INSTRUCTORS MANUAL
P
ROACTIVELY
E
NSURING
T S
EAM
UCCESS
(The PETS Process)
A GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE STUDENT PROJECT TEAMS
IN HIGHER EDUCATION
LYDIA KAVANAGH
JOHN HARRISON
JOHN COKLEY
DAVID NEIL
___________________________________________________________________________
Foreword
Every student, and every academic, has a horror story to tell about student team
work. Tension, tantrums and tears. And that’s just among the academics! While students
report both good and bad experiences of team work, the sheer volume of assessment
involving team projects makes it imperative that we higher education teachers implement
student team projects properly and well. This is apart from any intrinsic value to students
that learning teamwork may have as a graduate attribute.
This publication is a step-by-step guide, and one part of a multifaceted approach, to
creating effective, productive and happy student teams. It has been tested and evaluated
and continuously improved several times across a range of fields of study since 2002, when
Lydia Kavanagh, in The University of Queensland’s School of Engineering, started looking for
ways to address team dysfunction and social loafing that appeared to be an inevitable part
of student project teams. The result was an approach to student learning based on project
teams which appeared to address group dysfunction and social loafing, with the potential to
improve performance. Part of the early development stage involved work with John Harrison
from the university’s School of Journalism & Communication, on disseminating what has
since become known as the PETS (Proactively Ensuring Team Success) approach to teambased student projects in higher education.
In the final stages Lydia worked closely with David Neil (UQ School of Geography
Planning & Environmental Management) and John Cokley (also from the School of
Journalism & Communication), and Aneesha Bakharia from the UQ Centre for Educational
Innovation and Technology (CEIT). All this expertise worked towards the production of this
printed manual (also available as an eBook and formatted for SmartPhones and EBook
readers), an interactive and customisable website for students and educators called Working
in Teams, and an online peer-evaluation tool called WebPAf which is based on WebPA.
Together these components form an integrated whole and contain all the essential
resources for this program, including interactive teamwork exercises, downloadable models
and examples of team structures (including dysfunctional ones), video examples of teams at
work, study and play, and video and audio packages to complement written words and
images.
It is important to note that the PETS process is not a quick fix. Nor is it a substitute
for content. Instead, it is an overlay requiring good project management and a reasonable
investment of time.
We wish you well – and hope for your feedback – as you open up this package and
begin learning about, and working with, your various teams.
Lydia Kavanagh
BE (Hons), M.Eng.Sci, PhD
G Cert Higher Education (l.kavanagh@uq.edu.au)
Director of First-Year Engineering, The University of Queensland
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Table of Contents
FOREWORD......................................................................................................................................................... 2
GLOSSARY........................................................................................................................................................... 5
STEP BY STEP ..................................................................................................................................................... 8
1. INTRODUCTION: TEAMWORK & STUDENTS ....................................................................................... 9
1.1 Why do we do it? ............................................................................................................. 9
1.2 What can go wrong? ....................................................................................................... 10
1.3 What can we do about it? The PETS Process: An overview ........................................ 11
STAGE 1: SETTING IT UP............................................................................................................................... 15
Step 1: Define your learning outcomes ................................................................................ 15
Step 2: Assessment of learning outcomes: The design of team project(s) ........................... 16
Step 3: Recruit and brief your teaching team ....................................................................... 17
Step 4: Allocate students to teams (if using looped knowledge) ........................................ 21
Step 5: Upload web resources ............................................................................................. 25
STAGE 2: START OF SEMESTER ................................................................................................................. 27
Step 1: Communicate the process to students ..................................................................... 27
Step 2: Team role inventory completion by students .......................................................... 29
Step 3: Allocate students to teams (if using team role inventory) ....................................... 30
Step 4: Team formation exercises ........................................................................................ 30
Step 5: Introduce online Working in Teams learning module .............................................. 35
STAGE 3: DURING SEMESTER ..................................................................................................................... 38
Step 1: Individual student reflection .................................................................................... 38
Step 2: Mentor meeting ....................................................................................................... 39
Step 3: What to do with ‘social loafers’? ............................................................................ 45
Step 4: Formative assessment ............................................................................................. 47
Step 5: Hurdle assessment ................................................................................................... 49
STAGE 4: GETTING OVER THE LINE......................................................................................................... 50
Step 1: Delivery of project .................................................................................................. 50
Step 2: Peer assessment of individual performance ............................................................ 50
Step 3: Correcting for skewed PAFs ................................................................................... 53
Step 4: Team meeting for feedback..................................................................................... 55
Step 5: Mark and process results .......................................................................................... 56
STAGE 5: REFLECTION & REVIEW: WHERE HAVE WE BEEN? ....................................................... 57
Step 1: Student evaluation ................................................................................................... 57
Step 2: Teaching team reflection (instructors, mentors and tutors) .................................... 58
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................... 59
APPENDICES
A: A TEAM PROJECT IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING ............................................................................ 62
B: SAMPLE MENTOR MEETING CHECK SHEET .................................................................................... 64
C: A TEAM PROJECT IN COMMUNICATION ........................................................................................... 65
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FORMS
1: BELBIN’S SELF-PERCEPTION INVENTORY FOR TEAM ROLE ASSESSMENT ........................ 67
2: TEAM MEETING LOG TEMPLATES ....................................................................................................... 70
3: INDIVIDUAL REVIEW FOR (ACADEMIC) MENTOR MEETINGS.................................................... 72
4: EXAMPLE PEER EVALUATION FORM ................................................................................................. 73
5: STUDENT FEEDBACK ............................................................................................................................... 74
6: TEACHING TEAM FEEDBACK & REFLECTION ................................................................................ 76
8: TEAM RULES ............................................................................................................................................... 78
RESOURCES
1: INTERPRETING BELBIN’S TEAM ROLES INVENTORY .................................................................. 80
2: BELBIN TEAM ROLES ................................................................................................................................ 81
3: POTENTIAL TEAM ROLE CONFLICTS ................................................................................................. 82
4: BELBIN TEAM ROLES AND PROJECT STAGES .................................................................................. 83
5: GETTING TEAMS UNSTUCK ................................................................................................................... 84
6: STAGES IN TEAM DEVELOPMENT ....................................................................................................... 85
7: TEAMWORK QUESTIONNAIRE ............................................................................................................. 86
8: EXAMPLES OF TEAM GROUND RULES ............................................................................................... 88
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Glossary
Assessment Criteria: The criteria for judging whether the learning objectives have been
achieved.
Assessment (Diagnostic, Formative, Summative and Hurdle): Formative assessment is used
throughout semester – it gives feedback to the student that allows
them to improve and learn from mistakes. It does not contribute to
final marks – this is summative assessment. Hurdle assessment is that
which must be achieved to pass the course (e.g. a Pass/ Fail quiz).
Belbin’s Team Role Inventory (BTRI): An inventory which shows the preferred roles of an
individual within a team and thus allows potential conflicts or
weaknesses of the team to be explored. Each student completes a
BTRI in the first two weeks of the semester, as part of the group
dynamics training and to allow teams to have leaders seeded in them.
The BTRI is subject to copyright however and care must be taken not
to breach this when reproducing the questionnaire.
Course:
A subject or unit of learning, generally taking a semester to complete.
Course internet site: A website where all team resources and forms can be electronically
stored for access by students, mentors, and instructors. If possible this
site should also contain a discussion board, and individual team pages
that allow team members to contact each other and to post project
work files.
Deliverables:
Pieces of assessment which have a due date and a specified form (e.g.
report, oral presentation, poster, web site etc.).
Dysfunctional team: A dysfunctional team is a group in which the members do not work
effectively together towards a common goal. (Foundation Coalition
2001)
ESL:
English as a Second Language – those international students for whom
English is not their first language. ESL students may also have a
different learning culture. Also known as NESB (Non English Speaking
Background).
Free riding:
See social loafing
Gantt chart:
A project management tool which shows task timing and resource
allocation.
Grade:
Representation of a student’s final mark on an alphanumeric or
qualitative scale.
Graduate attributes: Generic and discipline-specific skills that all students graduating should
have. Each teaching establishment is likely to have its own list of
graduate attributes. Also known as graduate capabilities.
Group vs. team:
The use of “group” and “team” indicates the difference between
individuals working independently on the same task (group) and
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individuals working inter-dependently on the same task respectively
(team). (Pimmel 2003)
Individual review for mentor meetings: Feedback completed by each student prior to each
mentor meeting which allows mentor to facilitate meetings based on
team needs. This feedback is not viewed by other students.
Learning Outcomes: What we want students to be able to do when they have completed
the course. This list of newly learned knowledge, capacities and
capabilities are the learning outcomes. A statement of learning
outcomes is always the starting point for any curriculum – whether at
course (i.e. unit or subject) or program (i.e. degree) level, learning
activities are then structured around the required knowledge,
attributes and skills.
Looping:
Looping is the process of using information about students through
feedback and assessment from previous courses and lecturers.
Mentor meeting:
A formal session to provide technical, team and time management
input. Sessions can last 30 – 60 minutes and can be accompanied by
some form of team assessment.
Online Working in Teams learning module: An electronic module containing information on
team work. It includes the reasoning behind students working in
teams, a troubleshooter for dysfunctional teams, and templates for
good team practice. It can be used as part of the course assessment or
as a student resource.
Peer assessment factor (PAF): Individual marks are calculated by a peer assessment factor
applied to the team mark. Students use anonymous forms or WebPAf
to record their perceptions of the comparative input of their team
mates on each project by dividing 100 points between all students
including themselves. Individual peer assessment scores are summed
for each student, divided by both the number of students in the team
and the score for equal effort (100/number of students) to obtain the
peer assessment factor (PAF). The student’s own score may be
included in the calculation.
The PAF is used as follows:

Individual mark for project = 1.1 x Team mark (for PAFs greater
than 1.1)

Individual mark for project = PAF x Team mark (for PAFs less than
or equal to 1.1).
The mark for high-achieving students is capped at 1.1, as awarding
more than a 10% increase in marks can lead to final subject marks of
greater than 100% and also tends to produce a final score that does
not reflect technical competence.
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Peer evaluation form: Form (electronic via WebPAf or paper) filled in by each student and
submitted with each major piece of team assessment. This form is not
seen by other students.
Social loafing:
Social loafers are also called free-riders. “Free riding is a form of social
loafing seen in a group when one or more members slacks off and
‘rides’ on the extra efforts of their co-workers.” (Walker and Angelo,
1998)
Team assessment mark (TAM): A mark that can be applied by the mentor to each of the
teams based on their communication, resolution of differences and
conflicts and overall performance as a team.
WebPAf
An online peer assessment system that manages the collection of
student evaluation and the calculation of PAFs. WebPAf is based on
WebPA the open source program generated by The University of
Loughborough.
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Step by Step
Use this STEP by STEP Guide as a planning checklist to ensure that you have scheduled and
completed the required tasks. You don’t need to include every STEP in your course. You can
select those aspects that meet the needs of your student cohort. You may, for example,
only want to use the student allocation method; or the peer assessment component and the
mentoring process, or the “Working in Teams” online learning module. The choice is yours.
STAGE 1: BEFORE START of SEMESTER

STEP
TASK
STEP 1
Define your learning outcomes and map these against graduate attributes
STEP 2
Design an assessable team project which delivers these outcomes
STEP 3
Recruit and brief teaching team
STEP 4
Allocate students to teams (if using looped knowledge)
STEP 5
Upload materials to course internet site
STAGE 2: START of SEMESTER
STEP 1
Communicate the process to students
STEP 2
Team role inventory completion by students
STEP 3
Allocate students to teams (if using team role inventory)
STEP 4
Team formation exercises
STEP 5
Introduce “Working in Teams” module
STAGE 3: DURING SEMESTER
STEP 1
Individual student reflection(s) on task/ process including peer evaluation
STEP 2
Mentor meeting(s)/ PAF feedback
STEP 3
Social loafer reassignment, if required
STEP 4
Formative assessment
STEP 5
Hurdle assessment
STAGE 4: END of SEMESTER
STEP 1
Delivery of completed team task(s): summative assessment
STEP 2
Peer assessment with each deliverable
STEP 3
Correcting for skewed PAFs
STEP 4
Team meeting for feedback
STEP 5
Marking & release of results
STAGE 5: REFLECTION & REVIEW
STEP 1
Student focussed written evaluation
STEP 2
Internal reflection (instructors, mentors, and tutors)
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1. INTRODUCTION: TEAMWORK & STUDENTS
1.1 Why do we do it?
One of my good friends is an industrial lighting designer who runs his own business. You can
see his work all over Brisbane: in the lighting of Treasury Casino, the Queen Street Mall, and
more recently the Green Bridge connecting St Lucia and Dutton Park. He also does part-time
lectures to engineering and architecture students at local universities. Students often ask
him about being a consultant. His first, and instinctive reply, is: are you good with people?
He’s not really interested in their GPA, or their technical expertise, or in their creative ideas,
or their ability to manage a project on time and on budget, but in their people skills. “People
skills” are sometimes referred to as “soft skills”, as if to differentiate them from the hard
skills of materials science, knowledge of formulas and equations, structures and processes.
Pulko and Parikh write of electrical engineering:
Over the past 10 years there has been an increase in emphasis on 'soft' skills in HE
(higher education) engineering programs. Reflecting both the demands of potential
employers and professional bodies, as well as the creativity of course designers,
modules such as first year 'study skills' and final year 'professional skills' have become
more and more common. The greatest focus has been placed on fundamental topics
such as presentation skills, effective report writing, teamwork, and time/project
management. (Pulko & Parikh 2003: 243).
In Australian universities, all undergraduate programs aim to deliver a set of “graduate
attributes” or generic skills. The ability to work as part of a team is invariably one of these
skills. At our university these include written and oral communication, critical judgement,
creativity, and social and ethical understanding.
In the learning context, team projects can facilitate both co-operative learning and
collaborative learning, as well as peer-assisted learning. Always part of the informal
curriculum, it is only recently that the value of peer-assisted learning has been recognised in
the formal curriculum (Maheady, Mallette & Harper 2006; Prins, Sluijsmans, Kirschner &
Strijbos 2005; Tien, Roth & Kampmeier 2004; Dixon & Gudan 2000).
Finally, team-based projects enable tasks of greater scale and increased complexity, with the
attendant deeper learning to be achieved.
Learning to be a functioning, effective and contributing member of a team means that
students graduate with enhanced personal and professional skills. These attributes
contribute to a higher demand for their services, better remuneration, and greater kudos for
their alma mater in the inevitable league tables generated from the various forms of
monitoring graduate outcomes.
So for all these reasons, we engage in the practice of establishing developing, mentoring,
and assessing student teams.
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1.2 What can go wrong?
In the majority of cases, the use of teams works successfully. However, a small number of
teams perform poorly, and individuals within these teams do not achieve the learning
objectives. A dysfunctional team is a group in which the members do not work effectively
together towards a common goal (Foundation Coalition 2001).
Dysfunctional teams often become apparent only at the end of semester when it is too late
to rectify the problem; major deliverables are of poor quality, both in terms of presentation
and technical correctness, and result in low marks for the members of the dysfunctional
team. “There is a delay between dysfunction and feedback and if the appropriate proactive
steps are not taken to reduce this delay, then this can cause failure which is only seen at the
end of semester.” Jones (1996)
Two major causes of dysfunctional teams are social loafing, and unresolved conflict.
Social loafing, “the tendency for individuals to reduce their own personal input when
performing as part of group” (North, Linley & Hargreaves 2000: 389), can be but one cause
of conflict within a team but it is one that we often see. Our experience is that students find
it difficult to report social loafing.
The literature suggests that there can be two forms of conflict within a team: task conflicts
and relational conflicts. While for a number of years it was thought that task conflict in
teams could be productive, and that relational conflicts were destructive in relation to team
performance, more recent research suggest that both are destructive of team performance
(De Dreu & Weingart 2003). Thus, the processes we have devised in terms of team
allocation, task definition and team mentoring and monitoring are designed to keep teams
on track in terms of both tasks and relationships. Without the PETS1 process, students try to
resolve conflict to the detriment of subject learning objectives when the situation is
irreconcilable without outside intervention.
Table 1 details some of the occurrences witnessed prior to the introduction of the PETS
process; these occurrences are grouped with respect to the two major causes.
1
Proactively Ensuring Team Success
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TABLE 1: EVIDENCE OF DYSFUNCTIONAL TEAMS
Problem
Unresolved
conflict
Social loafing
Occurrence
A student reported that team discussions about what should be included in
the final deliverable had broken down and some members had begun to
become aggressive.
One member of a team submitted an entirely separate report as she felt that
her team members were neither listening to her, nor correctly completing
requirements.
A male team member became obsessed with a female team member to the
extent that outside counselling was required. The female student was
traumatised by the incident.
An anonymous evaluation sheet showed one of the top students giving his
friends the top mark and other team members that had clashed with him the
lowest mark.
One team filled out a common evaluation sheet in the absence of one
member and was poorly judged by the team at the instigation of another
member who had clashed with her during the course of the semester.
A randomly allocated group of students lacked a natural leader and
performed poorly through low-quality work and missed deadlines. No
responsibility was taken by any member of the group for their poor
performance.
A student complained about a social loafer at the beginning of the following
semester. He had carried the injustice with him over the holidays before
deciding to do anything about it.
One student complained about social loafing within his team to his parents
who then contacted the relevant academic within the department.
Many students are loath to report on their poorly performing team mates, as
they want to avoid conflict in the following years at university: “I have to
work with these guys for another two years.”
1.3 What can we do about it? The PETS Process: An overview
The PETS process is an systematic approach to managing student project teams which
addresses group dysfunction and social loafing, and has the potential to improve both
individual and team performance. The PETS process works to solve team dysfunctions in the
following ways.
What actions by the instructor can prevent poor team performance?

