Diversity in engineering student teams: exploring interaction patterns and learning outcomes

International teamwork skills are becoming more and more important for future engineers. Engineering projects with diverse students working towards solving an issue together could cultivate such skills. However, social exclusion may rise when faultlines emerge: dividing lines that split a group into relatively homogeneous subgroups. This study aimed at connecting diversity in student team structures to team member interaction patterns and their learning outcomes. By analyzing team meetings from a Dutch university master course (three teams with different diversity attributes), using orbital decomposition analysis, we found that particularly in Team 1, a Dutch male subgroup predominated the interactions, excluding the single female Chinese student. Though group grades were similar, individual affective outcomes differed. Educators should consider diversity influences during student teamwork and offer necessary facilitation.