The aim of this study is to provide insights into students’ learning needs and educational design needs, using data from focus groups. Students identify six clear MST teamwork competences that they want to learn: (a) self-knowledge and self-confidence, (b) understanding and bridging differences between people, (c) creating a positive attitude, motivation, and shared responsibility, (d) taking on different roles with associated competences, (e) discussing main teamwork aspects at the start, and (f) addressing and solving problems within the team. Students state that explicit teamwork teaching is needed and that they need time to learn, practice, and reflect on MST teamwork competences, and to build interpersonal relationships within the team.

Keywords

multidisciplinary student teams teamwork competences relationality students’ learning needs students’ educational needs

Introduction

Teamwork competence is no longer just a desirable competence, but it is an essential competence in today’s world (Riebe et al., 2016). Teamwork is needed to address the most pressing socio-environmental issues of our time, often in multidisciplinary teams of researchers or professionals (Lattuca et al., 2017). Higher education must train students in building teamwork competence for multidisciplinary student teams (MSTs) that work on multi- or interdisciplinary tasks (Fiore et al., 2019; Hughes & Jones, 2011). Currently much teamwork teaching and learning is based on mere exposure, while MST teamwork competence can only be deliberately developed (Hansen, 2006; Hughes & Jones, 2011; Lingard & Barkataki, 2011; Oosthuizen et al., 2021). In order to transcend exposure by design, theoretical knowledge about teamwork competences is needed, as well as practical knowledge from both teachers’ and students’ perspectives about what ‘works’. Such a combination ensures that teamwork teaching and learning is both research-informed and in line with educators’ experience and students’ needs.

Students’ learning needs (the competences they want to learn) and educational design needs (how they want teaching and learning of those competences to be designed) for MST teamwork competence are under-researched, but understanding them is useful for designing appropriate learning activities (Biggs, 1999). As Noddings (2005) notes, educational design often builds on inferred needs (formulated by educators), but the expressed needs by the learners can help improve teaching and enhance students’ learning and engagement. Teaching and learning are more effective when they relate to learners’ realities and needs, as learners will mainly learn from problems that are relevant and real to them (Dewey, 1997). Therefore, we formulate the following research question: What are students’ learning needs and educational design needs for MST teamwork teaching and learning? To understand students’ needs we conducted focus groups with students from different years of an interdisciplinary bachelor program that exposes students to teamwork.

Multidisciplinary Student Teams

Student teamwork is challenging. Students report frustration with free-riding, social loafing, and unequal task and workload division, especially when team grades may not reflect individual efforts (Hall & Buzwell, 2013; McClelland, 2012; Pfaff & Huddleston, 2003; Ramdeo et al., 2022). The teacher assessing student teamwork is often unable to have full insight into intrateam dynamics, and therefore bases the assessment on the product of the teamwork, instead of the quality of the teamwork processes (Hall & Buzwell, 2013; Lingard & Barkataki, 2011). As Balasooriya et al. (2013) point out, students indicate that learning at a university tends to be an individual matter and task/product focused, which can hinder collaborative activities and may cause students to divide tasks, and work individually as much as possible. Students also often do not have time for team development and interpersonal relationship building, as they only function as a team for a short period of time (Bacon et al., 1999; Hansen, 2006; Pfaff & Huddleston, 2003). Many students have had bad experiences in student teams, which influences their attitudes for future teamwork (Balasooriya et al., 2013; Hall & Buzwell, 2013; Pfaff & Huddleston, 2003).

Teamwork in multidisciplinary teams is characterized by high task complexity, task uncertainty, task and outcome interdependence, and disciplinary diversity (Fiore, 2008; Jehn et al., 1999; Leahey et al., 2017; McClelland, 2012; Repko & Szostak, 2021; Van Woerden, 2023), which can lead to innovative and effective teamwork output, but also to misunderstanding, frustration, conflict, and disintegration (Leahey et al., 2017). These teams often struggle to reach mutual understanding, shared mental models, and to understand and evaluate each other’s disciplinary work (MacLeod, 2018; Miller & Mansilla, 2004). In this paper we look at multidisciplinary student teams (students with different majors) that work on a multidisciplinary task (first year course) or an interdisciplinary task (second- and third-year courses).

