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The influence of team function on designproject outcomes was examined in this study. Teamfunction was considered across six key dimensions,including unity, communication, distribution ofresponsibility, problem solving, conflict management, andteam self-evaluation. Three different methods were usedto quantify team function: a survey in which students selfratedtheir team’s function, a comparison of performanceon quizzes first performed individually and then as a team(as a measure of the degree of communication, problemsolving, and unity), and an analysis of the differentiationin inter-team peer evaluation scores (as a measure ofdistribution of responsibility, conflict management, andunity). Design project outcomes were measured as acomposite of grades from competition prototypes, writtenreports, oral and poster presentations, and several otherdeliverables. These scores were normalized to removeyear-to-year variability. Statistically significantrelationships between each measure of team function anddesign project outcomes were observed.For each dimension of team function, teams with highaverage self-rating on the survey also had 4% to 6%higher normalized design project scores compared tothose with low self-ratings. On the quizzes, teams thatwere more likely to answer a question incorrectly whenone or more members knew the correct answer(suggesting a lack of communication, unequal input toproblem solving, or reduced team unity) also receivedlower normalized design project scores by as much as4%. The full relationship between this metric and projectoutcome was more complicated though, as the teams leastlikely to answer incorrectly when some members had thecorrect answer performed below average on the projects.Lastly, a trend of decreasing composite project score wascorrelated with increasing inter-team differences in peerevaluation scores (suggesting unequal distribution ofresponsibility, increased conflict, or reduced team unity).Interestingly, teams that did not differentiate peerevaluation scores at all (i.e. each team member receivedthe same peer evaluation score ‘no matter what’) hadproject scores 7% lower on average than teams with asmall non-zero differentiation in peer evaluation scores.Taken together, the results of this study support thehypothesis that team function plays an important role inproject outcomes, contributing better than half a lettergrade difference.

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To provide for professional growth of students and to gain deeper insight into student engagement in the University of British Columbia MECH Capstone Design Project Course, the teaching team has deployed an open-ended reflection opportunity over the past 6 years as an adjunct to the required teaching evaluations. Three years of year-end questionnaires and three years of bi-monthly instructor-led reflection sessions form the datasets. Although the two formats are fundamentally different, the quality of the responses provides evidence of high student awareness of their own learning process and a desire to be a meaningful contributor in the conversation on course improvement.