Field Testing a Behavioral Teamwork Assessment Tool with US Undergraduate Business Students

Given the ubiquitous utilization of teams in U.S. workplaces, collegiate schools of business have responded by placing great emphasis on the assessment and development of teamwork skills. Employing a methodology first proposed by Hobson and Kesic (2002) for use in managerial training, this study involved the behavioral assessment of teamwork skills in a sample of 247 undergraduate business students. The evaluation tool consisted of 15 positive and 10 negative teamwork behaviors. A leaderless group discussion exercise was utilized with 5-person teams, working together to solve a problem in a 20- minute period. Team interaction was videotaped and analyzed to produce ratings (on a 0-4 scale, from never to always) for each student on the 15 positive behaviors, 10 negative behaviors, as well as an overall score (the sum of the 15 positive behaviors minus the sum of the 10 negatives). Data analysis provided means for all 25 individual items on the teamwork assessment tool and norms for overall teamwork scores. A full factorial ANOVA indicated essentially no demographic differences in overall scores as a function of sex, age, race/ethnicity, or major. Potential uses of this assessment methodology in teaching, student coaching, and accreditation are discussed