Students’ Learning Needs

MST teamwork consists of many interacting aspects and emerging properties, so the dynamics in a certain team are very hard to predict (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006; Van Woerden, 2023). Students need to learn how to manage the dynamic, contextual, and emergent complexity of MST teamwork (Fiore et al., 2019).

Teamwork competence is almost always named as a sub-competence of multi- or interdisciplinary competences, but it is often unclear how this teamwork competence differs across different type of teams, and what sub-competences of teamwork competence itself may be distinguished (e.g., Spelt et al., 2009). References to ‘teamwork competence’ suggests that there is consensus on the meaning and interpretation in the literature, but teamwork competence frameworks show considerable variability (Isus et al., 2015; Rousseau et al., 2006), and are often conceptualized for work teams, not for MSTs.

As an exception, the National Research Council (2015) provides a more in-depth account of teamwork competence in multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary contexts. In the framework of interdisciplinary competences, they distinguish 21 sub-competences in four categories: ‘values, attitudes, and belief-based’ competences (such as ‘collaborative orientation’), ‘knowledge-based’ competences (such as ‘processes of integration’), ‘interpersonal/skill-based’ competences (such as ‘teamwork and taskwork’), and ‘intrapersonal’ competences (such as ‘intellect and self-awareness’). Nurius and Kemp (2019) expand this framework by adding: understanding others, being understood by others, managing differences, and social and relational skills (all interpersonal competences). However, these competences are formulated for researchers and not for students, and the exact definitions and demarcations of the indicated competences are unclear.

Whereas theoretical unclarity persists, educators do report research on MST teamwork in their educational practices. However, many of these educators formulate unclear or very general intended learning outcomes for MST teamwork (such as ‘teamwork competence’ or ‘collaboration skills’; e.g., Johnsen et al., 2023; e.g., Mayowski et al., 2019). Some specify (sub-)competences, such as: ‘to communicate relevant discipline-specific issues to partners and cooperate effectively with colleagues within and outside students’ own discipline on a project’ (Goodman & Dekhtyar, 2014); ‘to value the contributions of multiple fields’ (Paretti et al., 2010); ‘to improve students’ communication skills’ (Fakayode et al., 2017); and ‘to gain feedback skills’ (Casson et al., 2018). However, the competence frameworks in these studies were developed in a local context and show limited overlap.

Little research is available on students’ own learning needs, and on what MST teamwork competences they want to learn. The needs of students are merely inferred (Noddings, 2005), instead of taken directly from the students.

Students’ Educational Design Needs

Literature on students’ educational design needs for MST teamwork is scarce. The existing literature on students’ needs in monodisciplinary educational contexts indicate that there is a need for instructor guidance, as just experiencing teamwork is not enough to learn teamwork competence and managing team dynamics (Hansen, 2006; Lingard & Barkataki, 2011; Oosthuizen et al., 2021). As Hansen (2006) states that ‘group assignments are often made with little or no preparation to help the students function in the groups or teams’ (p. 12). Hughes and Jones (2011) add that ‘teamwork skills are not likely to emerge spontaneously; they must be intentionally developed’ (pp. 60–61).

Students’ specific needs with regards to teacher guidance include clear instructions, approachable teachers, more consultation hours in which both project progress and team dynamics can be discussed, engagement with the team and support in holding members accountable, conflict resolution, problem-solving, project planning, facilitation of feedback and reflection on teamwork competence, teamwork competence relevance clarification, teaching of teamwork competence, providing examples of good teamwork behavior, guidance consistency, and teachers that are competent at teamwork guidance (Balasooriya et al., 2013; Fowler et al., 2019; Hansen, 2006; Oosthuizen et al., 2021; Ramdeo et al., 2022; Taylor & Foulds, 2018).

Students’ specific needs with regard to course design include clear methods to deal with slackers or free-riders, fair team grading by a teacher who has paid attention to the team process and dynamics, teacher’s time dedicated to student teamwork guidance, real life experiences to support the experiential learning of teamwork, assigning clear tasks and roles with a reasonable and equitable workload, checkpoints for progress monitoring, and peer mentoring (Aivaloglou & Van der Meulen, 2021; Balasooriya et al., 2013; Fowler et al., 2019; Hansen, 2006; Oakley et al., 2007; Oosthuizen et al., 2021; Ramdeo et al., 2022).

