ASSESSING TEAMWORK IN
ENTREPRENEURSHIP CLASSES
Sadan Kulturel-Konak
Penn State Berks
Abdullah Konak
Motivation
 Design a unified framework for assessing
professional skills.
 Teamwork is ubiquitous in entrepreneurship
classes.
 Assessing teamwork knowledge, skills, and
abilities is challenging.
Challenges in Assessing Teamwork Skills
 Slowly mature
 Developing tools and rubrics that can track
the student development
 Students’ concerns
Challenges in Peer Assessment
 Labor intensive
 Time consuming
 Feedback
 Confidentiality
Peer Evaluation Tools
 Communications Project Assessment Tool
(COMPASS) (Thomas et al., 1999)
 Comprehensive Assessment of Team
Member Effectiveness (CATME) (Loughry et
al., 2007)
 Self and Peer Assessment Resource Kit
(SPARKplus) (Willey & Gardner, 2009)
Peer Evaluation & Assessment Resource
(PEAR)
 Designed for assessing teamwork
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
 Provides feedback
 Preserves confidentially
 Based on the Model of Domain
Learning (Alexander et al. ,1994)
Model of Domain Learning
Cool !
I should
ask
questions.
Attend to
the next
seminar.
Leading ,
recall/process,
probing , and
rhetorical.
A Sample Mapping
competency/attitude: “use communication technologies
skillfully”
Expected Competency /Attitude (5-point Likert Rating scale)
I
Interested in the use of internet communications technologies to communicate x
K
S
Uses internet communications technologies skillfully
x
x
Initiates the use of most appropriate communications technologies for specific
tasks
Express a personal level interest to learn and use new internet
communications technologies
A
x
C
x
x
x
P
x
x
Expresses opinions and ideas in a clear manner in electronic correspondences
x
Expresses opinions and ideas in a clear and concise manner with obvious
connection to topic in electronic correspondences
x
x
x
PEAR Conceptual Model
Creating a Rubric
Creating an Assessment
Enter the course data
Select peer and self evaluation
rubrics
Instructors can select customized
or standard rubrics
Add teams
Conducting an Assessment
Students rate themselves
and their peers
The instructor sends emails
Each student receives a
unique, encrypted URL
link.
Reports
 Summary Reports
 Question-based
 Student-based
 MDL-based
 Export to Excel
 Email feedback to
students
A Pilot Study
 Entrepreneurial Mindset Class (22 students)
 Three team projects (different teams)
 The eleven-item rubric by Van Duzer and
McMartin (2004) and five point Likert-type scale
 Total of 2615 ratings
Peer (212) vs Self (58) Ratings
No
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Questions
Communicated ideas clearly/effectively.
Contributed useful ideas that helped the group succeed.
Delivered work when promised/needed.
Encouraged group to complete the project on a timely basis.
Failed to do an equal share of the work (Reverse).
Had difficulty negotiating issues with members of the group (Reverse).
Helped group overcome differences to reach effective solutions.
Kept an open mind was willing to consider other’s ideas.
Often tried to excessively dominate group discussions (Reverse).
Took a leadership role in some aspects of the project.
Was fully engaged in discussions during meetings.
Peer
Self
pRating Rating
value
4.22
4.61 0.004
4.25
4.65 0.007
4.21
4.58 0.032
4.16
4.58 0.011
2.65
1.68 0.007
2.71
2.12 0.066
4.16
4.52 0.008
4.49
4.65 0.315
2.70
2.42 0.160
3.94
4.40 0.005
4.25
4.67 0.003
Pitfalls
 Very high ratings, not consistent with the
instructor observations
 Some questions were avoided
 Deliberate versus non-deliberate
evaluations
Sample Interest Questions














Attended a speaker event about teamwork
Watched a documentary or training video about teamwork
Watched a video clip outside of class work about teamwork
Attended a workshop about teamwork
Asked questions to an expert (professor, consultant etc.) about effective teamwork
Performed a web search to learn about effective teamwork
Read a book about teamwork
Rate your level of interest in attending a free workshop on teamwork.
Rate your level of interest in reading literature about effective teamwork.
While you are browsing a news website, you have spotted an article called “How to be Effective
in Teamwork.” Rate your likelihood of reading this article?
Rate your level of willingness to take an elective course in order to improve your teamwork
skills?
In your institution, a renowned teamwork guru will give a workshop on teamwork skills. If you
have to pay $10 for this workshop, rate your level of interest in attending this workshop.
Read an online article about teamwork
Read a newspaper/magazine article about teamwork
Why should interest be measured?
Self-Efficacy
Based on 586 samples, we observed stronger correlations between class standing and
interest than between class standing and self-efficacy (significance p *: 0.05 and **:0.01).
Variable
(Cronbach's  Reliability)
Goal Setting (.712)
Performance Evaluation (.637)
Team Forming (.827)
Team Coordination
Communication (.807)
Conflict Resolution (.816)
Problem Solving (.810)
Interest1 (.850)
Interest2 (.803)
Interest3 (.794)
Attitude (.730)
Benefit (.817)
Class
GPA Group
Standing
-.019
.016
-.010
.048
-.074
-.038
-.006
-.026
-.127**
.032
*
-.091
-.048
-.044
.011
-.014
.097*
.011
.090*
-.006
.118*
-.245**
.104*
-.191**
.071
Have you ever had a
job that requires
significant teamwork?
.154**
.105*
.100*
.130**
.120**
.111**
.147**
.135**
.037
.170**
.153*
.119*
Have you ever taken
a course or training
on teamwork?
.090*
.079
.082*
.054
.126**
.067
.089*
.456**
.159*
.290**
.076
.055
Current Work
Past
• Design &
Implementation
• Testing
Present
• Beta trials
• Fix the bugs
• Build Additional
Rubrics
Future
• Data Mining
Conclusions
 PEAR facilitates peer and self evaluations.
 Interest should be used as an additional
construct to measure students’ professional
skill development (teamwork)
Acknowledgments
 “A Modular Assessment Framework for
Professional Skills Using A Model of
Domain Learning Approach”-NSF DUE1044800
 “A Virtual Incubator @ Penn State Berks
(VIB) to Foster Student Innovations”VentureWell 8804-11
Questions?
 konak@psu.edu, Abdullah Konak
 sadan@psu.edu, Sadan Kulturel-Konak
 Ivan Esparragoza
 Gül E. Okudan Kremer
 Gareth Yoder
 Steven Magluilo