Teamwork skills development in engineering education: A holistic approach

Engineering is a profession grounded in teamwork with the need for engineering students and professionals to possess the ability to integrate their work efforts seamlessly and effectively towards a common goal. This in turn necessitates the need for a comprehensive, tailored, and relevant overarching conceptual framework to be constructed to ensure that our subsequent generations of engineers are equipped to efficiently tackle existential societal problems including anthropogenic climate change and the multi-faceted nature of sustainable development. This paper motivates, details, and presents a conceptual framework for implementing successful engineering teams in tertiary engineering projects. The emergent conceptual framework presented is currently a work in progress based on the findings and recommendations of current literature. We plan to undertake student interviews with both first year and capstone students to refine our framework thereby ensuring the credibility of the framework. The final theoretical framework is composed of four key themes, these being team composition, team dynamics, creative leadership and team culture. The theoretical composition and relevance of their component sub-themes are discussed further in our work in addition to the unique interplay that occurs at the nexus of said themes and sub-themes. Ultimately this paper does not only define and outline a holistic conceptual framework to be used as a heuristic device for implementing successful engineering teams, but it additionally highlights current gaps in the relevant literature thereby provoking critical fields of future research.