Students’ needs for team formation and team composition are somewhat contradictory. Students see benefits of both self-selected teams (knowing each other’s strengths and work progress, similar motivation, commitment and skill level, easier communication, and pre-existing social connections and expectations) on the one hand, and teacher-formed teams (no burden of the team formation process, opportunities to learn how to collaborate with different people) on the other hand (Aivaloglou & Van der Meulen, 2021). Students highlight the need for the same skills level, motivation, and commitment of all team members to avoid the risk of free-riding or drop-outs (Aivaloglou & Van der Meulen, 2021). Some students see multidisciplinarity as a learning opportunity (Gillespie et al., 2019), while others view it as a barrier for successful teamwork due to communication issues (Sharma et al., 2017). We are left with the question what students’ explicit needs are with regard to working in MSTs. It is to this question that we now turn.

Method

Study Context

This research is conducted in the context of an interdisciplinary bachelor program with a Liberal Arts and Sciences philosophy at a Dutch university, which teaches students multi- and interdisciplinary research in four core courses. Students create the rest of their educational program themselves by choosing a major (humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences), and bounded and free electives. All four core courses are taught in Dutch and have an element of teamwork and especially in the second- and third-year courses students work together intensively in MSTs on an interdisciplinary research task. The core courses must be taken in a prescribed sequence, but not necessarily in a specific year of the study. The teams in these courses are multidisciplinary in the sense that each member has chosen a different disciplinary major ranging from philosophy to physics.

Design

Four focus groups were conducted, each of about an hour long. One focus group was held with first-year students, who were enrolled in their second core course (F2 – First-year, 2nd course; three participants) which focuses on understanding the disciplines from a multidisciplinary perspective. The second focus group was comprised of second-year students in the third core course (S3; six participants), a course which focusses on the interdisciplinary research process as set out by Repko and Szostak (2021). The third focus group consisted of third-year students who were also in the third core course (T3; four participants). The final focus group was with students from the third year and above who were enrolled in the fourth core course, the interdisciplinary thesis course (T4; six participants). The researchers explained the research in class and asked students to participate by signing up. The study protocol was approved by the Faculty Ethics Assessment Committee of the Faculty of Humanities of Utrecht University, with reference number: 23-138-03. All participants received an information letter prior to the focus group. The students were reimbursed with a ten-euro voucher. In T3 and T4, some of the students were part of the same MST in their course (two in T3 and three in T4). Of the 19 participants, 14 were female and five were male.

Data Collection and Data Analysis

The focus groups were led by the first author based on a topic list and question guide. An audio recording was made of each session. The three main questions were ‘What teamwork competences would you like to learn in your program? Consider knowledge, skills, attitudes, beliefs, and values’; ‘How could education be designed so that you can learn the aforementioned competences?’, and ‘Overall, how important is teamwork education to you?’. For each of these questions, follow-up questions were asked, usually after spending at least 10 to 15 minutes on the main question. For the competences, follow-up questions were asked about what competences were most important to the students, and what competences they thought they possessed the least. For educational design, follow-up questions addressed different aspects of educational design such as course design, teaching activities, assignments, teacher guidance, and assessment. Students were explicitly instructed to voice dissent if another student said something they disagreed with. If that were the case, then these results are presented as ‘discussion’ in the results session.

The focus groups were transcribed verbatim, open/initial coded, and then focused coded into categories (Saldaña, 2021). For teamwork competences, the first round of coding resulted in 97 codes, which were placed in seven overarching categories in the second round of coding. For educational design, the first round of coding resulted in 208 codes, which can be divided into codes focusing on design (127 codes), on how current teamwork and teamwork teaching and learning functions (70 codes), and the importance of teamwork teaching and learning (11 codes). The second round of coding was template coding into categories of educational design based on a review of the literature: importance of teamwork teaching and learning, educational design principles for learning trajectories and course design, assignments and assessment, and teacher guidance. The codes on how current teamwork and teamwork teaching and learning function were linked to the educational design codes, as they were often voiced by the students to provide context on why they thought a certain educational design would or would not work. In each category, the codes from F2, S3, T3, and T4 were placed side by side in a matrix to find similarities and differences between focus groups and study year. In reporting the results we have opted for a summary of the insights from all focus groups to give room to the quantity of insights we gained from the focus groups. However, we will start with a longer quote from S3 to give insight into the richness of the student discussion. Quotes from the focus groups which are used in this paper were translated by the first author.

