Improving interdisciplinary teamwork competence and team functioning in higher education using a role-based reflective teamwork improvement method

Introduction Interdisciplinary research, often done in teams, is needed to face complex problems. This means that teamwork competence is becoming ever more important in researchers. Educators in higher education have incorporated teamwork learning in their programs, but what is often lacking is explicit teamwork competence teaching and learning. Teaching teamwork is complicated, as there are about 94 teamwork competence areas in which a person and/or team requires competence for good teamwork and about 250 different aspects of teamwork can be differentiated. The aim of this paper is to provide a developed and exploratively tested method for explicitly teaching teamwork competences in interdisciplinary higher education programs. Methods The proposed method, the Role-based Reflective Teamwork Improvement Method (RRTIM), builds on four roles that students take on during their teamwork. These roles are in line with overarching aspects of team work: Task Manager, Process Manager, Relationship Manager and Communications Manager. Using an educational research design path, the method was piloted and improved based on feedback from both students and teachers. The final version of the RRTIM was then evaluated by comparing similar reflections in a non-RRTIM course and a course in which the RRTIM was implemented. Results and discussion Exploratory findings suggest that in the course where the RRTIM was implemented, students showed greater awareness of different aspects of teamwork, slightly more in-depth and nuanced reflections upon and analysis of their own teamwork, and more indications of agency in changing sub-optimal team processes and strengthening already good team processes.