Senior Capstone Team Formation Based on Project Interest: Team Selection by Students Compared with Team Selection by Instructors

Abstract

and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University. He worked at Ford Motor Company as a design engineer and technical specialist for ten years before transitioning into academia. He is currently a professor in Mechanical Engineering at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, where he coordinates the capstone design program. His research interests include design theory, stress analysis, and biomechanics.

The Evolution of Engineering Design Courses to a Hybrid-virtual Environment to Increase Student Engagement and Satisfaction

“…By providing students visibility to prospective member's skills, the authors here intend to mitigate this effect. Research suggests little statistical difference in student satisfaction between student-led and faculty-led team formation [9] with over 80% of students in both groups reporting that the teamforming process should be used in the future while over 80% of the students were happy with their project and team after five weeks.…”

“…The survey focused on understanding student's perceptions on their team formation, project selection, and the virtual capstone exposition. Some survey questions were formulated to resemble prior team formation literature found in [9]. All students participated in the same capstone expo; however, only IDCD students used the online tools for team formation and project selection.…”

Effects of Different Team Formation Strategies on Performance in an Undergraduate Introductory Mechanical Engineering Course

“…As a result, there have been many papers written on team formation. Some of these papers focus on team formation for senior design [2,3], while others focus on comparing different team formation strategies, such as comparing self-selected teams versus instructor-selected teams [2][3][4][5]. In Ref.…”

“…Ref. [3] considered different approaches for assigning teams in a capstone design course. One approach had faculty forming teams based on student surveys of project interests, skills, time availability, and team preferences.…”