Results

Students identify six teamwork competences that students want to learn: (a) self-knowledge and self-confidence, (b) understanding differences between people and bridging them by building interpersonal relationships, (c) creating a positive attitude, motivation, and shared responsibility, (d) taking on different roles and learning associated competences, (e) discussing main teamwork aspects at the start, and (f) addressing and solving problems within the team.

Students’ input on how MST teamwork teaching and learning should be designed can be divided into comments about (a) educational design principles for learning trajectories and course design, (b) teaching activities, (c) assignments and assessment, and (d) teacher guidance. To further elaborate on this themes, we will first present and analyze a longer quote from one of the focus groups (S3) and thereafter summarize the insights from all focus groups.

Example of a Student Discussion on Learning Needs and Educational Design Needs

In the S3 focus group students immediately started a rich discussion, which encompass many of the learning needs and educational design needs themes in our overall analysis of all focus groups:

Student 1:

I would benefit from understanding the people I work with more (. . .). Because when I collaborate I am looking for a personal connection, which makes us want to work for each other.

(. . .)

Student 2:

Maybe you also mean that everyone has a different attitude and perspective and you can pigeonhole that nicely, but maybe you can learn from there, like what type of persons are there and that you can understand the other better. Like, oh, that person means this or handles this in a certain way.

(. . .)

Student 3:

We now have a certain course and there we had to fill out a form about how we want to collaborate together, but what I found quite nice and remarkable was that we had to voice our expectations and what grade we wanted to aim for. And I thought in retrospect that was quite chill, because then you can think, okay, these are the people I will work with, these are the expectations and these are their strengths and weaknesses. Now that I am thinking of it, in other courses I am just thrown into it, like ‘this is your group, and start working on the first assignment’.

(. . .)

Student 2:

I think that when you can compose your own team that you can reflect on who am I, what can I bring, what are my strengths and weaknesses, and which types of people will complement me. (. . .) I think you would learn the most from that, because you would learn from others that are different from you.

Student 4:

I think teamwork should be fun. That you know what is going on in each other’s lives and that you know, oh you have a game coming up so you can do less, but you can work harder another time.

Student 1:

I think that is what I meant with the personal connection, that you know who you will collaborate with, and that you have more patience for these kind of things.

(. . .)

Student 2:

It is quite hard to build a connection in 8 weeks I think, but you could do certain assignments and ask certain questions to get to know each other.

Student 1:

Yes, and that you would feel more responsibility for the project.

(. . .)

Student 5:

But I find it very difficult in my courses, there are many deadlines in a short period, but if I wanted to learn something else in teamwork or would want to take on a different role, then you would need time for that, because if you do not have time to be patient with each other. . . I don’t know, I would find it difficult to take on a completely different role or something that you find difficult, while I think that is necessary if I want to practice.

In this example students make connections between the different learning needs and educational design needs, and they build on each other’s ideas. For example when Student 2 comments that self-knowledge and reflection on your own competences can help team formation, because students could then find students that complement them and learn from them. Student 4 then connects learning from others with understanding them, and Student 1 adds that this requires a personal connection or relationship. Student 2 then states that there needs to be more time and attention for that relationship building. Student 1 links that to creating (shared) responsibility and Student 5 connects it with the need for more time to work with different people, to learn other people’s roles and to learn teamwork competence. Students move back and forth between learning needs and educational design needs, which was a trend in all analyzed focus groups. The central themes from this and the other focus groups will be summarized in the following sections.

Students’ Learning Needs: Teamwork Competences

Self-Knowledge and Self-Confidence

Students (in F2, S3, and T3) connect teamwork competence to self-knowledge: they want to gain insight into their competences, their strengths and weaknesses, their personalities, their working style, who they are in general, who they are in a team context, and most of all, what they can contribute to the team. Students want to gain confidence in their abilities and to communicate these to others, involving both strengths and weaknesses (F2, S3, T3, T4). They feel they often take a back-bench role or agree on doing the ‘simple’ tasks in teamwork when they feel less competent than others (S3, T3).