A structured and purposeful process of allocating individuals to groups.

Explicit student training in group processes and provision of a self-help toolkit.

Tailoring features of the project task so it can be more effectively managed by teams.

Tailoring assessment type.

Assessment of individual performance through peer evaluation as both formative and
summative assessment.

Assessment of group performance as a summative assessment criterion.
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
Communication of strategies for social loafer team reassignment.
How can instructors effectively diagnose team dysfunction?

Mandating individual reflection.

Mandating team reflection.

Mandating mentor sessions.

Mentor reflection and observation.
How can instructors help cure team dysfunction?

Mandating individual reflection.

Mandating team reflection.

Tailored facilitation of mentor sessions.
These interventions are contained within the PETS process which we have broken into five
stages each with a series of steps. While all five stages are necessary, not all the steps within
each stage need to be followed and instructors are invited to cherry pick those steps that fit
their courses. Weightings of the various stages and steps may vary markedly with the
learning context. Here are the five stages:
STAGE 1 Before Start of Semester (Setting Up)
STAGE 2: Start of Semester (Starting Out)
STAGE 3: During Semester (Along the Way)
STAGE 4: End of Semester (Getting Over the Line)
STAGE 5: Reflection and Review (Where have we been?)
FAQs
How does the PETS process work across a degree program?
We have found great advantage in passing knowledge of what has gone before to our
colleagues who teach the same cohort in later years. This information includes those
students inclined to leadership, those inclined to social loafing, those who have language
problems, those who have confidence problems, as well as those students who have
experienced personal conflict and should not be placed in the same team again.
However, as the students progress through their program of higher education, we have
found that the PETS process can be relaxed and not all steps need to be offered. For
example, in fourth year, students are allowed to self-select teams in some courses as their
team skills are, by this stage, quite advanced. The peer assessment factor is offered as a tool
to prevent social loafing but is rarely used and mentor meetings are requested and
structured by the students. This approach allows for greater maturity and experience with
teamwork and is seen as a natural progression in teamwork skill acquisition.
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Students usually include some sort of team role inventory analysis in early-semester projectscoping statements, where Gantt charts are requested along with an outline of team
responsibilities, even though this sort of analysis has not been explicitly requested.
Leaderless teams still occur but early assessment exposes this flaw and we have found that
engaging with these teams, explaining the necessity of having a leader, and forcing the
election of a leader can turn these teams around.
What we have found: The relaxation of the full application of the PETS process to later years
has not prevented teary sessions with student teams in our offices sorting out deepseated team conflict. The difference has been that these meetings have been at the
students’ request when all their efforts and learnt teamworking skills have failed to
eliminate the problem.
What about leaders and the PETS process?
We are often asked what the PETS process offers in terms of leadership training. Our
observations are that while the PETS process has not been set up to train leaders, but to
prevent dysfunctional teams, it allows:

students who are naturally leaders to recognise what they are doing, gain further
insight into what is needed to manage a team and to develop their leadership
qualities;

students to make an informed decision about who the leader should be; and

students who are not natural leaders to have an appreciation of this and for them
to, by watching and reflecting on the leader’s actions, understand what is necessary
to manage a team.
What we have found: Often we try to give each member of the team a specific responsibility
within the project to ensure some experience of leadership is gained. For example, a
second year subject, where students operate in teams of 6, has two distinct projects
each of which require the submission of a final report and one also requires the
production of a poster. Therefore, in addition to the overall leader, we ask the
remaining students to oversee each individual project, the reports, and the poster thus
giving each student a specific responsibility and hence a chance to improve leadership
skills.
What about my cohort? They’re different.
In discussions, some colleagues have suggested that the PETS process would not suit their
course delivery and that they disagreed with our methodology. The suggestion is that the
characteristics of their cohorts make the processes we use unnecessary. This may be so.
For example, Dr Paul Mills (Veterinary Science, The University of Queensland) works with an
elite cohort of students who have completed a first degree, have high entry scores, and have
a considerable financial investment in their studies. Such a cohort may have no social
loafers which may diminish the need for peer assessment, and such a cohort brings a level of
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maturity and experience such that purposeful team selection and mentoring may not be
necessary.
Obviously the PETS process may not apply in all aspects to your cohort, although elements
could be offered as a tool if applicable; please refer to our comments on continued
application. We therefore invite you to use only what you think will be useful for your
course.
What about a methodology for non-assessed teams?
It is difficult to get students to do anything that is not associated with assessment. The PETS
process acknowledges this by linking assessment with most of the steps (peer assessment
factor, team assessment mark).
Where do I find the time to implement PETS?
As previously mentioned, PETS is not a quick-fix. It requires considerable time to implement
and of course, the larger the student cohort, the larger the time input.
We would argue that the increased time input is balanced by the benefits of implementing
PETS. Not only do the students achieve their learning objectives and gain team work skills,
but the number of complaints about dysfunctional teams is reduced.
We suggest that you choose and brief your teaching team well, as the workload can be
successfully shared with enthusiastic and competent teaching staff.
Fortunately, the use of WebPAf to manage the peer assessment process, and the online
team training module to deliver teamworking information, has significantly reduced the
amount of time required to implement the PETS process. However, we still recommend that
you budget for a greater time commitment.
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stage
1
STAGE 1: SETTING IT UP
STEP
TASK
STEP 1
Define your learning outcomes and map these against graduate attributes
STEP 2
Design assessable team project(s) which deliver these outcomes
STEP 3
Recruit and brief teaching team
STEP 4
Allocate students to teams (if using looped knowledge)
STEP 5
Upload materials to course internet site
Step 1: Define your learning outcomes
What do we want the student to be able to do when they have completed this subject? The
statement of what we want students to know, to achieve, to be capable of, to be able to do
– these are our learning outcomes.
At The University of Queensland, learning outcomes are mapped against the university’s
statement of graduate attributes: the generic skills the university wishes all students
graduating from undergraduate programs to have, albeit at various levels This statement of
attributes requires students not only to have knowledge and understanding of the discipline
or field of study, but also to practice independent, creative and critical thinking, good
communication skills and a level of social and ethical understanding.
So, learning activities must not only advance students’ knowledge of the field of study but
should also try to enhance their capabilities in:



creativity, independence and critical thinking;
oral, written and interpersonal communication, and
social and ethical understanding.
Thus our learning outcomes must reflect the knowledge, skills and attitudes we want
students to acquire. This is why writing learning outcomes in terms of student achievement
is useful. Table 2, an extract from a course profile, is an example of the way in which the
graduate attributes of effective communication and independence, creativity and critical
judgement are operationalised in the learning outcomes, which are in turn assessed by way
of the course project. The learning outcomes provide the basis for developing assessment
criteria and assessment standards. The references to teamwork have been underlined to
show how they fit into the statement of learning outcomes.
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TABLE 2: EXAMPLE OF MAPPING LEARNING OUTCOMES AGAINST GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES
GRADUATE
ATTRIBUTE
HOW THIS ATTRIBUTE RELATES TO SKILLS, RELATED
ATTITUDES AND KNOWLEDGE
ASSESSMENT
DEVELOPED IN THIS COURSE
TASK
Effective
communication
We want you to develop industry level skills in
the design and delivery of public communication PROJECT
strategy and programs with particular reference
to team work, client communication and target
audiences, with high levels of accuracy in
spelling, grammar and presentation style.
Independence,
creativity and
critical
judgement
We want you to demonstrate creativity and flair,
PROJECT
independence and critical judgement in
program design and delivery, as well as the
capacity to work as part of a self-directed
learning team, such that you are performing at
and above industry level standards by the end of
the course.
Step 2: Assessment of learning outcomes: The design of team
project(s)
What makes a good assessment task? A project that increases knowledge and
understanding of the discipline or field of study, but which also encourages critical and
creative independent thinking, and enhances communication skills, ethical and social
understanding and, in particular, team work skills.
Ideally the assignment should incorporate the following:

different deliverable formats – perhaps a written document coupled with a poster or
oral presentation; a variety of assessable outputs;

sub-tasks that can be completed by an individual or a pair of students;

sections that are completed by individuals and which attract an individual mark – one
of the issues in assessment of team projects is getting the right balance between
work undertaken by individuals, and work by the team – for which all receive the
same mark. The example in Appendix A shows 20% of the mark is individually
allocated based on subject work and 15% individually allocated based on a team
work dimension;

a final section which requires sub-tasks and/ or individual sections to be integrated,
analysed and discussed by the team;

various milestones to aid time management; and

learning objectives which can be tested by hurdle assessment such as pass/ fail
quizzes.
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Appendix A is a project used in a second-year chemical engineering course which has been
annotated to show how the above bullet points can be achieved. The project is run
concurrently with another which requires the students to produce a poster for presentation
along with a written report.
Appendix B is used in a team project in social marketing. You can see from examining both of
these assessment tasks that each has been designed so that there are clear tasks which are
to be undertaken by individuals, and for which they will receive an individual mark. For other
aspects of the task, the team will receive a mark. For each individual this mark will, of
course, be moderated by the application of the peer assessment factor (STAGE 4, Step 2).
An example of the integration of milestones to aid time management is given in Appendix C.
This check sheet actually forms the backbone of team mentoring (STAGE 3 Step 2) but is
mentioned here as it is an important part of designing the team project. Students
undertaking the second-year chemical engineering course understand that these are actions
that need to be completed for the mentor meeting; as they have the times for mentor
meetings and a list of required tasks, they have the rudiments of time management. Thus,
there are three check sheets for this course.
Step 3: Recruit and brief your teaching team
Roles and Responsibilities
There is a range of roles to be performed in the course. These include:




Course Co-ordinator: the person charged with the key administrative functions
relating to the delivery of the course.
Lecturer(s): who deliver the course in the classroom.
Tutors: who assist students with course content.
Team Mentors: who are generally more experienced than tutors and who meet with
teams at pre-determined intervals to assist them with group process. These may be
different from lecturers and tutors.
Certainly a number of these roles overlap, and individuals within the teaching team play
more than one role. It is important, however, for individuals with multiple roles to be aware
of what role they are playing at what point. Table 3 details the tasks and suggested roles of
each of the teaching team. A column has been left blank in this table for you to fill in the
initials of the teaching team member(s) responsible.
Your budget and time limitations will help you to choose which of the following steps are
appropriate for your application.
17
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TABLE 3: TASKS ALLOCATION
STAGE 1: BEFORE START of SEMESTER
STEP
TASK
RESPONSIBILITY INITIALS
1. Define your learning outcomes and map these against graduate attributes
Define learning outcomes
Coordinator
Map against graduate attributes
Coordinator
2. Design an assessable team project(s) which delivers these outcomes
Design team project
Coordinator
Design check sheets/ plan mentor
Coordinator
meetings
Decide assessment criteria & standards
Coordinator
3. Recruit and brief teaching team
All
4. Allocate students to teams (if looping knowledge
Coordinator/
gained from previous experience)
Tutor
5. Upload materials to course internet site
Coordinator/
Tutor
STAGE 2: START of SEMESTER
STEP
TASK
1. Communicate the process to students
2. Team role inventory (TRI) completion by students
3. Allocate students to teams (if using TRI)
4. Team formation exercises
Workshop 1
Workshop 2
5. Introduce online team training module
RESPONSIBILITY
Lecturer
Lecturer
Coordinator/
Tutor
INITIALS
All
All
Lecturer
STAGE 3: DURING SEMESTER
STEP
TASK
RESPONSIBILITY
INITIALS
1. Individual student reflection(s) on task and process so far
Calculation of PAF scores (WebPAf)
Tutor
Analysis of individual reflections
Mentor
2. Mentor meeting(s)
Mentor, Tutor
3. Social loafer reassignment - if required
Coordinator
4. Formative assessment
Coordinator/Mentor
5. Hurdle assessment
Coordinator/ Tutor
18
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STAGE 4: END of SEMESTER
STEP
TASK
RESPONSIBILITY INITIALS
1. Delivery of completed team task(s): summative assessment
Mark assessment
Tutor
2. Peer assessment of each team member by all other team members with each
deliverable
Calculation of PAF scores (WebPAf)
Tutor
Peer assessment overview
Mentor
3. Team feedback meeting
Mentor
4. Marking & release of results
Calculation of TAM
Mentor
Calculation of final grades
Coordinator
STAGE 5: REFLECTION & REVIEW
STEP
TASK
1. Student focus written evaluation
RESPONSIBILITY INITIALS
Coordinator,
Tutor
Coordinator
2. Teaching team reflection and review
Mentoring
It is important to establish with your mentors, the type of mentoring that is to be offered to
the students. Typically mentors will offer guidance in matters of the team, technical aspects,
and time management but the depth to which this guidance is offered needs to be agreed
with your teaching team prior to the semester beginning.
What we have found: We have experienced differences of up to 10% in the final marks of
students with different mentors, when the depth of mentoring to be offered has not
been fully understood by our teaching teams. Students with mentors who review their
team’s work before it is handed in and suggest methods of solution will often score
higher than those with mentors who do not review work prior to submission and who
adopt a model of encouraging the students come to the final decision based on
discussion of options.
The following models are offered and selection should be made on the maturity and specific
requirements of the student cohort, and the assessment task.

‘Mentor as Parent’ – The mentor leads the team’s discussions, ensures tasks are
being completed to the required standard, directs the team to information that the
team may have overlooked, and reviews all work before it is submitted for grading.

‘Mentor as Devil’s Advocate’ – The mentor is integral to the team discussions and
acts to bring the team’s focus to aspects that require resolution. They will not
necessarily offer direct answers but rather encourage the team to arrive at a correct
solution themselves. Aspects that the team has not considered will also be raised by
the mentor.
19
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
‘Mentor as Expert Witness’ – The team directs all meetings; only subjects raised by
the team are discussed. The mentor answers questions directly, and does not raise
uncertainty.

‘Mentor as Polymorph’ – The mentor takes on any of the above roles as required by
the team.
The model of ‘Mentor as Team Member’ does not coalesce with good pedagogy. In this
model the mentor becomes part of the team and begins to aid students with their tasks,
thus student learning objectives are less likely to be achieved by the students.
Of course, these models represent the extremes and there is a number of other models that
sit between these extremes. Table 4 attempts to quantify the depth of mentoring offered; it
is recommended that this table be agreed and completed by the teaching team and a copy
given to all prior to semester starting.
TABLE 4: MENTORING TO BE OFFERED
ASPECT
Meetings:
- Structure
- Chair
Level 1: Mentor as
parent
Level 2: Mentor as devil’s
advocate
Level 3: Mentor as
expert witness
Set by mentor
Mentor
Mentor agrees with team
Team member supported
by mentor
Set by team
Team member
Mentor leads discussions
such that team discovers
omission (or not)
Mentor discusses
methodology and possible
solution with team
Mentor reviews only as
requested by students
Mentor discusses various
options; team decides
No input by mentor
unless asked
directly
No input by mentor
unless asked
directly
No review
Technical details
- Missing
Mentor supplies
information
- Incorrect
information
Mentor identifies,
corrects and explains
- Review of
work
- Decisions
Mentor reviews work
before submission
Mentor indicates best
way to solution
Management
Team
Time
No decisions made
by mentor but
opinions can be
given if asked for
In all cases, the mentor must ensure that the team remains functional.
There is no case for opting out but it is thought best to always offer teams
the decision about whether to deal with any dysfunction at the mentor
meeting or within the team (see STAGE 2, Step 2).
Mentor to ensure that Mentor raises critical path No input by mentor
team is on time and
issues but leaves team to
unless asked
will complete work
decide time management
directly
20
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Step 4: Allocate students to teams (if using looped
knowledge)
There is a variety of ways of forming student project groups. Here are some of the ways it’s
done:

Random Allocation: The instructor simply forms the group by numbering students –
1,2,3,4,5, until all the students have a number. All the 1s are one group; all the 2s
another, and so it goes. (WebPAf, the online peer assessment tool, has a system that will
automatically set up teams using this system.)

Student Directed Allocation: The instructor simply says: “I want you to form seven
groups with between 4-6 people in each group.” A modification of this is to have the
students form pairs, and to have the pairs pair; giving groups of four.

Aspirational Groups: Students are grouped by their expressed aspirations for the course.
For example, those who aspire to high grades are grouped together; those with lower
aspirations are grouped together.

Availability Allocation: Students are grouped according to their availability to have team
meetings or their ability to get to a particular meeting place (e.g. students living in a
particular suburb may find it easier to meet off-campus). This allows other subject
commitments or residential location to be taken into account.

Previous Achievement: Students are grouped according to their grade point average or
achievement in a previous course. This is a variation of the Aspirational Group method,
however, it should be noted that top students are not necessarily team players and often
groups of students that have achieved lower marks previously can outperform the top
student groups.

