A Proposed Case Study of Teamwork in a Canadian Mechanical Engineering Program

This paper describes a proposed case study of teamwork in a Canadian mechanical engineering program. This study builds on the knowledge about teamwork that exists in the broad engineering education research (EER) community and seeks to highlight some variations in teamwork experiences that students, educators, and professionals have observed in engineering programs. The study will use social constructivism as a framework to analyze student experiences qualitatively and contextually. The study aims to address a gap in EER by considering students’ teamwork experiences in a holistic sense, at a program level. Through thick descriptions of teamwork, it is the overarching goal of this study to highlight facets of teamwork that are affected by program design, as well as to provide insight into aspects of students’ teamwork experiences that have not been captured by existing research approaches found in the literature. Specifically, this study hopes to provide insight on the equity of student experiences in teamwork through holistic inquiry.