Understanding Differences Between People and Bridging Them by Building Interpersonal Relationships

In focus group F2, S3, and T4 students indicated they want to learn how to deal with differences between people, such as differences in personality, working style, ambition, motivation, opinions, and disciplinary expertise. To do so, many students wish to learn how to understand other people (S3, T3), to gain experience with working with different people (F2, T4), learning to accept that people have different personalities, attitudes, and working styles, being open to their (unexpected) contributions (F2, T3, T4), and building bridges between different people and disciplines (S3, T4). These differences often lead to frustration in the team and students find it challenging to deal with them (S3, T3, T4). To be able to bridge differences, students wish to have more interpersonal relationship building competence. Students want to get to know one another and really work as a team: help each other and give backup when needed (F2, S3, T3, T4).

Creating a Positive Attitude, Motivation and Shared Responsibility

Students in focus group F2 and S3 emphasized that they want to learn how to change a team member’s negative attitude toward teamwork into a positive one. Students often prefer to work alone, strengthened by frustrating experiences in the past with for example free-riding or lack of leadership, and by the university’s emphasis on individual performance (F2, S3, T3). Students want to be able to fuel each other’s intrinsic motivation (F2, T3, T4). Some students in S3 indicated that they often do not yet feel competent in their discipline, nor in completing a complex interdisciplinary task in a team. They want to learn how to feel competent, to take responsibility, and to be pro-active (S3, T3). The students in focus group S3, T3, and T4 also mentioned they wish to be able to create a shared responsibility without a power difference, while at the same time being able to hold others accountable.

Taking on Different Roles and Learning Associated Competences

Across focus group F2, S3, and T3, many students indicated that they wish to be able to take on different roles and working styles and learn the associated competences (teamwork and taskwork). Students want to learn to take on roles that do not come natural to them, as a way to learn new competences and to understand the roles of others better (F2, T3), but most of the time they do not feel the space to challenge themselves while also working on a complex task (F2, S3, T3).

Discussing Main Teamwork Aspects at the Start

Students want to learn how to discuss and agree upon important aspects of teamwork such as expectations, ambition level, team member’s commitment, team member’s competences, strengths and weaknesses, project planning, and the project approach at the start (F2, S3, T3, T4). It serves the purpose of getting to know each other better, what others can bring to the project, and being prepared for individual members’ struggles in finishing their part of the work (S3, T3, T4). Students find it difficult to start such a conversation by themselves, as they experience social barriers to ‘being professional’ (T4). Because they do not know each other, they do not know how the others will react to such a proposal. Students worry about their first impression and do not want to come across as overzealous or pushy. They also often feel uncomfortable with sharing personal information about their strengths and weaknesses with relative strangers (S3, T3, T4).

Addressing and Solving Problems Within the Team

In all focus groups, students said they want to learn how to address and solve problems within their own team: what to do when things do not go smoothly in the teamwork process, how to deal with setbacks collectively, and how to make issues or sub-optimal behavior discussable while at the same time keeping good interpersonal relationships (F2, S3, T3, T4). Students also want to learn how to solve problems on their own within the team, without external help (F2, T3, T4). Students say that open, honest, and transparent communication about progress, problems, personal needs, individual (lack of) competence, and (personal) setbacks is key (F2, S3, T3, T4) and builds trust and a forgiving and helping attitude toward each other (F2, T4). Yet, students struggle to be open and honest with others they hardly know, find it difficult to address problems in the team for fear of social (conflict, being disliked), personal (loss of energy, high frustration), or academic consequences (disintegration of the team and/or lower grade; F2, T3, T4). This often results in frustrations and discussing problems too late, usually when things have already escalated (T3, T4).