Different Projects: Students are grouped according to their project choice.
There is a number of problems that may arise with respect to teams formed using the above
methods and the PETS process seeks to address them. They are:

teams may be formed that have no leader – this becomes apparent when the first
deliverable is due and hasn’t been completed or is of poor quality. In such teams, no
one takes the responsibility for getting the job done on time and in budget. If you
query the students in such teams about their failure, not a single student will meet
your eye – most will look down at their feet;

teams with too many ESL (English as a Second Language) students will be formed –
we have found that teams will support, teach and encourage a single ESL student in
their midst but any more than this and the issue of the language and cultural
difference becomes too great; and
21
___________________________________________________________________________

teams without a good balance of males and females will be formed and whilst no
bad thing may come of this, we have found that each gender has its own positive
attributes, experiences and requirements to bring to a team.
To purposefully select teams to ensure the maximum potential for success, it is necessary to
review previous student performance to identify students who are:



leaders – not necessarily high achievers, but team leaders,
social loafers, and
from non-English speaking backgrounds (ESL).
Teams are then allocated, ensuring that as far as possible each team:




has one or more students who will provide leadership;
does not contain a disproportionate number of students who are prone to social
loafing (see STAGE 3 Step 3);
does not have a disproportionate number of students for whom English is their
second language (ESL); and
has a balanced number of males and females with respect to the number of each
taking the course.
The sources of information about student performance and potential which can assist
instructors in allocating students to teams are:

LOOPED KNOWLEDGE which comes from student performance on group tasks in
previous courses. In situations where students have previously received a peer
assessment factor (PAF), this can be used to identify students with leadership
potential or a tendency to social loafing;
A PAF of 1.1 or above identifies a student as a potential team leader. A PAF of 0.8
or below identifies a student as a potential social loafer. Looped knowledge is not
normally available for students in their first semester at university and hence
personal/ diagnostic knowledge must be used.
If you have no looped knowledge, then team allocation is best done after a team
roles inventory has been administered (STAGE 2, Step 2 and 3).

INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE which comes from the university’s student
administration database, which provides information about grades and GPA. It may
also be possible to identify ESL students from this source.
But remember when using institutional knowledge:
o high achievers are not necessarily team workers and hence may not be good
leaders;
22
___________________________________________________________________________
o low achievers have the potential to become valued members of teams if
teamed with good leaders and therefore cannot be assumed to be social
loafers; and
o International students may have excellent language skills. However, if
nothing else is known about the student, it may be prudent to adopt the
suggested strategy as this addresses not only language diversity but also
those of differences in learning cultures.

PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE may be required in order to optimise the mix of students.
This can be done by interview or email or team inventory role testing. It needs to
be undertaken before the start of semester or at the very beginning of semester, so
teams can be finalised as soon as possible. (STAGE 2, Step 2 and 3)
The interrelationship of these sources of knowledge is set out in Figure 1. Of these, the most
useful is looped knowledge.
FIGURE 1: FORMING FUNCTIONAL TEAMS
LOOPED KNOWLEDGE
- team performance in
previous courses
PERSONAL/
DIAGNOSTIC
KNOWLEDGE (incl.
Belbin roles)
- previous peer
assessments
INSTITUTIONAL
KNOWLEDGE
- ESL students
- academic performance
Preferred Route
THE TEAM
PAF  1.1
A LEADER
PAF  0.8
MAXIMUM 1 SOCIAL
LOAFER
MINIMUM ESL
STUDENTS
Observed poor
language skills
High achiever
Shaper/ Coordinator
Not possible
Country of origin
& poor previous
academic
performance
RANDOM OTHERS
(Male and Female)
FAQs
What is the optimum team size?
Our experience in working with teams of different sizes over a number of years has shown
the following:
23
___________________________________________________________________________

students feel that teams of 6 (or greater) are too large to manage in terms of task
sharing, communication, and effective decision making;

there appears to be no difference in the output and functionality of teams of 4 or 5
members working on the same project; and

teams of 3 produce higher quality (depth and appearance) deliverables than teams of
2 working on the same project.
There is a number of factors (Table 5) that are likely to influence the team size and these
should be taken into account.
Table 5 Factors influencing team size (Adapted from FDTL, 2003)
Factor
Comment
Size of cohort
If the cohort is large, it can be tempting to increase the team size and thus
reduce marking. However, as previously stated, we have found teams of 6
to be the practical limit for effective teams.
Complexity of
task
The team has to manage itself, its members, and the task. If the task is
very complex then this may not leave time or energy for managing the
team. However, mentoring (STAGE 3, Step 2) and judicious design of the
team project (STAGE 1, Step 2) can help the teams with this management
and thus lift this restriction.
Roles in teams
There may be particular roles that need to be performed. This can be
particularly important in multi-disciplinary projects where it may be
desirable to bring together a particular combination of skills/ experience.
Team selection should still ensure a leader is present in each team
(STAGE1, Step 4 or STAGE 2, Step 3).
Team skills of
members
One of the requirements for a successful team is that its members can
work well together. An inexperienced team, working on a complex task,
probably needs to be smaller rather than larger. However, mentoring
(STAGE 3, Step 2) is designed to minimise this restriction.
Ease of
meeting
For the team to function it has to be able to meet. (Virtual meetings are
also possible but will need specific online facilitation.) It is usually harder
to arrange a meeting for a large team than a small one. We find that it is
good to purposefully build some team time into the semester’s schedule to
partially ameliorate this restriction.
What about a modicum of student team self-selection?
The first year cohort is asked in first semester, when filling out team role inventories, to
nominate one or two other people that they would like to be in their team. This is to help
ease their transition into teamwork and to ensure that there is at least one friendly face in
each of their teams.
However, this practice is not without its disadvantages. Two groups of friends placed
together in a team that satisfies all of the PETS process rules, can quite easily become two
24
___________________________________________________________________________
cliques that do not communicate, cooperate, or collaborate. We have found this situation is
exacerbated when one group lives together in a residential college and hence can easily
meet to progress work on the project without the others who may live off-campus.
Of course this does not always happen but, if you are to employ this model, you must be
alert to the fact that students may attribute acts of aggressive collusion to these cliques and,
in our experience, teams where this has happened are very difficult to counsel. Indeed,
suspicion and enmity which last the remainder of the degree course can be generated.
What we have found: Naming teams using the first initial of the mentor of that team or of
the project that they are undertaking and following it by a colour (e.g K-Red, K-Blue
etc) affords a number of benefits. Firstly each team is easily identifiable with respect to
mentor or project and secondly no team feels that they are any better than any other.
A team called K1, or K-A, may feel superior to a team called K6, or K-F and the use of
colours negates this effect. WebPAf, the online peer assessment tool, can be set up to
generate these team names.”
Step 5: Upload web resources
Nearly all higher education institutions have web sites or some form of learning
management system for each course. Our institution uses Blackboard as the platform for
web-assisted learning. The use of a course website can aid student team work in a number
of ways:

by providing teams with their own discussion board. An individual section is created
for each team which hosts a discussion board, quick email access, and storage for
working files;

by allowing teams to upload work requiring completion or editing for immediate
access by other team members;

by providing an easy way of communication between members; and

by encouraging inter-group discussion through the ability to communicate
electronically with other teams and also through a general discussion board.
In addition, we have found that a place to post notices to the students, to upload teaching
materials, and that provides a general class discussion board greatly enhances
communication between teaching staff and the students.
Through our ALTC project, we now have additional online resources:

WebPAf – an online peer assessment system that collects students assessments and
calculates the peer assessment factor; and

an online team training module, Working in Teams, that can be used in a number of
different ways (see Figure 2).
25
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FIGURE 2: USE OF THE WORKING IN TEAMS MODULE
1. Introduction
Interactive
based on past
experience
2. Trouble
shooting
3. Debrief
Procedural only
Procedural only
Mode 1: On-line training package as stand-alone series of modules
1. Introduction
Interactive
based on past
experience
2. Trouble
shooting
Interactive
using current
experience
3. Debrief
Interactive
using current
experience
Student team work as part of course
Mode 2: On-line training package used in conjunction with student team experience
Individual reports available for mentors
1. Introduction
Interactive
based on past
experience
2. Trouble
shooting
Interactive
using current
experience
3. Debrief
Interactive
using current
experience
Student team work as part of course
Mode 3: On-line training package used in conjunction with PETS process
These resources are discussed more in STAGE 2 Step 5 (Working in Teams module) and
STAGE 3 Step 1 (WebPAf).
26
___________________________________________________________________________
stage
2
STAGE 2: START of SEMESTER
The purpose of this stage is to equip students to manage both the learning outcomes of the
project, and to understand why explicit training in group dynamics is an important part of
those learning outcomes.
STEP
TASK
1
2
3
4
5
Communicating the process to students
Team role inventory completion by students
Allocate students to teams (if using team role inventory)
Team formation exercises
Introduction to online module

Step 1: Communicate the process to students
The strategies proposed in this manual need to be disseminated to the students in order for
them to be effective. This communication needs to be made in the initial lecture to
emphasise the importance of teamwork and the penalties for social loafing and unresolved
team dysfunction.
The first lecture needs to cover the following points:

the importance of teamwork for achieving learning objectives and final deliverables –
the summative assessment tasks;

the intentional selection of teams to maximise student potential and performance
(no more detail is given than this so that students can establish the characteristics of
the members of the team without any pre-conceptions);

the strategy for addressing social loafing whereby peer assessment and a chance to
reassign social loafers mid-semester will be used to discourage and appropriately
reward such behaviour (STAGE 3 Step 3);

the peer assessment factor (PAF) and the sensitivity of final individual marks with
respect to it as shown in Table 6. Table 6 shows the spread of marks for a team of six
students (A to F) who all received the same mark for a team assessment deliverable
but who received different peer assessment factors (PAF). This deliverable could be
part of a number of assigned tasks but for the purpose of this illustration it has been
shown as attracting a maximum mark of 100;

the team assessment mark (TAM) and the sensitivity of final marks with respect to it
(see Table 6) if this is to be used as assessment; and
27
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
the reason for, and value of, initial workshops and mentor meetings.
TABLE 6 HOW THE PEER ASSESSMENT FACTOR (PAF)
AND TEAM ASSESSMENT MARK (TAM) INFLUENCE FINAL GRADES
1
Student
A
B
C
D
E
F
2
Project
Mark
(/100)
70
70
70
70
70
70
3
PAF
0.9
1.1
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.9
4
5
Amended
Team
Project
Assessment
Mark (/100) Mark (/100)
63
60
77
60
77
75
70
75
56
45
63
45
6
TOTAL
(/100)
62
74
77
71
54
59
Column 2 shows the mark out of 100 achieved for the team deliverable. In this case,
there has been no difference between the standard of their individual sections and
hence they all have the same marks.
Column 3 shows the Peer Assessment Factor (PAF) calculated as per STAGE 4, Step 2.
Column 4 shows the amended project mark, calculated by multiplying columns 2 and
3.
Column 5 shows the Team Assessment Mark allocated to each student on the basis
of performance during the mentor meetings (See STAGE 3 Step 2). This mark is
optional and is only used if you wish to assign a mark to teamwork itself.
Column 6 shows the final mark, calculated on the basis of column 4 and 5 by
assigning weightings to the value of each of the exercises. In this illustration the TAM
is worth 20% of the final mark: Column 6 = (0.8 x column 4) + (0.2 x column 5)
At the end of the first lecture the students should understand what is meant by, and the
implications of:







course learning outcomes,
project details,
social loafer reassignment,
mentor meetings,
formative assessment,
hurdle assessment, and
course internet site.
It is recommended that the students receive a copy of the course profile, and details of
assessment.
At this stage the students could be directed to complete the first sections of the Working in
Teams module: ‘Introduction to teams’ and ‘Teamwork skills’.
28
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Step 2: Team role inventory completion by students
If the team allocation is to be via team role inventory, then the questionnaire needs to be
administered during the first contact session with the students. This is the tool that will
allow you to assign a leader to each team.
We use a Belbin Team Role Inventory (BTRI) however this must be used carefully. Belbin
published an 8-role inventory (Belbin, 1981); he then went on to found a commercial
company and develop a 9-role inventory which he did not publish.
We have found that administering the 8-role BTRI takes at most 20 minutes. We find that
reminding the students that each row should add to 10 can also save some frustration when
it comes to evaluating results (STAGE 2, Step 3).
FORMS
For this stage of the process you will need the following form. A hard copy can be found at
the back of this Manual and a downloadable copy can be found in the Working in Teams
module.
HANDOUT
USE
RESOURCE
or FORM
BELBIN TRI
QUESTIONNAIRE
Used for team role allocation and also
workshop session (See STAGE 2 Step 4)
FORM 1
What we have found: The BTRI is also useful as an icebreaker and for getting the students to
understand the various roles within teams. Often they will complain that the BTRI
does not accurately predict their preferences within the team but in doing so they will
be using language and concepts from the BTRI. This anecdote can be used to tell the
students that the BTRI is self perception only and that its benefit is not confined to an
immediate self-assessment.
29
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Step 3: Allocate students to teams (if using team role
inventory)
The BTRI results need to be collected and entered into a spreadsheet to determine a “norm”
score for each of the eight roles. It is necessary to establish this norm score as different
cohorts have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the various roles. For
example, students tend to have low Plant scores – this is the creativity, “ball-from-left-field”
role – whereas academics score significantly higher in this role. As another example,
engineering students have a lower average score in the role of the Resource-Investigator –
the “I know someone who can help us” role – than communication students.
Once the student scores have been divided by the cohort average, it is easy to pick out those
students showing either high Shaper or Coordinator scores; they are the students with
scores in these categories of greater than 1.5. The first indicates leading by task and the
second leading by team; both represent capable leaders and these students can be seeded
into each team to ensure that each team has a leader.
The rest of the team can be allocated as per STAGE 1 Step 4 (Figure 1) with a maximum of
one ESL student and a good mix of gender.
What we have found: One semester, there was a sufficient number of social loafers that had
shown no signs of reforming the previous semester, to form a team. It is always a hard
decision to disadvantage harder working teams with social loafers and thus these
students were allocated to the same team. At the beginning of semester, the details of
the situation were explained to the team, and extra tutoring/ mentoring was offered if
needed. The initial response of two of them was astounding: ‘What’s a social loafer?’
and after a sufficiently detailed explanation, it was discovered that they had not
realised that their PAFs had brought their marks down in the preceding subject. The
‘experiment’ was a success with all except one of the team undertaking a fair share of
the projects and thus passing the course.
Step 4: Team formation exercises
The initial activities are planned to allow both team formation and continued team
collaboration. This is best done if the activities achieve both project and team requirements
and thus appeal to the student.
Explicit training takes the active learning format (Teale 2004) shown in Tables 7 and 8 and is
undertaken in a two-hour session in the first week and in a one-hour session the following
week. The online team training module replaces much of the necessity to purposefully teach
this content but we have left it in the manual as, if the Working in Teams module is not
being used, it is important to circulate to the students (items that are in the Working in
Teams module are highlighted in the tables). Even though many of the resources are
contained in the website, the sessions are still required to ensure that the team meets,
begins to form, decides on a code of conduct, and begins to plan the project.
30
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The sessions are run as workshops with little formal lecturing. Information is mostly given as
handouts for the students to read and discuss. There is a number of deliverables to be
submitted at the end of each of the sessions to ensure that the students participate.
Although we use the BTRI for the specific purpose of identifying those students with
leadership potential for purposeful team selection, when no looped knowledge exists, we
also use it in the initial activities as:

an icebreaker (the online training module has some examples), and
Students are asked to discuss their strengths and weaknesses in terms of their Belbin
roles and then to discuss how this may make the team strong or weak. If a team knows
that it is weak in a particular area, then efforts can be made to ensure that this does not
negatively affect their work. For example, a team weak in the area of Monitor Evaluator
will specifically need to address progress at each team meeting and will need to learn
how to provide feedback such that they learn from mistakes and become more efficient
at working together. In addition, students are directed to identifying any possible
conflicts that may occur through their individually preferred methods of working in
teams.
What we have found: We emphasise that weakness on a team or individual basis in any
of the Belbin team roles does not mean failure. What it does mean is that the team
or individual will consciously need to address the weakness and thus ensure that
failure does not result. In this way, the skills associated with the role are actually
learnt. This then illustrates the other point of emphasis which is that Belbin roles
are not static and they change with experience, maturity and with the input of other
team members.

