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Measuring and Understanding Team Development by Capturing Self-assessed Enthusiasm and Skill Levels

To prepare graduates for today's work environment, they must be immersed in positive (and perhaps negative) small group experiences in their courses, which will in turn provide a basic understanding of how teams form and develop over time. In the fall of 2009, we started exploring how software development teams form and interact in a computer science college capstone course setting. Our initial findings were presented at ICER 2010 in Aarhus, Denmark. The focus of our research was on the experiences of computer science college course teams as compared and contrasted to the theory of Bruce Tuckman's stages of small group development model, which he characterized as forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. We continued data collection with the computer science capstone course in the fall of 2010 and added an information systems capstone course as well. At the conclusion of the spring 2014 semester, we have collected and analyzed data for a total of 5 academic years from nine cohorts of students taught by five instructors involving 215 students on 51 teams. Each year, participants repeatedly self-assessed their enthusiasm and skill levels over time using a questionnaire by agreeing or disagreeing to statements. The data shows patterns similar to that of Tuckman's model. Since most people find Tuckman's model easy to understand, it may provide an effective tool to teach teamwork and monitor team development. In addition to briefly presenting our empirical findings in this article, we provide a simple conceptualization of Tuckman's model that can be captured in two data points: enthusiasm and skill level. By comparing changes in these two dimensions over time, team development can be tracked through the various Tuckman stages of small group development. We also provide a minicurriculum which can be used to introduce students to Tuckman's model and provide them insight into what leadership style works best in each of the development stages.