Students’ Educational Design Needs: Teamwork Teaching and Learning

Educational Design Principles for Learning Trajectories and Course Design

In all focus groups students mentioned that they need explicit teaching on teamwork. Students want clear teamwork teaching and learning, with a clear rationale and goal. Usually courses focus on the (interdisciplinary) task, and there is no time to learn teamwork competence. Because students are overwhelmed by the complexity of both task and teamwork, or incorrectly think their teamwork competence is already well developed, they often choose not to focus on learning any new teamwork competences (F2, S3, T3, T4). Combining a complex task with complex teamwork is too demanding for the students, and they ask to learn teamwork competence beforehand (S3, T3, T4).

Teamwork cannot be learned by just knowing teamwork theory or following mechanical guidelines (F2, S3, T3, T4), but it has to take the form of applying acquired knowledge to one’s own teamwork, practicing with difficult situations, and reflecting on oneself. Teamwork teaching and learning should be mandatory, otherwise students will not participate (F2, T3). Students feel that to have time to get to know each other and to build interpersonal relationships in class would increase team spirit, shared responsibility, sharing setbacks, understanding of each other, overcoming differences, and problem-solving capacity of the team (F2, S3, T3, T4).

More ownership of their teamwork process is desired by students, as well as the opportunity to design their own project plans and standards of how to deal with internal interpersonal issues (S3). Clarity (of the task, of roles) plays a huge role in students feeling competent and motivated (S3, T3). They think it works well to give roles to every team member, but without too strict demarcations (F2, T3, T4).

Finally, team formation and team composition are very important to students, but they seem to be in two minds: a performance-driven one that wants to form teams with people that have the same ambitions, people they already know and that are easy to work with, and a mastery-driven mind that wants to form teams in which learning is optimized (cf. Nicholls, 1984). In the former, the focus lies on the ‘right’ team composition and eliminating non-functioning members (S3, T4). In the latter, students want teams with people they can learn from, either because they have different competences, or because they want to learn how to bridge differences (F2, S3, T4).

Assignments and Assessment

Students think certain types of assignments would be helpful to improve their teamwork. First of all, students in all focus groups value an honest team conversation about team members’ motivation, ambition, expectations, competences (strengths and weaknesses), opinions, teamwork preferences, working style, reaction to certain situations, and the team goals and project approach (F2, S3, T3, T4). However, some students (F2 and T3) feel social barriers to start such a conversation, so perhaps making it mandatory would help. In addition, students like assignments in which they learn about themselves and about those who differ, for example in personality, teamwork style, or working style (S3, T3, T4).

Second, students consider a reflection (both individually and in the team) at the end as the best way to assess their joint teamwork and the improvement of their individual teamwork competence (F2, S3, T3, T4). While social barriers to individual reflection are less compared to team reflection, team reflection can help students check their individual learning progress with the perception of others, and it gives them an opportunity for reflection on team functioning (S3, T3, T4). Also, team reflection is a good way to give the teacher more insight into team functioning, if the teacher joins the conversation (F2, T3, T4).

Students did not agree on whether they want this reflection to be graded. On the one hand, students feel that assessment is often too results-oriented and stands in the way of teamwork competence learning (F2, S3, T4). They like some sort of process-assessment that awards learning teamwork competences and problem-solving or helping behavior in the team (S3, T4). On the other hand, students do not like the idea that honest team reflection might lead to reduced grades (either of the team as a whole or of individuals) or in reduced honesty about problems or setbacks in the team.

Teacher Guidance

Overall, students see a relatively limited role for the teacher. Unprompted they made little to no remarks on the role of the teacher. When prompted, students said they like a teacher that is open and approachable, checks-in with teams, explains the task clearly, and takes away the shame of communicating about problematic teamwork processes (F2, S3, T3, T4). The teacher can explain that addressing problems is part of good teamwork, give insights into how to deal with difficulties, help students in taking leadership roles, and give team-specific guidance in making decisions on how to proceed or in how to reflect on teamwork processes (F2, T3, T4).

Conclusion and Discussion

To answer the research question ‘What are students’ learning needs and educational design needs for MST teamwork teaching and learning?’ we conducted a qualitative study using four focus groups.