a method of team facilitation.
Often Belbin roles will be used to explain conflict within the team. Students find it
easier to understand a behaviour if it can be explained by a Belbin team role.
Students also often use the Belbin team roles to assign tasks on the basis of identified
preference and skills. For example, a student who is an accomplished Completer
Finisher will often be offered the job as final report editor first. It should be stressed
that the Belbin roles are not cause for stereotyping. In the same way that the team
must not always rely on the Completer Finisher to edit the final report, Team Workers
cannot divest themselves of decision making and leadership because they are not
Coordinators or Shapers.
31
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TABLE 7 EXPLICIT TEAM TRAINING
SESSION 1: BRIEFING ON BELBIN AND TEAMWORK (2 hours)
[Highlighted resources can be found in the Working with Teams module.]
#
1
OBJECTIVE
To have students understand:
 stages in team
development
 Belbin roles
 team ground rules
 methods of conflict
resolution
 the student teams
STAFF
STUDENTS
RESOURCES
Powerpoint
Presentation
Listen, make
notes
RESOURCE 5
Getting teams
unstuck
RESOURCE 6
Stages in team
development
RESOURCE 7
Teamwork
questionnaire
RESOURCE 8
Team ground
rules
Distribute
Resources
To introduce TEAM SELF HELP
TOOLKIT (RESOURCES 1-4)
To have students complete
Belbin Questionnaire if this has
not already been completed in
STAGE 2 Step 3
Distribute
Belbin
questionnaire
Complete
Belbin
questionnaire
To have members of student
teams analyse and discuss their
preferred team roles
Powerpoint
presentation Belbin
Facilitate team
discussion
Answer Questions
Each team
discusses and
then writes a 1page document
outlining analysis
of their Belbin
results.
4
To have student teams establish
their team goals
Facilitate
team
discussion;
Answer questions
Each team writes
a 1-page list of
shared goals or a
Vision Diagram
(Note 1)
5
To have students agree a
written set of rules (Note 2)
2
3
7
To distribute sub-task of the
project(s) necessary for the
mentor-facilitated discussion in
the second session.
Each team
discusses and
then writes a 1page statement of
ground rules
Distribute / explain
sub task
Listen, make
notes
FORM 1: Belbin
questionnaire
RESOURCE 1-4
Belbin
explanatory
notes
TIME
15
mins
15
mins
10 +
20
mins
20
mins
FORM 8 : Team
rule template
Project sub-task
(Note 3)
20
mins
10
mins
(due W/shop 2)
NOTES
1. Engineering students do not like putting together Vision diagrams but these are very important in ensuring
that the goals of the team are discussed and agreed upon. Therefore, for engineering students, a Code of
Conduct incorporating what grades they want, what quality they want their final deliverables to be etc can
be completed.
32
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2. Students can reflect on positive and negative experiences that they have had in the past and formulate
rules that will preserve the former and eliminate the latter. These rules with role play exercises, but make
sure you pick the right cohort for this as engineering students hate these.
Engineering students are not very good at considering all facets of team rules and hence a specific form was
developed that purposefully asks them to consider all requirements. This form is included in the Working in
Teams module.
3. As the sub-task, students can be asked to develop a preliminary process flow sheet – if the students are in
later years of their course, this task usually will require some outside research.
Upon completion of Session 1, students will have:

met and broken the ice;

defined their intra-team relationships, potential conflicts and potential weaknesses/
strengths;

be well progressed in the team forming having decided upon shared goals, and
written up a set of rules for operation; and

be on the way to performing as they have a team task to complete for Workshop 2.
TABLE 8 EXPLICIT TEAM TRAINING SESSION 2 (1 hour)
#
OBJECTIVE
1
Introduction of mentors and their
role
2
3
To have the students engage in a
mentor-facilitated discussion of
the sub-task on:
 leadership
 communication
 social loafing
To have students plan and
schedule tasks ahead
STAFF
STUDENTS
RESOURCES
TIME
Powerpoint
presentation
Listen
Facilitate student
discussion
Team
discussion
10 mins per
team
Facilitate
Each team to
produce a
draft GANTT
chart
50 mins –
when not
talking to
mentors
Upon completion of Session 2, students will have:

met their mentors and understood the rhythm of the course with respect to mentor
meetings and their function;

a better idea of the preferred roles of their team members;

a better idea of methods of communication; and

a schedule for completing the allotted team tasks.
Effective communication to students in these sessions will reduce subsequent demands for
explanation, so it is worthwhile checking as you proceed that students have grasped the key
points. Get them briefly to cross check their understanding with the person sitting next to
them.
33
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FORMS
For this stage of the process you will need the following forms. Hard copies are found at the
back of this Manual. Downloadable copies can be found in the Working in Teams module.
Handouts which diagnose dysfunction and offer strategies for overcoming dysfunction are
given so that teams will be able to self-diagnose and cure should the need arise. It is
recommended that all resources and forms be loaded onto the course internet site. If you
are using the Working in Teams module, only the website address needs to be uploaded.
HANDOUT
USE
BTRI questionnaire
Points table for Belbin
Individual review for
mentor meetings
Used in workshop session (See STAGE 2 Step 2)
Used in workshop session (See STAGE 2 Step 2)
Completed by each student prior to mentor meetings
(See STAGE 3 Step 1). This form may be replaced by
WebPAf if you decide to use this online tool to manage
peer assessment.
Administered as early as possible in the semester;
forms the basic data set from which team allocations
are made
Used in workshop session (See STAGE 2 Step 2) and also
forming part of the toolkit for dysfunctional teams.
Includes explanation of the various attributes, the
potential conflicts and project stages vs. Belbin roles.
Interpreting Belbin’s
team roles inventory
Belbin team roles
Potential team role
conflicts
Belbin team roles and
project stages
Getting teams unstuck
Stages in team
development
Teamwork
questionnaire
Team ground rules
examples
Distributed as a resource – not covered in lectures but
briefly introduced as tool for helping dysfunctional
teams
Used in workshop session (See STAGE 2 Step 2)
RESOURCE
or FORM
FORM 1
FORM 2
FORM 4
RESOURCE 1
RESOURCE 2
RESOURCE 3
RESOURCE 4
RESOURCE 5
RESOURCE 6
RESOURCE 7
RESOURCE 8
FAQs
But the social loafers don’t turn up to the 1st lecture …
It should be no surprise to realise that many students who will be identified as social loafers
do not come to the first lecture and thus miss out on learning about the measures put in
place to allow teams to penalise this behaviour.
As a remedy to this, it is suggested that all students be emailed in the week prior to the
beginning of semester, to let them know how important attendance at the first lecture is.
However, you should ensure that students with reasonable excuses for missing the first
lectures are directed to, and have access to, the information you present.
34
___________________________________________________________________________
How do I calculate the PAF score?
Students use FORM 4 (Individual Review for Mentor Meetings) prior to mentor meetings or
FORM 5 (Peer Evaluation Form), submitted with each deliverable, to record their
perceptions of the comparative input of their team mates by dividing 100 points between all
students including themselves. Individual peer assessment scores are totalled for each
student and then divided by 100 to obtain the peer assessment factor (PAF). (See STAGE 4
Step 2 for derivation.)
PAF marks less than or equal to 0.7 indicate social loafing. PAF marks of 0.8 are low but may
be due to some other circumstance and hence other evidence, such as negative team
comments on FORM 4, would be required to determine whether the student was free riding.
How do I calculate the TAM score?
See STAGE 3, Step 2.
Step 5: Introduce online Working in Teams learning module
One of the strong features of the PETS program is its modularity and the flexibility of its
content. This printed manual refers to everything you need to complete the whole program
but we have also developed an extensive website for students to use in class, or at home. If
you want to look at the system use the demo site: http://aneesha.ceit.uq.edu.au/drupal/
with the login: teststudent and password: teststudent09. Please contact us if you would like
to use the system at your institution and we will arrange to send you a version for you to
install on your institution’s server free of charge.
This online module includes advanced privacy features so that your project work is secure
within your university or organisation, as well as pointers and prompts for in-room and
remote group work. As we have designed it in Drupal, it can also be easily modified by you
to suit your course or institutional needs.
Videos guide you through the most important sections, offering interactive worksheets and
real-life examples of teamwork at its best … and sometimes at its worst. We have drawn on
national and global teamwork research and resources to compile this module.
Each section is clearly labelled with introductions and “next page” links, and there’s a
“progress bar” at the bottom of each page to let you know how far you’ve progressed and
how far you have to go. Students can work through the whole thing in a single sitting, or
choose to visit several times or more, working gradually through all the videos and exercises
at their own speed. It is also intended as a resource to which students can refer as questions
and issues arise in their projects.
As an instructor, you need to decide how you will use this resource: you can choose to
integrate the website into your course or just offer it as a convenient stand-alone resource
(See Figure 2, STEP 1 Stage 5). You can choose to view/ collect/ grade the students’
reflections and input and you can also track how long each student spends on each page to
ensure that the material is being properly read.
35
___________________________________________________________________________
The sections in the website are as shown in Table 9. This table also gives a guide of how and
when the students could access these pages.
TABLE 8 WORKING IN TEAMS: TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
PART 1 Introduction to teams
What is a team?
Why teamwork?
What are the types of teams?
What is the lifecycle of a team?
How do I work in teams?
What are my experiences?
PART 2 Teamwork skills
What will be asked of me?
How will we communicate?
Listening: how do we receive a
message?
The individual's role in a team
What are the roles in effective
teams?
How do the roles match with the
stages of the project?
How does this help?
And what of leadership?
Diversity
Cultural Awareness Quiz
What is social loafing?
Dealing with social loafing
What are my expectations?
PART 3 Setting things up
Meet your team
The Team charter/ Code of conduct
Plan your Project
Set up a system for team meetings
PART 4 Troubleshooting
DIY troubleshooting
Dealing with conflict
Managing Conflict
Strategies for Conflict Resolution
PART 5 Reflecting
SUGGESTED USE
When: At the beginning of semester
Why: To explain the use of teamwork in the course
Information
Information
Information
Information
Interactive quiz – answers, which can be accessed by
instructor, are brought back in Part 5 so that students can
see how they have changed through the semester.
Student reflection – could be used as part of assessment.
When: At the beginning of semester before teams are set
Why: To get students thinking about how they work in
teams
Information
Information
Interactive video quiz
Information
Information – and link to BTRI quiz.
Information – and student reflection which could be used
as part of assessment.
Information
Information
Information
Interactive quiz – answers can be accessed by instructor.
Information
Information
Student reflection – could be used as part of assessment.
When: When teams are formed and planning is required
Why: To get students to agree a code of conduct and the
way forward
Information – and suggested process
Information – and template
Information – and templates
Information – and templates
When: Anytime during semester
Why: Students access this section as and when necessary
Interactive troubleshooter
Information
Information
Information
When: At the end of semester
Why: To get students reflecting on what happened in order
36
___________________________________________________________________________
What will I take forward?
How have I changed?
References/Credits
to maximise learning from the teamwork experience.
Student reflection – could be used as part of assessment.
Interactive quiz from PART 1 – could be used as part of
assessment.
Information
We value your feedback and invite your comments on any potential improvements.
Technical support issues will be addressed by your local network administrator, of course,
but we’d like to hear about your team, how you use this website and how it’s helped your
organisation or class group. Actually this goes for the whole process presented in this
manual – any feedback is welcome.
37
stage
___________________________________________________________________________
3
STAGE 3: DURING SEMESTER
At this stage, the focus is on monitoring and mentoring student progress. This means that
students are required to reflect, both as individuals, and as a team, on their progress, and to
meet with their team mentor to discuss their progress.
The mechanism for making sure the team is on track is the mentor meeting. The number of
mentor meetings is for you as the instructor to decide but we have found three to be good.
You need to determine the number of mentor meetings before the start of semester, and
schedule these into the course.
The other suggestion we have for keeping the team on track is a hurdle assessment task.
This gives students feedback about their progress in relation to knowledge outcomes of the
course.
STEP
TASK
STEP 1
STEP 2
STEP 3
STEP 4
STEP 5
Individual student reflection(s) on task and process so far
Mentor meeting(s)
Social loafer reassignment – if required
Formative assessment
Hurdle assessment

The steps 1, 2 and 4 of Stage 3 are linked, and can be repeated at appropriate intervals.
Step 1: Individual student reflection
Prior to the team review of progress, (STAGE 3 Step 2) each team member completes FORM
4 (Individual Review for mentor meetings) which is submitted to the mentor ahead of the
mentor meeting. (The use of the online WebPAf circumvents the need to use this form as it
provides a forum for the students to reflect and peer assess electronically.) It should be:

completed by the individual student with the knowledge that only the course
mentors and lecturers will view its contents;

completed prior to each mentor meeting (STAGE 3 Step 2) with sufficient time to
allow interpretation by the mentor and preparation for appropriate mentor meeting
facilitation;

submitted formally, perhaps as a compulsory requirement of the subject, to ensure
the students undertake the reflective process.
Be aware that students may need some in-class instruction about how the distribution of the
100 points among members of the team works.
38
___________________________________________________________________________
Another suggestion is to encourage the students to have a team meeting to reflect the team
process prior to the mentor meeting. This team meeting could take place before or after the
students complete FORM 4 or WebPAf, with the aim of getting the team to resolve conflict
without the need for mentor intervention.
FAQs
I’m turning up some very strange students …
We have found that the PETS process can expose those students with psychological
problems very early in the course: usually through the process of individual reflection, both
by the student in question and by their team mates. Very often these students require
counselling that is not within our expertise and hence we refer them to the university’s
student support services.
What is WebPAf?
WebPAf is an online peer assessment system that saves you time. Rather than receiving
individual forms or Excel files from your students you can now have your students log into
the WebPAf system, fill out an online peer assessment form set by you, and let WebPAf
gather the results and report back to you. It means that you (or your tutors) won’t spend
hours typing the peer assessment results for each team member in each team; WebPAf
collects and manages the information electronically and presents the results in an easy-tounderstand Excel spreadsheet. WebPAf allows for considerable flexibility in setting peer
assessments and includes automated features such as automatically emailing students when
the online peer assessment forms are available for completion. WebPAf has numerous
useful and easy-to-use features such as determining at a glance which students have and
haven’t completed the peer assessment, and being able to email those who haven’t.
Why must all students submit the forms?
There are two reasons why all students must submit the forms:

calculated Peer Assessment Factors (PAF) can become skewed if based on the scores
arising from only a couple of students’ marks; and

if only a couple of students submit forms then the remainder of the team knows who
to was responsible for their PAF – this can get nasty if they’ve received a low score.
Step 2: Mentor meeting
The mentor meetings are highly valued by the students for technical, time management, and
team facilitation input. At these meetings the mentor provides formative feedback to the
team.
Prior to the Mentor Meeting with students, mentors should ensure that they have received
FORM 4 (Individual Review for Mentor Meeting) from each student, and that they have
calculated the Peer Assessment Factor (PAF) for each student. The completed forms can
then be used to diagnose group dysfunction, and in particular, to identify social loafers. The
following should be taken into account when interpreting the form:
39
___________________________________________________________________________

social loafing may be indicated by:
o specific comments by a majority of team members;
o a majority of team members indicating that a student is not contributing and
subsequently giving them very low marks when distributing the 100 points;
and/ or
o an individual reflection at odds with the rest of the team showing a complete
lack of knowledge with respect to the team’s progress and work;

personal conflict may be indicated by:
o specific directed comments about a particular team member made by one or
more students; and/ or
o a distribution of marks against a particular student at odds with the rest of
the team’s distributions made by one student;

poor team performance may be indicated by:
o specific comments about the team achievements (or lack thereof); and/ or
o specific comments such as poor meeting procedure, poor communication.
Mentor meetings are held on a formal basis with all team members present and can be
anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes in duration depending on the detail involved in the project
and the check list tasks to be evaluated. It would sometimes be useful to have longer
meetings but allowing 60 minutes per group becomes a large time commitment if you are
mentoring more than a couple of teams. To formalise this procedure and to ensure that
students understand the importance of the process, it is recommended that a mark be
assigned to this aspect of group work.
At the mentor meetings:

team members are asked to review or describe both the goals for the team and their
code of cooperation to ensure group learning objectives are being achieved;

the work detailed as requiring completion on the project check sheet is examined
and technical feedback given;

the facilitator/ mentor explores with the team any issues raised through student
reflection and discusses strategies for addressing these problems: where the team is,
where it needs to be, and methods for proceeding; and

the discussion can be directed to social loafing, personal conflict and differing team
expectations if necessary. Peer Assessment Factors (PAF) may be given back to the
team on a formative basis and a team discussion initiated around how any individuals
who have peer assessment factors lower than one, can be reintegrated into the
team.
40
___________________________________________________________________________
The level to which the mentor becomes involved with the team at these meetings needs to
be agreed with the teaching team at the beginning of semester (see STAGE 1 Step 3, Table
4).
What we have found: Letting the students know their PAFs formatively early in the
semester really can have a positive impact on their teamwork if the mentor
manages the session well. We think that it is very important to give this sort of
feedback, but it is never easy when there are students in the team who have
performed poorly. Even after years of mentoring, we still find it very difficult. There
is no right way to do this – you just have to feel your way with each different
situation.
FAQs
Why do the mentor meeting reflection forms need to be confidential?
The Peer Assessment Form (FORM 4), or the online peer assessment tool WebPAf, which
provide the basis for mentors identifying team dysfunction, are confidential. Students feel
that they can fill out these forms without the other members of their team finding out what
they have written. Your teaching team must be made aware of the sacrosanct nature of the
student reflections or the tool no longer is of any use as reflected by a student:
‘We were told peer assessment (team review) was confidential. However in mentor meetings
individuals who had given slack team members honest reviews were named and the problem
discussed openly. This, in my opinion, encouraged teams to distribute marks evenly from this
point on.’
Sometimes it is necessary to name students as pointed out below but this should always be
done in such a way that the other team members are not identified as having made the
damning remark. We have found that students are sensitive to being named with respect to
how they feel the team is progressing and so have become very vague when bringing up
such matters indicating only that “some team members feel that …”.
What if I have a social loafer?
See also STEP 3, Stage 3.
The decision of whether to reveal PAFs and with them social loafers and team members who
have caused conflict needs to be taken with great care.
In some cases, we only name students who are in danger of being reassigned due to social
loafing as this usually causes the student to reassess their actions and reapply themselves to
the team. In others, to facilitate increased team performance we will give the team their
PAFs. There will always be ill-feeling associated with revealing students who the team have
judged to be poor performers – skilful facilitation is required to ensure that these negative
feelings are resolved at the mentor meeting. We often find the old trick of calling a break in
proceedings if tempers are starting to fray to be very useful.
41
___________________________________________________________________________
In most cases, we ask the students whether they would like to discuss the issue at the
mentor meeting or, now that they are aware that there is an issue, whether they would like
to address it themselves at their next team meeting.
In addition, we have found that the mentor must discuss with the team, opportunities for
the social loafer to be brought back into the team as a useful member. This is often difficult
for the team to facilitate but if left, the situation will generally continue with the social loafer
left out of proceedings due to the team being unwilling to trust them. Often we will set a
time limit for the social loafer to produce the agreed work and in this way manage to gain
the team’s agreement in assigning work to the social loafer. Be warned that students, both
“accused” and “accusers”, will bear a grudge after the incident and hence the situation will
need continued monitoring.
Is there a need to meet with individuals?
Individuals who are having trouble with teamwork often can be best counselled through
individual meetings. These students may have fallen foul of a clique within the team, have
insufficient confidence to address what they perceive to be a problem directly with the
team, or have an issue that they would like to discuss with you rather than the team. In
each case, I find that a one-on-one meeting can ameliorate the issue. During these
meetings, the coordinator facilitates the frank discussion and delineation of the problem and
then discusses and develops potential strategies for problem solution.
How do I calculate a TEAM ASSESSMENT MARK (TAM)?
The team assessment mark (TAM) can be included in the final assessment (STAGE 4 Step 4) if
it is important that the students improve teamwork skills. Using a TAM in your course is
entirely optional and will depend on your learning outcomes. It can be used to encourage
students to fill out the necessary individual reflections prior to mentor meetings, attend
mentor meetings, and achieve the tasks outlined on project check sheets.
The TAM can be generated through a number of different assessments. We often generate
it though two parts:

evaluation of individuals at mentor meetings: submission of forms, attendance and
participation at mentor meetings, team learning etc. (Table 10), and

an overall team mark (Table 11 – maximum score of 50) or grade based on the
mentor’s observations of team success and team functionality. The inclusion of an
overall team dimension score encourages teams to communicate well, solve any
conflicts, share learning, and meet deadlines in addition to emphasising the
importance of teamwork..
42
___________________________________________________________________________
TABLE 10: MENTOR MEETING SCORE SHEET FOR CALCULATING TAM
MENTOR MEETING No. #
Student Student
A
B
etc.
Individual items
Reflection
submitted
Present
Active participation
Group items
Milestones
complete
Team meeting logs
Shared learning
TOTAL
SCORING
0=No 3=Yes
0=No 3=Yes
0=None 1=Avg 2=Outstanding
0=None 1=Few 2=Most 3=All
0=Poor 1=Avg 2=Comprehensive
0=Poor 1=Avg 2=Excellent
MAX: 15
TABLE 11: OVERALL TEAM MARK CALCULATION
Team’s purpose
Uncertain
1 2 3 4 5
Clear
Team membership/ structure/ Cliques and
engagement
individuals
1 2 3 4 5
All in
Communication
Very guarded
1 2 3 4 5
Very open
Goals
Set from above
1 2 3 4 5
Through team interaction
Use of team members’ skills
Poor use
1 2 3 4 5
Good use
Support
Little help for
individuals
1 2 3 4 5
High level of support for
individuals
Conflict
Difficult issues
avoided
1 2 3 4 5
Problems discussed
openly and directly
Influence on decisions
By few members
1 2 3 4 5
By all members
Risk taking
Not encouraged
1 2 3 4 5
Encouraged/ supported
Working on relationships
Little effort
1 2 3 4 5
High level of effort
I combine these assessments to give a TAM as follows:
43
___________________________________________________________________________
TAM  Overall team mark 
Student mentor meeting score
Maximum mentor meeting score achieved by individual in team
This shows that the individual score is used as a factor to apply individual team efforts to the
overall team mark. Thus team members showing leadership skills are rewarded. However
the two scores could be used in any way you like; we like the ability to weight the overall
team score according to the student inputs observed.
It is possible that just an overall team mark or an individual team score could be used. A less
detailed rubric for giving an overall team dimension score, based on a 1 (lowest) to 7
(highest) grade system, may be as follows:
7
All team members contributed effectively and equally to setting and achieving
the project goals, and shared all internal team communication, learning and
skills development in the project work.
6
All team members contributed effectively to setting and achieving project goals
and shared most internal team communication, learning and skills development
in the project work.
5
All team members contributed reasonably to achieving project goals but the
effort was not equitable and there was limited internal team communication,
and sharing of learning and skills development in the project work.
4
All team members contributed reasonably to achieving project goals but the
effort was far from equitable and there was erratic internal team
communication, and little or no sharing of learning and skills development in the
project work.
<4
Not all team members contributed their fair share, internal team
communication was poor, and there was no sharing of learning and skills
development in the project work.
What are the attributes of a good mentor?
The qualities of a good mentor are (Rowley, 1999): commitment to the role of mentoring;
acceptance of the student; skill at providing instructional support; effectiveness in different
interpersonal contexts; a model of a continuous learner; and communication of hope and
optimism.
And the big one … required during all mentor meetings and ad-hoc meetings with teams, is
that of listening. “A good mentor is a good listener. Hear exactly what the student is trying
to tell you—without first interpreting or judging. Pay attention to the "subtext" and
undertones of the student's words, including tone, attitude, and body language. When you
think you have understood a point, it might be helpful to repeat it to the student and ask
whether you have understood correctly. Through careful listening, you convey your empathy
for the student and your understanding of a student's challenges. When a student feels this
empathy, the way is open for clear communication and more-effective mentoring” (National
Academy of Science, 1997). This last – a good listener – is critical.
We have found mentoring to be something that we get better at the more we practice it.
44
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Step 3: What to do with ‘social loafers’?
One of the outcomes of Mentor Meetings and anonymous student reflection is that students
who are social loafing will be identified through the PAF, other team member comments,
and your observations.
It has been made clear (STAGE 2 Step 1) that the penalty for social loafing may be to be reassigned to a newly created team which is fully comprised of social loafers who have been
excluded from their teams for poor participation and performance. The point at which this
re-assignment takes place is normally after the second mentor meeting and is on the basis of
two consecutive poor PAF assessments. We have found that we also need to specify a
significant decrease in PAF scores between mentor meetings because, unfortunately, there
are those students who will work the system doing as little as possible whilst managing to
keep just below the radar.
It is important that:

social loafers are given written advice by the course coordinator that they face reassignment unless their performance improves after the first poor PAF assessment.
Depending on comments from teammates on the anonymous reflection sheets, this
is usually a score of 0.7 or less but sometimes 0.8 if this score is not due to other
circumstances such as sickness;

social loafers have the opportunity to redeem themselves, so reassignment (by the
course coordinator) will only take place after a second negative PAF assessment; and

re-assignment is by the course coordinator on the advice and recommendation of the
affected team. An alternative course of action to reassigning a social loafer is open
discussion with the team, wherein the social loafer is named. This course of action is
supported if members of the teams with social loafers have not expressed a desire
for the removal of the social loafer but rather a wish for their remediation within the
team.
If a new team of reassigned members is to be made, then consideration needs to be given
to:

the project(s) that this team shall work on;

the information the reassigned members can take with them to the new team; and

whether the team that is losing a member needs to be compensated for the loss of a
member by, for example, a project modification which lessens their workload but still
allows the learning objectives to be achieved.
There is no right answer to the problem of dealing with social loafers; each answer will be
situation specific.
In the various iterations of this process to date, no student has been re-assigned; the
opinions of their peers have proved sufficiently powerful to motivate their successful
integration with the team.
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What we have found: We have never had to reassign a student due to a second poor PAF
assessment. We have had to reassign students due to irreconcilable team dysfunction
however. And we currently do put teams of social loafers together at the beginning of
semester rather than ‘sharing’ them around other teams. This team is always told of
the basis of their selection (“You remember how last semester, the rest of the team
seemed always to be way ahead of you ...”) and given extra mentoring to ensure that
they meet submittable assessment deadlines.”
FAQs
What causes social loafing and can it be remedied?
Social loafers appear to come in a number of different flavours, or combinations of flavours:

The informed reformer: This is the student that misses the first important lectures of
the semester where the PETS process is outlined, along with its strategy for coping with
social loafers. The informed reformer will drift along unaware of the peer assessment
process and the disgruntlement of their fellow team mates until it is pointed out to them
in a sit-down discussion where no more than six students are present and thus direct
interaction with them can be achieved. These students will often be astonished to learn
they have been loafing and will usually reform.

The non-team player: This student is often a high achiever who gets excellent marks in
all subjects but believes all work done by anyone other than themselves is inferior and
needs to be redone. Often they score low marks in peer assessment as the other
members of their team penalise them for poor communication, creating extra work and
failing to resolve any team problems. On occasion, they will produce a final deliverable
on their own. They are most dangerous when they take over leadership, complete the
task before the other students have had a chance to read the assignment, and hence do
not allow the rest of the team to achieve learning objectives. We have found that fixing
this problem is difficult and requires much monitoring and mentoring often to the
intense frustration of the non-team player.

The quick learner: This student receives one bad peer assessment and an accompanying
warning email and reforms to become a valuable member of the team. A subset of this
type of social loafer will go on to try the same behaviour in subsequent teams but will
immediately reform if the team penalises them. There are also some students whose
PAFs get steadily worse but not bad enough to warrant a warning email. It is almost as if
they are testing the limits of the team’s patience and finding the level at which they will
be penalised by their peers.

The un-confident: This student is sure that they are not as clever as the rest of their
teammates and hence let them make all the decisions and do the work. They are afraid
of getting it wrong and their perceived lack of intelligence being exposed. They may
have made a previous mistake and feel that they’ve lost some of the team’s trust. These
students are hard to recognise but respond well to a one-on-one pep talk.

The laid-back: This student is quite happy to let those more motivated students take on
tasks as this will give them more time to concentrate on other subjects. It is quite
46
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possible that this student is also an informed reformer or quick learner, in which cases
they can become valuable members of the team.

The recidivist: You can email, talk to, penalise, and finally fail this student with no effect.
This is the true social loafer and we have yet to find a method of changing this student’s
behaviour and it is with heavy hearts that we note they have re-signed for our courses.
We haven’t presented all methods/ successes here mostly as they are situation/individual
specific and as we get more experience we get better at reforming and curing dysfunction.
You will find the same.
Step 4: Formative assessment
Mentor meetings provide the ideal situation for formative assessment allowing the student
to receive feedback on technical issues, time-management, and team processes.
Formative assessment is particularly important if the weighting of the project is 100%
although most institutions have a policy against courses having all assessment based on one
item. It is best to stage presentation of deliverables; we often break the final deliverable
down into several sub-deliverables. The date these sub deliverables are due can be tied to
mentor meetings; before or after, according to circumstance.
An example of how to manage the relationship between mentor meetings, formative and
summative assessment taken from a third-year communication course, is given in Table 12
and the following bullet points. The final deliverable is a report evaluating the effectiveness
of a public communication campaign the students have run throughout the semester.
TABLE 12: OVERALLL TEAM MARK CALCULATION
TASK
DELIVERABLE
DEADLINE
WEIGHTING
AFFECTED
BY PAF
1
Written Proposal
Week 3
10%
No
2
Oral Presentation
Week 13
30%
Yes
3
Written Report
Week 14
60%
Yes
The mentor meetings for this course are structured as follows:

Mentor meeting 1: In Week 2 or 3, for up to an hour, to achieve the following:
□ Instructor gives a detailed brief of the project, and answers any unresolved
questions about the project;
□ workshop ideas about the project – particularly how to evaluate it;
□ evaluate whether the group is bonding, and answer any questions about their
Belbin scores; and
□ undertake any preliminary diagnostic work on group dynamics.
47
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The mentor meeting form (FORM 4) is not required at this meeting. However, each
team is required to present the written proposal of the project at the end of Week 3.
This is a summative assessment task.

Mentor Meeting 2: In Week 4 or 5, for up to 30 minutes, to:
□ provide feedback – i.e. formative assessment – on their proposal;
□ workshop the proposal further; and
□ identify any tendencies to social loafing based on completion of FORM 4 (or
WebPAf) and feedback/ discuss these with students including explaining how the
PAF can influence a student grade. Actual PAFs can be discussed with the students
during this meeting to facilitate improved performance of those students with a PAF
less than one.
The key to effective formative assessment is to have an assessment task as early as
possible in the semester, with a low summative weighting, but a high formative value.
The formative value of the assessment task is enhanced by a fast turnaround by the
instructor.
The secrets to the fast turnaround of such assessment tasks are:
□ construction of the assessment task – prescribe a short report format in dot
point forms with plenty of sub headings. Essays are problematic because of the
time it takes to read and make written comments. Some people use a proforma marking guide based on the assessment criteria.
□ electronic submission via email or an online learning management system;
□ use of dictation software such as Voice Perfect to make written comments on
students work;
□ use track changes to mark the work, and return it via email; and
□ post the results on your course website when marking is complete. Don’t wait
for the next meeting of the class.

Mentor Meeting 3: At any point during the second half of the semester, between
Week 8 and Week 13, to:
□ ensure the team is on track to produce their final deliverable;
□ assist in the resolution of any unresolved issues relating to task or team;
□ provide formative assessment on the shape of the final deliverable; and
□ provide feedback on PAFs in a formative fashion.
Colleagues may resent you for raising the bar, but in an age of instant gratification,
formative assessment is facilitated by fast turnaround. Assessment tasks should be returned
to students within a week of the submission date.
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Step 5: Hurdle assessment
Hurdle assessment is a summative assessment task to which no weighting is attached, but
which must be successfully completed before the student can receive a mark for subsequent
summative assessment. Hurdle assessment should always be applied with care, and some
institutions have policies which place limits on the nature and extent of hurdle assessment.
Check your policy manual for details.
There is often a basic core of knowledge that students must have in order to complete the
team project. Hurdle assessment is one way of ensuring that all students have that basic
knowledge and thus take part in the team project.
Hurdle assessment can be in the form of a PASS/FAIL test. It need not be onerous or
lengthy. Our experience suggests that the QUIZ or TEST facility on the course website is the
most useful way to present such a requirement. Students can complete the task in their
own time, when they are ready. However you will need to ensure your learning
management system has safeguards against collaboration if using this method.
Alternatively you may wish to use an in-class multiple choice test which can be computer
marked.
For example, in one course, the hurdle assessment takes the form of a session using the
computer program which forms the backbone of one of the projects and is essential for
learning objectives. The student is asked to simulate a basic process, run the simulation, and
interpret answers. Students have been given six 2-hour tutorial sessions about the
operation of this program and are generally given a second chance at passing the quiz should
they fail the first time.
49
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stage
4
STAGE 4: GETTING OVER THE LINE
The key elements of this stage are the delivery by the student team of the finished
project(s), and the assessment of their performance as a team. There are two steps involved
in the assessment of team performance: an anonymous peer and self assessment of each
member of the team by all team members (summative assessment), and a team meeting
with mentors for the purpose of providing feedback on team performance (formative
assessment).
STEP
TASK
STEP 1
STEP 2
Delivery of completed team task(s): summative assessment
Peer assessment of each team member by other team members
with each deliverable
Team meeting for feedback
Marking & release of results
STEP 3
STEP 4