Students emphasized that explicit teamwork teaching and learning is needed (Hansen, 2006; Hughes and Jones, 2011; Lingard & Barkataki, 2011; Oosthuizen et al., 2021). Many need time to learn teamwork competences before completing a complex team task. Students want to learn new teamwork competences and different teamwork roles, but they often choose not to enter into teams, roles, or tasks that could teach them these competences. Students would like to learn how to work with different people, but when the product is graded, when they feel pressured to finish the task, or the stakes are high, they rather choose to work with people that are similar (in level of competence, ambitions, and working styles). These findings are in line with Aivaloglou and Van der Meulen (2021). As Ramdeo et al. (2022) note, much of students’ perceptions of negative aspects of teamwork have to do with difference, such as difference in grade expectations, in ways of thinking, and opinion. Students end up favoring individual work, or dividing teamwork according to everyone’s strengths, in a team that puts them at as little risk at failure as possible. Basically, they avoid teamwork competence learning because of the costs (time, lower grade, social awkwardness). However, if educational design would provide room for teamwork learning, students in our study state they are eager to engage in it.

Students identify six competences they want to learn and most of these competences are relational. Many students want to overcome various differences, including but definitely not limited to disciplinary differences. Students want to learn how to influence behavior, discuss teamwork, and address team problems through interpersonal relationship building. Free-riding, lack of shared responsibility, and inequity of contributions are problematic issues in student teams (Ramdeo et al., 2022), but many students feel they can overcome them through relational competences. Their emphasis on relational competences may be tied to the dynamic and emergent properties of teamwork, which make it hard to predict what issues will emerge during teamwork; solving them will depend on the team members and their interrelations (Fiore et al., 2019; Van Woerden, 2023). Other researchers have indicated that students want to learn how to deal with conflict and ‘difficult’ team members (e.g., Balasooriya et al., 2013).

In educational design, students want to learn applied knowledge (e.g., best practices) about teamwork that they can immediately use in their own teamwork (cf. Balasooriya et al., 2013). They want to practice difficult teamwork situations before they happen in a real team through role-play or simulations. This is on par with the recommendation by Balasooriya et al. (2013) to integrate mock multi-disciplinary team meetings in teamwork teaching and learning. In line with Miller (1990), students need such teaching and learning to focus on the three upper levels of competence building, they want to ‘know how’ to apply teamwork knowledge, they want to ‘show how’ to apply this knowledge in a simulation, or role-play, and only thereafter they want to ‘do’ teamwork in real settings. In most courses, (MST) teamwork is assumed to lead to a better (more innovative, creative, efficient) product, but when students do not yet have the necessary teamwork competences, many of these potential advantages are lost.

Students ask for more emphasis on interpersonal relationship building, as it can help to understand and bridge differences between team members, and aid in addressing and solving team problems. They value an assignment at the beginning of the course in which they get to know each other and make decisions for the project approach, which goes beyond a mere operating agreement (cf. Fowler et al., 2019). Students value that all the cards are on the table, and that there will be no or very limited surprises along the way. If differences between team members are not discussed at the start, frustration and stress may result.

Toward the end of the course students would like to reflect on their teamwork, so that they can actually learn from their experience (cf. Fowler et al., 2019), both individually and as a team. It is vital that the teacher places emphasis on the importance of both conversations and does not punish sub-optimal teamwork behavior, as that would take away all honesty from the conversation. Reflection came up as the most suitable assessment method, indicating that students see teamwork competence building as not aimed at performance but at mastery (Nicholls, 1984).

Students waver between no assessment of teamwork (but mandatory reflection assignments that ensure teamwork learning), and introducing a teamwork (process) grade next to the product grade. Students experience a dilemma around grading, especially when a student contributed less than others. Telling (2024) argues that the universities’ emphasis on individual responsibility is not in line with the collectivist ideals of teamwork, and that this is confusing for students. Our finding is that the team wants ownership regarding what is the ‘right’ contribution, which can change according to circumstances, and that they need assessments which leave room to try something new and fail. It seems that students see ‘fair’ as something that can be negotiated within the team, as long as they have had the opportunity to have an open start-up conversation and to build interpersonal relationships.

Students view the teacher mostly as an outsider to both the team as well as their teamwork competence learning. However, the teacher has to provide clear instructions, useful tools, an environment in which teamwork learning is valued, and help with addressing problems (cf. Balasooriya et al., 2013). Students ask for teachers that are approachable, engaged with their team, and competent at teamwork guidance (Oosthuizen et al., 2021). Whereas Oakley et al. (2007) found that teacher guidance has a positive effect on students’ teamwork satisfaction, and Oosthuizen et al. (2021) state that students want teaching staff to hold students accountable for problems in the team, our study indicates that students do not want to only rely on outsourcing this to the teacher, but want to learn how to do this themselves.