Step 1: Delivery of project
Assessment is derived in part from team output and in part from individual output; both of
these are usually contained in the same deliverable. If the deliverable is a report, it should
be submitted with a statement indicating which student did each part of the individual
assessment contained within the report. Both the team and the individual receive marks for
deliverables and team work, and these should be specified in the assessment criteria.
Step 2: Peer assessment of individual performance
Each deliverable should be accompanied by a Peer Evaluation Form (FORM 4) or the use of
WebPAf to manage this process. All students in the team are asked to split 100 points
between the members of their team depending on various criteria. This can be undertaken
for a single criterion (e.g. overall performance) or many (e.g. communication, effort,
punctuality to meetings and with submission, technical input etc.). Students can self assess
(i.e. divide 100 points between all team members including themselves) or just be asked to
assess the others in their team.
The process is undertaken anonymously so that other students do not see it. The points
given to each student are averaged and then used to calculate the Peer Assessment Factor
(PAF) as outlined below.
The PAF is calculated by the sum of all scores attributed to a student (∑Scores Given to student)
divided by the number of criteria multiplied by 100 (NCriteria x 100):
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PAFStudent 
 Scores
Given to student
N Criteria x100
The sum is divided by 100 as this is the mark achievable should everyone get an average
mark (e.g. with five students in a team, an average student would receive 20 points from
each student including themselves – this would total 100).
The above formula assumes all students have completed the assessment. If a student has
not completed the assessment then the equation becomes:
PAFStudent 
 Scores
Given to student
NCriteria x100
x
NStudents in team
NStudents completing peer assessment
WebPAf does these calculations and correction automatically.
If students have been allocated equal marks for equal effort, the PAF will be 1.0. A PAF of
greater than 1.0 indicates a student who has put in more than average whilst scores of less
than 0.8 and sometimes 0.9 indicate a social loafer.
As students have only 100 points to distribute, PAF scores of 0.9 will be generated if one
student has done exceptionally well and the team members want to reward them. To
reward a student with more than an equal share of the 100 points means that other team
members will get less than an equal share of the 100 points and will therefore end up with a
PAF of 0.9 or less.
The PAF may need to be capped at 1.1 as giving more than a 10% increase in marks (STAGE 4
Step 4) can lead to final subject marks of greater than 100% if there is no other assessment.
For example, we use a cap of 10% as the marks for our courses are mostly project-based
which means that greater ‘bonuses’ can cause marks to be elevated beyond that
commensurate with the individual student’s achievement and learning. For example, a team
scores 80% for a project and an individual student achieves a peer assessment factor (PAF)
of 1.25. Applying the 10% cap, a final mark of 88% is therefore awarded rather than 100%.
What we have found: We once used to get the teams to fill out a single form agreeing
weightings between individual members. All members of the team had to sign the
form before it was submitted. However, we received many complaints from students
reluctant to openly penalise friends and people that they had to continue to work with.
The anonymous version has completely eradicated this complaint.
As with any pedagogic innovation, especially one attached to summative assessment tasks,
students should be given the opportunity to practice the task so they understand how to do
it, and how it impacts on their grade, before it actually counts! This is why we have included
the completion and calculation of the Peer Assessment Factor in mentor meetings.
Both the process, and the permissible variations to it, such as re-submission and mis-marking
(see FAQs), should be set out in writing in the course profile circulated to students at the
commencement of semester. This way, everyone is clear on the rules. There may also be
some advantage in documenting the procedures for peer assessment in the Assessment
51
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Policy of your School. This will encourage the adoption of uniform assessment practices
across the academic program.
FAQs
Is there a case for resubmission?
We have had a couple of occasions to grant the resubmission of Peer Assessment Forms.
This is usually at the beginning of semester when the students and the team are getting
to grips with peer assessment and the effect it has on the team. In these cases, the teams
usually approach us for a resubmission as the results have been somewhat coming and
students had not understood the consequences of the low marks they assigned to others
in the team. On an occasion, a team member would have failed the project and their
team members did not think that failure was deserved although they did agree that some
penalty was warranted. In another case, a schism had occurred in the group due to three
members getting very poor PAF scores and the others receiving bonus scores. The remark was allowed as the whole group requested one; the students attracting bonus
marks were perceived as a clique by the others. It was obvious that relations would be
strained for the remainder of the semester should the re-mark not be granted.
Allowing the resubmission of PAFs is discretionary but we encourage you to reflect on the
decision on the basis of maintaining team function.
Can students use the system to benefit themselves?
See STAGE 4 Step 3.
What do I do with the 100 points distribution?
See STAGE 4 Step 5.
What do the PAF scores indicate?
A student who pulls their own weight in a team and who does similar amounts of work to
everyone else will achieve a peer assessment factor (PAF) of 1.0.
Students who lead the team and who are recognised to put in extra work will achieve a PAF
above 1.0. It should be noted that in order for students to reward someone they believe is
doing extra work, they have to take points from another student who may not be social
loafing but who is perceived to not be doing quite as much as the rest of the team.
Therefore it is quite common for students to receive PAFs slightly below 1.0 but not to be in
danger of failing as their team mates have robbed Peter to pay Paul. Table 13 shows the
various levels of PAFs and possible interpretation based on experience with engineering
students.
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TABLE 13: PAF INTERPRETATION
PAF
>1.5
Interpretation
Alarm!
Team failure.
1.15 –
1.5
Super Leader
1.05-1.15
Leader
1.00-1.05
Good teamwork
0.95-1.00
Acceptable
teamwork
Social Loafer
0.85-0.95
0.75-0.85
<0.75
Super Social Loafer
Alarm!
Individual failure!
Comments
Something has gone wrong – either there is a student who is not
participating at all or this student has taken all the work home and
done it by themselves. Either way, learning objectives are
probably not being achieved.
The team balance probably needs to be addressed as to achieve
such a high score other students must not be participating or this
student is doing far too much.
The student is showing definite leadership qualities and/or has
been putting in significant extra effort.
The student is working well with the team and has been recognised
as pulling their weight (1.00) and perhaps a little more (>1.00)
This student has probably only been penalised because another
team member has shown leadership and put in extra effort.
Any PAF below 0.9 is unacceptable. Social loafers who lie in this
band can usually be mentored, with the team’s help, and become
productive members of the team. Interventions need to be early
to be successful.
As above and below.
The individual is in grave danger of failing the course. Much effort
is required for this student to be accepted back into the team and
there will be trust issues with allocating this student any work.
What if the PAF over-corrects the student’s final score?
In some cases the use of PAF can dramatically change a student’s final marks. In this case a
scaling factor can be used (Kilic and Cakan, 2006) to reduce the impact. The formula for this
is:
Scaled PAF  PAF  Scaling Factor  PAF  1
Kilic and Cakan recommend a scaling factor between 0.5 and 0.3 depending on the desired
distribution of the students’ marks. We have never had to use a scaling factor and apply the
PAF directly to the mark achieved by the team to calculate the individual’s mark.
Step 3: Correcting for skewed PAFs
Our student cohorts tend to be anywhere from 60 to 120 in number; in the smaller cohorts
we may find no students who intentionally use the PAF system to skew results in their
favour. However, in the larger cohorts, some students invariably use the peer assessment
to give themselves a higher PAF than is warranted or to penalise other team members with
whom they have disagreed. This is picked up by comparing their score for a particular
student against the average of the other team members’ scores for that particular student.
The SAPA (self assessment over peer assessment) is the score that the student has given
themselves (ScoreSelf) over the average of the scores that all the other students have given
them (∑ScoreOthers/(NTeam-1)).
53
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SAPA 
ScoreSelf
 Score
Others
( NTeam  1)
If a number of criteria are being used then the ‘Score’ and ScoreOthers needs to be a total
across all criteria. A SAPA of over 1.0 indicates that the student believes they do more in the
team than their teammates think; a SAPA less than 1.0 indicates that the student
undervalues their contribution.
The scores for individual students are also calculated as per the SAPA:
RatioIndividual over average 
ScoreAssigned individual by student A
 Score
All other team members
( NTeam  1)
Again a ratio of more than 1.0 indicates that Student A values the work of the individual
more than their teammates think and this is common between friends; a ratio of less than
1.0 indicates that student A may have personal conflict with the individual and undervalues
their contribution.
WebPAf calculates these ratios.
It is recommended that a limit be agreed within the teaching team about how far from the
average (1.0) the SAPA and ratios should be allowed to deviate. Commonly these limits
might be set at 10% or 15% (i.e. for a 15% limit all SAPAs and ratios greater than 1.15 and
less than 0.85 represent a score which will skew the PAF).
The student comments can be used as further justification of a student using the system to
skew PAFs. Once you have identified students who have submitted PAF scores that do not
reflect the rest of the team’s marks, their scores should be removed from the PAF
calculation.
Table 14, which is an output of WebPAf, shows an assessment where all scores assigned by
the students are within a 20% limit. There is no need to correct any of the scores if the skew
limit is 20%, but a skew limit of 15% would mean that scores shown highlighted with dark
shading would need to be removed from the calculation by virtue of the ratios shown
highlighted with light shading.
TABLE 14: SAMPLE WebPAf OUTPUT SHOWING SAPAs AND RATIOS
PAF
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Student 4
Student 5
0.93
1.25
0.78
1.10
0.94
Score assigned by student
SAPA
1.10
1.00
0.95
1.18
1.08
1
20
25
15
20
20
2
17
25
16
25
17
3
20
25
15
20
20
4
16
25
17
25
17
54
5
20
25
15
20
20
Individual v. Average
(Based on Total Marks)
1
2
3
4
5
1.10 0.89 1.10 0.83 1.10
1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
0.95 1.03 0.95 1.11 0.95
0.89 1.18 0.89 1.18 0.89
1.08 0.88 1.08 0.88 1.08
___________________________________________________________________________
The formula to correct a PAF is:
Corrected PAFStudent 
 (Scores
Given to student
 Skewed score)
NCriteria x100
x
NStudents in team
NStudents used to calculate peer assessment factor
So for Student 1 in Table 2, their new PAF would be:
Corrected PAFStudent 
20  17  20  20 5
x  0.96
1x100
4
There does need to be a follow-up with the students - we usually email them of my decision
and ask them to see me to discuss if they have any queries. It is also recommended that
you indicate to the student body that this has occurred and the outlying marks removed.
We are often asked about this possibility during the first lecture where we introduce the
process; we explain how easy it is to spot this and that the marks are not used. Our course
profiles also reflect that the course coordinator has the final say in how any marks are used.
This serves to increase confidence in the PAF process and also provides a warning to the
minority who are considering such an action.
Our university policy provides for students’ work to be evaluated by an academic rather than
a peer. The first step towards fulfilling this requirement is to correct for bias. The next step
is to agree PAFs with your teaching team. Often mentors and tutors can provide supporting
knowledge for unusual PAFs. It is also necessary in the case of unusual PAFs to read the
justifications that the students gave for their division of points. This deliberation ensures
that contested PAFs can be justified.
Step 4: Team meeting for feedback
Reflection and feedback to teams is essential to capitalise on the semester’s learning
experiences and to carry forward team skills with cognitive knowledge of what has gone
before.
A final mentor meeting has been found to be appreciated by the students. Although this
meeting is purely formative and at the end of the semester and hence appears to provide no
incentive for student attendance, I have found that a majority of students want to hear how
they performed and discuss successes and mistakes. I tend not to make this final meeting
compulsory but offer it to any who are interested. It provides an opportunity for the
students to reflect on the successes and mistakes of the semester and to gain the mentor’s
view of what worked and what didn’t. A period of between 30 and 60 minutes has been
found to be sufficient for this discussion.
The meeting may focus on how the group functioned, what obstacles were met, how
obstacles were overcome, and what the team has learnt. However, it is recommended that
the students take charge of the meeting agenda so that they can gain the maximum benefit
from the reflection. A form for reporting this meeting, and providing trigger topics, is
attached as FORM 6 (Student Feedback).
55
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Step 5: Mark and process results
The student’s final mark is calculated as shown. Each of the three parts will carry weightings
as determined by learning objectives and the weighting of assessments in the course (e.g.
80% team project and 20% team skills).
n
 (Team project mark  PAF  Individual Mark )
1

Individual mentor meeting score 

 TAM   Team dim ension score 
Maximum
mentor
meeting
score


 Any other assessment
where:
 n is the number of team projects;

the team project mark is that given for the final deliverable(s);

the PAF (Peer Assessment Factor) is calculated as:
PAF 
 Mark from peer evaluation form
100
;

the individual mark is that given for the section specified to be undertaken by the
student or pair of students (See STAGE 1 Step 2);

the TAM (Team Assessment Mark) is calculated as shown. This mark can be
neglected or formed only from mentor meeting scores or the overall team dimension
score (STAGE 3 Step 2);
What we have found: The value of this segment of assessment has been up to 20% in
courses we have taught where developing team skills has been one of the learning
objectives. In other courses, we have neglected this factor altogether; these courses
tend to be 4th year ones where team work skills are well honed and students are
familiar with maintaining functional teams.

the team dimension score is that given to the team by the mentor on the basis of
their communication, conflict resolution and overall success; and

the individual mentor meeting score is that achieved by the individual during mentor
meetings. It may be transformed into a factor which is applied to the team
dimension score by using the maximum possible mentor meeting score to calculate
the TAM as shown. The maximum possible mentor meeting score is 15 x the number
of meetings if the format specified in Table 10 is used.
Failure of the Pass/Fail quiz (Hurdle assessment) precludes a student from passing. In this
case, the above equation is used to determine how badly they fail.
56
stage
___________________________________________________________________________
5
STAGE 5: REFLECTION & REVIEW: WHERE
HAVE WE BEEN?
In this STAGE you examine how the PETS process worked and how the students reacted to it.
STEP
TASK
STEP 1
STEP 2
Student focus written evaluation
Internal reflection (instructors, mentors, and tutors)