Overall, in our results students stress relational competences over process and task competences, which shows that students feel that relational competences are important sub-competences for MST teamwork. Their emphasis on understanding and overcoming difference overlaps with the interpersonal competences in the interdisciplinary competence framework by Nurius and Kemp (2019). Students put less emphasis on ‘knowledge-based’ competences such as ‘participating in collective integrative processes’ (Nurius & Kemp, 2019), although they may see those as an extension of or resulting from the ‘understanding and bridging difference’ competence.

Our findings complement existing competence frameworks by adding the needs of students themselves. Students formulate specific competences that can be used by educators to determine concrete intended learning outcomes for MST teamwork. However, we should critically reflect on whether students’ needs are in line with scientific knowledge about MST teamwork and whether the expressed educational design needs are actually feasible in higher education. Students’ needs as indicated above may require a learning trajectory explicitly dedicated to MST teamwork, which can be a challenge in programs that are already cramped and overburdened. On the other hand, if teamwork is used in the curriculum, which is the case in many university curricula today, the students are quite right to say that they need explicit MST teamwork (competence) teaching.

The question also remains whether MST teamwork learning needs and educational design needs are different from other teamwork education contexts. One noticeable difference is that students in our study seem eager to learn how to overcome differences, potentially because they are used to encountering different disciplines and working in different contexts. They also stress the need for time to build interpersonal relationships, probably because they transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries and work with people they do not know. Also, students clearly connect teamwork competence to self-knowledge and confidence. In an MST context, it is even more important what team members can offer, as they often function as representatives of a discipline. Disciplinary self-confidence, self-knowledge, and awareness of one’s potential contribution may be more needed in an MST setting. However, to confirm these preliminary results, comparative research is recommended.

Even though most learning needs and educational design needs were voiced by students from all study years, there were some slight differences. Students in later years made more comments on the importance of teamwork teaching and learning in relation to future jobs and about the MST teamwork learning trajectory throughout the entire program; they are also more interested in leadership in MSTs. However, overall differences in content between study years were minimal.

Students’ learning needs can guide educators in formulating intended learning outcomes of their courses. Students’ educational design needs give educators insights into how students want to learn MST teamwork competences. In addition, our findings provide some theoretical nuances to earlier research, for example regarding why students are inclined to stress fair grading; why they want to work with teammates with similar ambition, commitment, and competence; and why they steer away from learning new teamwork competences. The study also gives deeper insights regarding students’ emphasis on learning relational competences. These insights can help develop adequate competence frameworks for MST teamwork. If educational design would give more time and space for MST teamwork learning, students are eager to engage.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

ORCID iD

Roosmarijn van Woerden

Ethical approval and informed consent statements

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Faculty Ethics Assessment Committee – Humanities of Utrecht University (no. 23-138-03). The requirement for informed consent was waived by the Faculty Ethics Assessment Committee. The participants received an information letter.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

The transcripts of the focus groups are shared in the following repository: . These transcripts have been anonymized for privacy reasons if necessary.

Author biographies

Roosmarijn van Woerden is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on students’ teamwork in multidisciplinary teams that work on an interdisciplinary task.

Merel M. van Goch is a researcher at the Centre for Language Studies of the Radboud University. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on integration, expertise and identity in interdisciplinary education.

Iris van der Tuin is Professor of Theory of Cultural Studies and Dean of Interdisciplinary Education at Utrecht University. Iris is trained as a feminist epistemologist and works as an interdisciplinary scholar. She works at the intersection of philosophy of science and philosophy of the humanities (including science and technology studies), cultural theory, and critical and creative practices in cultural studies research.

Sandra G. L. Schruijer is Professor of Organization Science, with a special focus on multiparty systems. She studies the social dynamics of interorganisational collaborative relationships. She is interested in how organisations deal with a diversity of interests, identities and perspectives and how trust between organizations can be built. She is also interested in the dynamics of small groups.

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