Step 1: Student evaluation
Student feedback is of paramount importance to the team strategies developed for your
courses. The authors would also welcome any feedback about your findings.
Student feedback is collected through a number of the strategies incorporated in the process
of ensuring team success:
1.
2.
3.
4.
individual reviews for mentor meetings,
mentor meetings,
peer evaluation forms, and
final team feedback meetings.
A questionnaire, which asks direct questions about the strategies, could also be completed
by the students at the end of the semester to give you a clearer picture of how successful
you have been. FORM 6 serves this purpose; it may need some editing to remove questions
about those strategies, forms, or exercises that were not included in your trial. You could
also include questions on things you were uncertain about or want further information on.
IN ADDITION, and at the risk of contributing to evaluation fatigue, we encourage you to
administer any university mandated course evaluation questionnaires.
What we have found: We would like to note here that students always seem to have
something to complain about. Before the introduction of the PETS process, students
would complain about their team management, unresolved personal conflicts, and
social loafing; after the introduction of the PETS process, we find that many complain
about the process itself. Our picture of success therefore not only includes students’
satisfaction but their final marks and whether the reason for low marks was caused by
a failure in the team process. As the latter has been all but eliminated, we take
criticism of the PETS process as a reason to change certain aspects of presentation
and/or include a little more information in the early lectures, but not to return to the
ad-hoc student management process that we used to employ.
57
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FORMS
For this stage of the process you will need the following form. A copy can be found at the
back of this Manual.
HANDOUT
USE
RESOURCE
or FORM
STUDENT FEEDBACK
Completed by students at the end of
semester.
FORM 6
Step 2: Teaching team reflection (instructors, mentors and
tutors)
In addition to feedback from students, we find that the experiences of all those involved
with the delivery of the course is highly valuable. Over the years, we have gained many
valuable insights from our teaching colleagues as well as infusing them with an interest in
improving pedagogy.
After processing the information gathered in STAGE 5 Step 1 and disseminating to the
teaching/ tutoring team, the next logical step is to gain their feedback.
We have found that the best way to do this is to ask each member to attend a meeting but
for each of them to come prepared and to have thought about the course delivery, students’
successes and difficulties, and of course, the team process.
We will leave it to you to structure this meeting but recommend that you do it around some
sort of refreshments and that you don’t restrict discussion to the PETS process but include
the course and any other aspect that the teaching team feels needs improvement or
discussion.
FORMS
For this stage of the process you will need the following form. A copy can be found at the
back of this Manual.
HANDOUT
USE
RESOURCE
or FORM
TEACHING TEAM
FEEDBACK &
REFLECTION
Filled in by teaching team at the end of PETS
process.
58
FORM 7
___________________________________________________________________________
REFERENCES
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61
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APPENDIX A: A TEAM PROJECT in CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
CHEE2002 Project 1 – Flowsheeting, & Process System Analysis
The purpose of this assessment task is to develop core chemical engineering knowledge and skills in process
systems analysis. It will involve you in the implementation, simulation, and interpretation of a sizeable process
using the Aspen simulator. You will gain an appreciation of process goals, economic potentials, and system
analysis. To complete this project you will need to work effectively in a team, apply critical thinking, manage
your time, and prepare/ present technical information professionally.
Aspirin Production
Aspirin (Acetylsalicylic Acid or 2-(Acetyloxy)-benzoic Acid) is produced by reacting salicylic acid with acetic
anhydride. The first stage of an integrated process is the production of salicylic acid from phenol. The second
stage uses the salicylic acid as a feedstock and produces aspirin. [A flowsheet for both stages is attached.]
Salicylic Acid production
Project details
In the first reaction step, phenol is reacted with caustic soda to
produce sodium phenolate:
C6H5OH
Phenol
NaOH 
+
+
C6H5ONa
Caustic 
+
H2O
Sodium Phenolate + Water
[… Project details omitted …]
Project Report
Deliverable details
As a team submit a report answering the following questions. The report should be a maximum of 20 pages of
typed 12 point text including embedded diagrams and tables. All material should be properly referenced using
the Harvard system (See http://www/library.uq.edu.au/useit). You are expected to use a conventional report
writing format and style.
1. Draw block diagrams based on the preceding description of the integrated salicylic acid - aspirin plant.
Clearly identify all inputs, outputs, and generic function blocks on your diagrams. List current prices for raw
materials, products and by-products, annual aspirin production and market value figures for the last
decade. Present an equation for calculating economic potential at input/output level.
2. Produce an equivalent process model diagram using only elementary units.
3. Perform a degrees of freedom analysis for the system – do you have enough information given to perform
material and energy balances for this plant? Identify any additional specifications that may be needed.
4. Partition the flowsheet into sub-sections
Individual task (6.)
requiring compilation &
analysis by team (7.)
5. Determine a tear structure of the partitioned
flowsheet.
6. Using ASPEN produce separate simulations of each
partition. Clearly identify all specifications used in your
simulation. ... This is to be undertaken by individual students (refer to Dimension 3 of the Assessment
Criteria).
7. Simulate the entire process by linking together your partitioned parts. Clearly identify all specifications
used in linked simulation.
8. Scale the problem to meet the given production demand and present all results.
9. What is the best economic potential that can be achieved from this plant and why?
Pass/ fail quiz based on ASPEN
62
___________________________________________________________________________
Assessment Details
Project 1 Report Assessment Criteria
Reports will be assessed using 6 dimensions. An overall report grade for each team member will be calculated
as the average of all 6 dimension grades. Dimensions 3 and 6 are individual assessments. Dimensions 1, 2, 4,
and 5 are team assessments and are weighted for individuals using peer evaluation.
1.
Inadequate
2.
Poor/ mixed
TEAM
15%
Incomplete
or largely
incorrect
analysis
and
description
TEAM
15%
INDIVIDUAL
20%
TEAM
15%
TEAM
20%
…
Dimension
Weight
1. Critical
evaluation,
selection/
use of tools/
data for
system
analysis
2. …
3. …
4. …
5. …
6. Effective
team work/
project
management
INDIVIDUAL
(based on
mentor
meeting)
15%
…
3.
Sound
4.
Good
5.
Excellent
Limited
identification and
description
of process
structure
and …
Application of
systems
analysis to
identify/
describe
(no
analysis) …
Application
of systems
analysis to
identify/
describe
(limited
analysis) …
Intelligent
application of
systems
analysis to
identify/
analyse …
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
Team
member
contributed
effectively
to setting
and
achieving
project
goals and
shared
most ….
Team
member
contributed
effectively
and equally to
setting and
achieving
project goals
and shared all
internal team
communication,
learning and
skills
development
engendered
in the project
work.
Team dimension
…
…
Team
member
did not
contribute
their fair
share in a
timely
manner,
communication was
poor and
there was
no …
…
…
include the
rest of this
…
rubric?
…
Individual dimension
Team work evaluated on individual basis.
Team
members
contributed
reasonably
to achieving
project
goals but
the effort
was not
equitable &
there was
sporadic
team
communication and
no/ little…
63
Team
member
contribute
d
reasonably
to
achieving
project
goals, but
the effort
was not
equitable
and there
was
limited …
___________________________________________________________________________
APPENDIX B: SAMPLE MENTOR MEETING CHECK SHEET
CHEE2002 Process Systems Analysis ; Review meeting 1
Mentor……………………
First meeting
Date………………
Team………………………
Any students not present…………………………………………..
Reason………………………………………………………………
Teams present the following for use as a minimum basis for discussion with mentors.
1) Gantt Chart for work for projects 1 and 2.
Project planned?
……………………………………………………………………………….
2) A team roles allocation negotiated and assigned by the team. You should revisit and take account of your
Belbin analyses done in CHEE2001 earlier this year.
Belbin Analysis Reviewed:………………………………………………………
Overall team leader……………………………………………………….
Other roles ………………………………………………………………..
Other roles ………………………………………………………………..
Other roles ………………………………………………………………..
Other roles…………………………………………………………………
Other roles…………………………………………………………………
Roles decided?
Meeting logs?
3) Team meeting logs records presented for inspection…………………………….
Project 1 preliminary block/flow diagrams drawn in accordance with process description.
Salicylic Acid Plant Aspirin plant
Initial tasks
Flow diagrams presented
All material inputs shown
completed?
All material outputs shown
(Project 1)
All blocks labelled
All streams labelled
Project 2
Flow chart identifying raw materials, products, by-products, wastes and utilities
……………………………………………………………………………………
List of available technologies of production identifying major differences
……………………………………………………………………………………
List of sources and potential sources of information on the process technology
Initial tasks
completed?
(Project 2)
……………………………………………………………………………………
Contact made with a person working in the chosen industry who has potential as a case study.
64
___________________________________________________________________________
APPENDIX C: A TEAM PROJECT in COMMUNICATION
SOCIAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN REPORT
This assessment task is in two parts:
1. ORAL PRESENTATION:
For the oral presentation, two or three members of your team are required to make a
presentation of five to seven minutes each, which explains the social marketing campaign
you are reporting on.
Your report, which is to include examples of the campaign material, television commercials,
radio spots and posters, and Internet material, is to be made on a Thursday between Week 7
and Week 13 starting at 3 pm in room 307 in Building One.
You should supplement your presentation of the campaign material with a PowerPoint
presentation which sets out (a) the rationale for the campaign (b) the objectives of the
campaign (c) and an evaluation of the extent to which the campaign can be said to change
behaviour, rather than simply raise awareness.
Each of the presenting team members will be evaluated in terms of the oral presentation
skills. Instruction in oral presentation skills will be provided in class, and the criteria made
available in advance.
Those team members not involved in the oral presentation of the social marketing campaign
will be required to present an oral report of a similar nature, on the team's campaign project
in week 14.
2. WRITTEN REPORT:
The written report is to be 5000 words in length, and is to contain contributions from all
members of the team. The report should be broken down into the following sections:
1. A summary of the key features of your report, in the style of an executive summary. It
should be no more than 400 words.
2. The rationale for the campaign. This section should explain, with references to both
media reports, such as newspaper articles, and the academic literature, such as books and
journal articles, why a campaign of this nature has been deemed to be necessary. This
section needs to be your own independent analysis of the rationale for such a campaign.
You are not to rely on any self-serving propaganda dished up by those running the actual
campaign. Your referencing of all materials should be in APA format, and compliance with
this format, is one of the assessment criteria.
65
___________________________________________________________________________
3. The objectives of the campaign. Here you may rely on material provided by those running
the campaign, on material from the campaign website, from media releases associated with
the campaign and its launch, and from media reports of the campaign.
4. A brief description of the campaign. This should set out the target audiences, campaign
duration, campaign media, and where available, campaign costs. You will need to be diligent
in tracking down campaign costs, and the source of funding. Some agencies may not make
that information publicly available. You will need to ask them directly; and if they are
reluctant to divulge the costs, you need to make an assessment in section 5 of your report as
to why this might be the case.
5. An evaluation of the campaign. You need to begin this section by stating why evaluation of
this campaign is relevant and important. You then need to provide evidence of the
effectiveness or otherwise of the campaign. The auspicing agency may not be willing to
provide this. In this case, you may wish to undertake your own modest qualitative and all
qualitative research into the effectiveness of the campaign. Remember that the purpose of
social marketing campaigns is to change behaviour, not simply raise awareness.
In evaluating the campaign you may also wish to make comment on any ethical issues that
you see the campaign raising, such as the use of fear tactics.
You may also wish to compare this campaign with similar or identical campaigns in other
jurisdictions. Make sure that you reference any such comparisons.
Your report should make use of supporting statistical material. Ensure the source of all
statistics is referenced.
6. References. You need to provide a complete and accurate set of references in APA
format.
Any collateral such as posters, radio spots and tvcs should be provided on an accompanying
CD/DVD.
The individual author of each of the sections above should be identified by name.
This report will be due via EMAIL 2 weeks after your classroom presentation.
An exemplar will be uploaded to the course Blackboard site shortly.
66
___________________________________________________________________________
FORM 1: BELBIN’S SELF-PERCEPTION INVENTORY FOR
TEAM ROLE ASSESSMENT
2
1. Distribute 10 points per question among the sentences that you think best describe your
behaviour. (You can distribute points among several sentences or allot all 10 points to a single
sentence.)
2. Enter your scores in Table 1.
3. Transpose scores into Table 2 one line at a time.
I What I believe I can contribute to a team:
I think I can quickly see and take advantage of new opportunities.
a
I can work well with a very wide range of people.
b
Producing ideas is one of my natural assets.
c
My ability rests in being able to draw people out whenever I detect they have
d
e
f
g
h
something of value to contribute to group objectives.
My capacity to follow through has much to do with my personal effectiveness.
I am ready to face temporary unpopularity if it leads to worthwhile results in the
end.
I can usually sense what is realistic and likely to work.
I can offer a reasoned case for alternative courses of action without introducing
bias or prejudice.
Total
10
II If I have a possible shortcoming in teamwork, it could be that:
I am not at ease unless meetings are well structured and controlled and generally
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
well conducted.
I am inclined to be too generous towards others who have a valid viewpoint that
has not been given a proper airing.
I have a tendency to talk too much once the group gets on to new ideas.
My objectives outlook makes it difficult for me to join in readily and
enthusiastically with colleagues.
I am sometimes seen as forceful and authoritarian if there is a need to get
something done.
I find it difficult to lead from the front, perhaps because I am over-responsive to
group atmosphere.
I am apt to get too caught up in ideas that occur to me and so lose track of what is
happening.
My colleagues tend to see me as worrying unnecessarily over detail and the
possibility that things may go wrong.
Total
10
III When involved in a project with other people:
I have an aptitude for influencing people without pressuring them.
a
My general vigilance prevents careless mistakes and omissions being made.
b
I am ready to press for action to make sure that the meeting does not waste time
c
or lose sight of the main objective.
2
Belbin, R.M (1981) Management teams: why they succeed or fail, Heinemann, London
67
___________________________________________________________________________
I can be counted on to contribute something original.
d
I am always ready to back a good suggestion in the common interest.
e
I am keen to look for the latest in new ideas and developments.
f
I believe my capacity for judgment can help to bring about the right decisions.
g
I can be called upon to see that all essential work is organised
h
Total
10
IV My characteristic approach to group work is that:
I have a quiet interest in getting to know colleagues better.
a
I am not reluctant to challenge the views of others or to hold a minority view
b
myself.
I can usually find a line of argument to refute unsound propositions.
I think I have a talent for making things work once a plan has to be put into
operation.
I have a tendency to avoid the obvious and to come out with the unexpected.
I bring a touch of perfectionism to any job I undertake.
I am ready to make use of contacts outside the group itself.
While I am interested in all views I have no hesitation in making up my mind once a
decision has to be made.
c
d
e
f
g
h
Total
10
V I gain satisfaction in a job because:
I enjoy analysing situations and weighing up all the possible choices.
a
I am interested in finding practical solutions to problems.
b
I like to feel I am fostering good working relationships.
c
I can have a strong influence on decisions.
d
I can meet people who may have something new to offer.
e
I can get people to agree on a necessary course of action.
f
I feel in my element where I can give a task my full attention.
g
I like to find a field that stretches my imagination.
h
Total
10
VI If I’m suddenly given a difficult task with limited time and unfamiliar people:
I would feel like retiring to a corner to devise a way out of the impasse before
a
developing a line.
I would be ready to work with the person who showed the most positive approach.
I would find some way of reducing the size of the task by establishing what
different individuals might best contribute.
My natural sense of urgency would help to ensure that we did not fall behind
schedule.
I believe I would keep cool and maintain my capacity to think straight.
I would retain a steadiness of purpose in spite of the pressures.
I would be prepared to take a positive lead if I felt the group was making no
progress.
I would open up discussions with a view to stimulating new thoughts and getting
something moving.
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Total
10
68
___________________________________________________________________________
VII With reference to the problems to which I am subject in working in groups:
I am apt to show my impatience with those who are obstructing progress.
a
Others may criticise me for being too analytical & insufficiently intuitive.
b
My desire to ensure that work is properly done can hold up proceedings.
c
I tend to get bored rather easily and rely on one or two stimulating members to
d
e
f
g
h
Total
spark me off.
I find it difficult to get started unless the goals are clear.
I am sometimes poor at explaining and clarifying complex points that occur to me.
I am conscious of demanding from others the things I cannot do myself.
I hesitate to get my points across when I run up against real opposition.
10
TABLE 1. SUMMARY OF SELF-SCORING
SECTION
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
a
b
c
d
e
f
g

10
10
10
10
10
10
10
h
TABLE 2. CALCULATION OF ROLES
1. Transpose the scores from Table 1, Enter them section by section in Table 2. (For
example, if you have a 5 in Row I, Column C of Table 1, it will be placed in Row I, Column
PL of Table 2 as indicated by the C on the LHS of this cell.)
2. Add up the points in each column to give a total team-role score.
3. Divide by the shown amount to calculate a relative team-role score.
SECTION
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
TOTAL
Divide by3:
SCORE
I
G
A
H
D
B
F
E
CO
D
B
A
H
F
C
G
12
SH
F
E
C
B
D
G
A
7
PL
C
G
D
E
H
A
F
RI
A
C
F
G
E
H
D
10
8
ME
H
D
G
C
A
E
B
8
TW
B
F
E
A
C
B
H
8
10
These scores are the average for 2nd year chemical engineering students. As average scores differ greatly depending on the
background of the group being tested, it is recommended that averages be compiled for the group being tested.
3
69
CF
E
H
B
F
G
D
C
7
___________________________________________________________________________
FORM 2: TEAM MEETING LOG TEMPLATES
There are a number of different meeting log templates contained in the online team training
module. This basic template is included for completeness here. It is recommended that the
students keep a record of their minutes and distribute to all team members.
TEAM NAME OR NUMBER: __________________________________
Date:____________________
Team Members Present
Work completed:
________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
Problem areas:
__________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
70
___________________________________________________________________________
Agreed action for next meeting
Group member(s)
responsible
71
___________________________________________________________________________
FORM 3: INDIVIDUAL REVIEW FOR (ACADEMIC)
MENTOR MEETINGS
This form is completed by each student ahead of each scheduled meeting with the team mentor. The
purpose of the form is to allow the mentor to identify potential problems and conflicts and provide
feedback to the team. You can include a more detailed peer assessment evaluation via WebPAf.
NAME:______________________________________TEAM:_____________________DATE:__________
1. Please circle the rating that best describes your team for each of the three items below:
a.
How productive was the group overall?
accomplished some but
not all of the project’s
requirements
b.
met the project
requirements but could
have done much better
efficiently accomplished
goals that we set for
ourselves
went way beyond what
we had to do exceeding
even our own goals
Which of the following best describes the level of conflict at group meetings?
no conflict, everyone
seemed to agree on
what to do
there were
disagreements, but they
were easily resolved
disagreements were
resolved with
considerable difficulty
open warfare: still
unresolved
2. Please rate yourself and each team member on the following
(1 Disagree, 2 Tend to disagree, 3 Tend to agree, 4 Agree)
Team member’s name
SELF
Took a leadership role
Helped team overcome differences
Fully engaged in discussions during meetings
Often excessively dominated team discussions
Contributed useful ideas
Kept open mind/ willing to consider other ideas
Encouraged team to complete project on time
Delivered work when promised/ needed
Had difficulty negotiating with team members
Distribute 100 points for overall contribution
to the team’s effort (include work,
communication, problem solving etc.)
3. Please review items 1 and 2 and write a brief description of any problems or conflicts you
encountered in working with this group and how they were resolved. (Continue over the
page if necessary.)
72
___________________________________________________________________________
FORM 4: EXAMPLE PEER EVALUATION FORM
This form is used to calculate the summative Peer Assessment Factor for each team member. The
scores on this form may have a material effect on student grades. You can of course change the
number of criteria that you are assessing. WebPAf is a much less time consuming way of running a
peer evaluation.
NAME _______________________
TEAM ________________________ DATE ______________
Assign scores that reflect how you really feel about the extent to which the other members of your team
contributed to your team’s performance. This is your only opportunity to reward the members of your team
who worked hard on your behalf. If you give everyone the same score you will be hurting those who did
most and helping those who did the least. Your assessment will be used to determine mathematically the
assignment mark that each member receives.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. List the name of each team member.
Evaluate the contributions of each person to the deliverable by distributing 100 points among them for
each of the categories.




Include a comment for each person to justify your scores.
Performance
Total
Timeliness
NAME
Contribution to
overall project
3.
Communication/ Collaboration = attendance and participation at meetings, email/ SMS/ discussion
board response
Contribution to overall project = workload including: scoping, research, design, testing, analysis,
reporting, editing, final submission production
Timeliness = ability to meet agreed contribution times
Performance = standard and completeness of work
Communication/
Collaboration
2.
100
100
100
100
Yourself
TOTAL
400
73
COMMENT
___________________________________________________________________________
FORM 5: STUDENT FEEDBACK
This questionnaire is to be completed by each student after submission of the team project
and is designed to get your feedback on the processes that have been used this semester to
ensure that your team was successful.
TEAM NAME ____________________________
1. INITIAL TEAM FORMING EXERCISES
In terms of team formation, the exercise was:
No
use
Some
use
Useful Essential
Giving the team a name and not a number (Week 1)
Belbin analysis/ discussion amongst team (Week 1)
Drawing up team ground rules and goals (Week 1)
Initial project-based assignment (Week 1 and 2)
Discussion of initial assignment (Week 2)
Preparing a Gantt chart (Week 2)
Comments on initial exercises: ___________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2. HANDOUTS
The handout was:
Never Seldom Used Essential
used used
often
Ways of getting teams unstuck
Team formation stages questionnaire/ analysis
3. ASSESSMENT FORMS
In terms of team facilitation, the form was:
No
use
Some use Useful Essential
Meeting logs (used every team meeting)
Individual team review for mentor meetings
(used prior to meeting)
Checklist for mentor meeting (used in
preparation/ during mentor meeting)
Anonymous individual assessment
(submitted with deliverables)
Comments on assessment forms: __________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
74
___________________________________________________________________________
4. MENTOR MEETINGS - TIMING
The meeting was:
Wrongly Little use
Some use
timed
at this time at this time
Perfectly
timed
Initial information (Week 2)
Meeting 1 (Week 4)
Meeting 2 (Week 7)
Meeting 3 (Week 10)
Final feedback meeting (Week 13)
Should there be more mentor meetings: YES/ NO
If yes, when (what week/ project stage): ___________________________________
5. MENTOR MEETINGS – INFORMATION
The mentor input was:
No
use
Little use
Useful Essential
Technical input from mentors
Time management input from mentors
Team facilitation input from mentors
Comments on mentor meetings: ___________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
6. CHECKLIST FOR MENTOR MEETING FORM
The form facilitated:
Never
Somewhat
Mostl
y
Always
No
use
Some
use
Very
Essential
useful
Reflection on my team and the team process
Mentor intervention into team dysfunction
The section of the form was:
1. Overall reflections on team
2. a) Rating team member’s input
2. b) Scoring individuals out of 100
3. Comments on sections 1 and 2
Other comments on “successful team collaboration” process:
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
75
___________________________________________________________________________
FORM 6: TEACHING TEAM FEEDBACK & REFLECTION
This form is completed by members of the teaching team at the end of the semester.
NAME ____________________________
SETTING IT UP (STAGE 1)
In terms of team success, the exercise was:
Not No
done use
Some Useful Essential
use
Structuring the project with:
 individual sections
 milestones to aid time management
and tie in with mentor meetings
Structuring the teams with:
 a leader
 a maximum of 1 social loafer
 a maximum of 1 ESL student
Comments on STAGE 1: _______________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
START of SEMESTER (STAGE 2)
In terms of team success, the exercise was:
Not No
done use
Some Useful Essential
use
Communicating the strategy:
 firing squad for social loafers
 peer assessment factors to encourage
individual input
Equipping the participants/ workshopping exercises:
 ground rule and group goal
establishment
 Belbin discussion and team reflection
 initial project-based assignment
Comments on STAGE 2: ______________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
76
___________________________________________________________________________
ALONG THE WAY (STAGE 3)
In terms of team success, the exercise was:
Not No
done use
Some Useful Essential
use
Not No
used use
Some Useful Essential
use
Anonymous individual reflection
Firing squad
Mentor-facilitated meetings
Team scoring at mentor-facilitated meetings
Pass/ fail quiz
In terms of team success, the forms were:
Meeting logs (used every team meeting)
Individual team review for mentor meetings
(used prior to meeting)
Checklist for mentor meeting (used in
preparation/ during mentor meeting)
Anonymous individual assessment (submitted
with deliverables)
The mentor meetings were:
Not
used
Wrongly Little
timed
use at
this
time
Some
use at
this time
Perfectly
timed
Initial information (Week 2)
Meeting 1 (Week 4)
Meeting 2 (Week 7)
Meeting 3 (Week 10)
Final feedback meeting (Week 13)
Comments on STAGE 3: ______________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
GETTING OVER THE LINE (STAGE 4)
Comments on winding it up (weighting marks and final feedback):
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
77
___________________________________________________________________________
FORM 8: TEAM RULES
This form is to be completed by each student team during the initial team workshop. A
much more detailed form can be found in the online team training module.
1. Communication
Method(s) – rank if more than one:
Frequency of checking:
Response time/ acknowledgement required:
2. Meetings
Potential times/ places for meetings:
Responsibility for setting agenda:
Responsibility for taking minutes:
Procedure if can’t attend (apologies):
3. Leadership/ responsibilities
Method of selecting leader(s) - potentially 2 as 2 projects:
Leader responsibilities:
Team member responsibilities:
78
___________________________________________________________________________
Members Details
Name
Email
Phone
Mobile
Any other considerations:
79
Address
___________________________________________________________________________
Most of these resources are contained within the online Working in Teams module but they
are included here for completeness.
RESOURCE 1: INTERPRETING BELBIN’s TEAM ROLES
INVENTORY
Score
0 – 0.5
0.5 – 0.9
0.9 – 1.1
1.1 – 1.5
 1.5
Interpretation
You are weak in this particular category. This does not mean that you
cannot take on this role but that if you do, you will need to be aware that
to be successful will require you to push yourself and to operate outside
your comfort zone.
This will not be your preferred category but one which you could take on if
there is an overall team weakness in this area.
You perform adequately in this category and are on a par with people from
the same background as yourself.
This is a preferred role and one that you are quite adept at filling. However
you may fall back on a lesser role should someone be stronger than you in
this role or should there be a weakness in the team with respect to your
lesser role.
You are very strong in this role; it is highly probable that this is the role that
you will undertake for the team.
The following should be noted:

it is usual for the leader of the team to be the person with a high (perhaps the
highest) score in either the shaper or coordinator categories;

the team usually has only one leader and the stronger of the shapers or coordinators
will fill this role;

all of the roles need to be fulfilled to achieve team success;

teams that lack people with particular attributes will not fail as awareness of the
weakness should encourage additional effort by one or more of the team members
to cover the requirement;

your scores will change throughout your life with personal development and
experience;

you are not typecast into the roles predicted by Belbin – the questionnaire should
only be used to make you aware of your strengths and weaknesses.
80
___________________________________________________________________________
RESOURCE 2: BELBIN TEAM ROLES
TEAM ROLE
TYPICAL
FEATURES
WEAKNESSES
Allowable
Non-allowable
IMPLEMENTER – Turns ideas
into practical actions. Works
well across board.
Disciplined,
reliable,
conservative,
efficient
Inflexible. Slow to
respond to
possibilities.
Obstructing
change.
COORDINATOR – Adept at
handling personal
relationships. Clarifies goals,
promotes decision-making,
delegates well.
Mature,
confident, a
good
chairperson
Manipulative.
Delegates personal
work.
Taking credit for
the effort of a
team.
SHAPER - Achievers, most
likely to be promoted. Has
the drive and courage to
overcome obstacles.
Challenging,
dynamic,
thrives on
pressure.
Can provoke others.
Hurts people’s
feelings.
Inability to recover
situation with good
humour or apology.
PLANT - Usually squeezed
out of organisations to
reappear as consultants.
Creative,
imaginative,
unorthodox.
Solves difficult
problems.
Ignores practical
details. Too
preoccupied to
communicate
effectively.
Strong ‘ownership’
of idea when cooperation required.
RESOURCE INVESTIGATOR Explores opportunities.
Develops contacts. Sociable
and generally tolerant.
Extrovert,
Over optimistic.
enthusiastic,
Loses interest once
communicative. initial enthusiasm
has passed.
Letting clients
down by neglecting
to follow-up
arrangements.
MONITOR EVALUATOR Sees all options. Judges
accurately. Needs to be
supported.
Sober, strategic
and discerning.
Low profile.
Lacks drive and
ability to inspire
others. Overly
critical.
Cynicism without
logic.
TEAM WORKER - Listens,
builds, averts friction, calms
the waters. Easiest to work
with.
Co-operative,
mild,
perceptive and
diplomatic.
Indecisive in crunch
situations. Can be
easily influenced.
Avoiding situations
that may entail
pressure.
COMPLETER FINISHER Searches out errors and
omissions. Delivers on time.
Invaluable for quality
product.
Painstaking,
conscientious,
anxious.
Inclined to worry
Obsessional
unduly. Reluctant to behaviour.
delegate. Can be a
nitpicker.
81
RESOURCE 3: POTENTIAL TEAM ROLE CONFLICTS
ROLE
Shaper (S)
FUNCTION
BOSS
PEERS
SUBORDINATES
Achievers, most
likely to be
promoted. Firms
run by shapers
subject to human
crises.
Good boss: C, ME (
non-interfering)
Bad boss: I (dislikes
disturbances caused
by shaper)
Good peer: RI
Plant (P)
Usually squeezed
out of organisations
to reappear as
consultants.
Monitor
evaluator
(ME)
Keeps low profile.
Needs to be
discovered and
supported. Watch
out for ‘paralysis by
analysis’ and don’t
team with other
MEs.
Invaluable
subordinates of
keen initiators who
value results.
Good boss: C
(becomes champion
for plant), TW
(sympathetic)
Bad boss: S, I
(greatest
intolerance)
Good boss: C
(consults & seeks
advice)
Bad boss: S (requires
action of ME)
Good peer: C, RI, TW
(have necessary social
skills)
Bad peer: ME, P (clash
over theory)
Worst peer: I (aims and
values different)
Good peer: C, I (liaise
well)
Bad peer: CF, ME
(lengthy debates)
Excellent sub: S
Good sub: CF
(some tension tho’)
Bad sub: C (too
slow and indirect),
ME (too easily
overrun)
Good sub: I (acts
only on practical
ideas), ME (acts as
catalyst)
Bad sub: S, RI
(overbold)
Good boss: RI, P, S
Bad boss: CF (undue
tension)
Good peer: I (share
style and values)
Bad peer: RI (see CF as
fussy)
Good boss: S, P
(organising skills
valued), C (values
efficient follow-up)
Bad boss: I
(bureaucracy)
Good peer: C, ME, RI, CF
Bad peer: I (boundary
disputes), P (different
values and priorities)
Sociable and
generally tolerant.
May not find time to
give subordinate
instructions
Adept at handling
personal
relationships;
mature.
Good boss: S (RI
stand up to them)
Bad boss: CF (dislike
short rein)
Good peer: I, TW (have
basis for cooperation)
Bad peer: CF (difference
in style)
Good boss: S, C, P
(manage C well)
Bad boss: TW (lose
sense of direction)
Easiest to work with.
Good boss: S (S
provides strength of
decision)
Bad boss: TW (lose
decisiveness)
Excellent peer: TW
(social), I (organisation)
Good peer: All except S
Bad peer: S (difference
in style)
Excellent peer: TW
(mutual support)
Good peer: P (TW will
develop ideas)
Completer
finisher (CF)
Implementer Addresses practical
demands and works
(I)
well across broad
cross section.
Resource
investigator
(RI)
Coordinator
(C)
Team
worker (TW)
Good sub: I (devise
methods and
procedures)
Don’t usually clash
but avoid ME, P
Good sub: I
(reliable, well
organised)
Worst sub: RI
(careless, erratic)
Good sub: TW
(compliant)
Bad sub: P, RI (no
respect for
established
systems and
authority)
Good sub: CF
(compensates for
RI weaknesses)
Bad sub: S
(competitor)
Excellent sub: P
Bad sub: S
(challenge style/
decision)
Bad sub: S
(competition)
___________________________________________________________________________
RESOURCE 4: BELBIN TEAM ROLES and PROJECT
STAGES
OUTSIDE
INFORMATION
START-UP 

COMPLETION
ACTION
SHAPER
IMPLEMENTER
C/ FINISHER
IDEAS
PLANT
 MONITOR EVALUATOR 
TEAM
COORDINATOR
 TEAM WORKER 
 RESOURCE INVESTIGATOR 
This table shows the stages of the project along the top and the requirements for successful
team operation at each of the stages down the side. Members of the team who will best
carry out these functions are detailed in the table in terms of their Belbin roles.
The table can be used to:

indicate where a weakness may occur (e.g. if the team is weak in terms of shaping,
the ‘initial sod’ will not get ‘turned’ and the project will not get off the ground);

show the relationships between the various members of the team (e.g. the shaper
begins ‘acting’ on the project, the implementer carries this forward, and the
completer finisher finishes the project off); and

indicate which team members are imperative at each stage of the project (e.g. the
plant is crucial at the beginning of a project).
83
___________________________________________________________________________
RESOURCE 5: GETTING TEAMS UNSTUCK4

Are there any dysfunctional patterns in your group? Confirm that these are problem
behaviours and not acceptable norms.

Agree on which tools to use in changing behaviours. For example using humorous
props such as a devil’s trident for playing devil’s advocate or a plastic fish for naming
“dead fish under the table” (taboo topics) to allow free expression in meetings.

If stuck in circular decision making then use one of the following to keep members on
track:
o polling: go round table and ask each member for opinion, preference or input;
o multi-voting: make list of options/ solutions and give each member 10 point
to divide among their top three solutions;
o straw voting: ask for non-binding vote to break deadlock or gauge team’s
current stance on an issue;
o form subgroups: ask a subgroup to come to next meeting with recommended
solution if a problem is weighing the group down.

Answer the following questions to establish ground rules:
o How will we make decisions?
o Must all team members be present to make a team decision?
o How will we structure the meetings (frequency, agenda, roles, interruptions,
closure)?
o How will we communicate with each other so that information doesn’t fall
through the cracks?
o How will we stay on top of team issues, such as project completion and
performance management?
o Who are our customers and key stakeholders, and how will we keep them in
the loop?
o How will we resolve team conflicts?
4
Slobodnik, D. and Slobodnik, A. (1996) The 'team killers', HRFocus, June, 22-23.
84
RESOURCE 6: STAGES IN TEAM DEVELOPMENT5
Stage
Tasks
Group Structure
Potential Problems
FORMING
Identify task and methods to
accomplish.
Establish rules for
behaviours and how to
handle group conflict.
Decide what information is
needed.
Considerable anxiety, testing
to discover the nature of the
situation, what help can be
expected from the facilitator,
and what behaviours will be
appropriate or inappropriate.
Impatience of some
members with abstract
discussions.
No clear focus on task as
evidenced by irrelevant
discussions or complaining
about organisational
problems.
STORMING
Question the value and
feasibility of the task.
Choose sides within group
and draw divisional lines.
Conflict emerges among subgroups; the authority/
competence of individuals is
challenged. Opinions polarise.
Individuals react against
efforts of the others to control
them.
Argument among members
even if there is agreement
on issues.
Tension, jealousy, lack of
unity.
Establishment of
unobtainable goals.
NORMING
Establish and maintain
realistic group parameters
for behaviour and
performance.
Establish plans and work
standards.
Develop communication of
views.
The group begins to
harmonise; it experiences
group cohesion or unity for
the first time. Norms emerge
as those in conflict are
reconciled and resistance is
overcome. Mutual support
develops.
Conflict avoidance in an
attempt to promote
harmony.
PERFORMING
Understanding of members
strengths and weaknesses.
Constructive and effective
work on the task.
The group structures itself or
accepts a structure which fits
most appropriately its
common task. Roles are seen
in terms functional to the task
and flexibility between them
develops.
MOURNING
Public celebration/ closure
ceremony to mark the
formal end of the team.
The group must accept that
the project is complete and
disband gracefully.
5
Sense of loss and anxiety at
having to break-up.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (2002) Groups: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing, Accessed: 28 June
2004 http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~dcb/courses/CS3041/Group-info2.html.
_________________________________________________________________________
RESOURCE 7: TEAMWORK QUESTIONNAIRE6
The objective of this questionnaire is to identify what stage of the teamwork model your
team is presently operating in. It contains statements about teamwork. Next to each
question indicate how rarely or often your team displays each behaviour by using the
following scoring system:
1 - Almost never 2 – Seldom 3 – Occasionally 4 – Frequently 5 – Almost always
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
6
_____ We try to have set procedures or protocols to ensure that things are orderly and run smoothly
(i.e. minimize interruptions, everyone gets the opportunity to have their say).
_____ We are quick to get on with the task on hand and do not spend too much time in the planning
stage.
_____ Our team feels that we are all in it together and shares responsibilities for the team's success or
failure.
_____ We have through procedures for agreeing on our objectives and planning the way we will
perform our tasks.
_____ Team members are afraid to ask others for help.
_____ We take our team's goals and objectives literally, and assume a shared understanding.
_____ The team leader tries to keep order and contributes to the task at hand.
_____ We do not have fixed procedures, we make them up as the task or project progresses.
_____ We generate lots of ideals, but we do not use many because we fail to listen to them and reject
them without fully understanding them.
_____ Team members do not fully trust the others members and closely monitor others who are
working on a specific task.
_____ The team leader ensures that we follow the procedures, do not argue, do not interrupt, and
keep to the point.
_____ We enjoy working together; we have a fun and productive time.
_____ We have accepted each other as members of the team.
_____ The team leader is democratic and collaborative.
_____ We are trying to define the goal and what tasks need to be accomplished.
_____ Many of the team members have their own ideas about the process and personal agendas are
rampant.
_____ We fully accept each other's strengths and weakness.
_____ We assign specific roles to team members (team leader, facilitator, time keeper, note taker,
etc.).
_____ We try to achieve harmony by avoiding conflict.
_____ The tasks are very different from what we imagined and seem very difficult to accomplish.
_____ There are many abstract discussions of the concepts and issues, some members are impatience
with these discussions.
_____ We are able to work through group problems.
_____ We argue a lot even though we agree on the real issues.
_____ The team is often tempted to go above the original scope of the project.
_____ We express criticism of others constructively
_____ There is a close attachment to the team.
_____ The goals we have established seem unrealistic.
_____ Although we are not fully sure of the project's goals and issues, we are excited and proud to be
on the team.
_____ We often share personal problems with each other.
_____ There is a lot of resisting of the tasks on hand and quality improvement approaches.
_____ We get a lot of work done.
Adapted from Clark, D. (1998) Teamwork questionnaire, Accessed: 28 June 2004,
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/teamsuv.html.
86
_________________________________________________________________________
RECORDING YOUR RESULTS
In the fill-in lines below, mark the score of each item on the questionnaire. When you have
entered all the scores for each question, total each of the four columns.
Item Score
Item Score
Item Score
Item Score
1. _______
2. _______
4. _______
3. _______
5. _______
7. _______
6. _______
8. _______
10. _______
9. _______
11. _______
12. _______
15. _______
16. _______
13. _______
14. _______
18. _______
20. _______
19. _______
17. _______
21. _______
23. _______
24. _______
22. _______
27. _______
28. _______
25. _______
26. _______
29. _______
31. _______
30. _______
32. _______
TOTAL _____
TOTAL _____
TOTAL _____
TOTAL _____
Forming
Stage
Storming
Stage
Norming
Stage
Performing
Stage
INTERPRETING THE RESULTS
The lowest score possible for a stage is 8 (Almost never) while the highest score possible for
a stage is 40 (Almost always).
The highest of the four scores indicates which stage you perceive your team to normally
operates in. If your highest score is 32 or more, it is a strong indicator of the stage your
team is in. The lowest of the three scores is an indicator of the stage your team is least like.
If your lowest score is 16 or less, it is a strong indicator that your team does not operate this
way. If two of the scores are close to the same, you are probably going through a transition
phase, except:
If you score high in both the Forming and Storming Phases then you are in the Storming
Phase
If you score high in both the Norming and Performing Phases then you are in the Performing
Stage.
If there is only a small difference between three or four scores, then this indicates that you
have no clear perception of the way your team operates, or the team's performance is highly
variable, or that you are in the storming phase (this phase can be extremely volatile with
high and low points).
87
_________________________________________________________________________
RESOURCE 8: EXAMPLES of TEAM GROUND RULES7
Example 1
 Open, honest, focused discussion
 Supportive of each others’ involvement
 Challenging but constructive
 Mutual respect
 Well prepared for meetings
 All contribute – discussion and workload
 Work to a timetable
Example 2
 People should feel free/ assertive enough to state when rules are being infringed
 More consultation about decisions – more information about decisions made
 Everyone should have a voice and be heard
 People to be encouraged to be innovative (the risk takers)
 Risks are for the common good of the group – not just individuals
 Be open to change – be prepared to try different ways of doing things
 That there be mutual respect for all team members
 Dignity of all people is maintained
 Don’t be backward in asking/ coming forward if you need help
 Each person to be committed to communicating with each other
 Be positive and give praise to others
Example 3
Team members will:
 do their fair share of work
 check to ensure that everyone understands what is to be done
 Encourage planning
 Listen willingly and carefully to others, even if view points differ
 Help the team organise work
 Involve others by asking questions
 Treat all team members as equals
 Continue to look for different ways to solve a problem
 Openly voice opinions and share ideas
Example 4
 Punctuality
 Respect others – let them speak
 Prepare for meetings
 Agenda for meeting + opportunity to expand it
 Keeping flexibility to agenda
 Achieve resolutions
 Purpose for meetings
 Structure meeting times to meet schedules of all
 Keeping to agenda
 Meet for good of the team
 Suspend judgement
 Allow time for reflection
 Be creative
7
Teale, C. (2004) Personal communication, The University of Queensland Personnel Services, c.teale@uq.edu.au,
(07) 33653455
88