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Students' attitudes towards teamwork and their group effectiveness

Aleksandra Rudawska, Malwina Szarek

Abstract

An analysis of contemporary labour market indicates that teamwork skills are among the competences most desired by employers. Therefore, students, future employees, should develop and improve their teamwork skills. The authors argue that team member effectiveness depends, among other things, on the teamwork attitudes.

The paper's aim is to identify students' attitude towards teamwork as well as to characterize the needs for the improvement of students' teamwork skills. The results of a survey among 108 students of master degree are presented. The survey inquired several teamwork issues among students in three areas: students' understanding of a teamwork concept, their attitudes towards teamwork and assessment of team member effectiveness with the usage of CATME instrument.

The results show that students are not convinced of positive teamwork effects and they rather prefer to work individually. The analysis of their effectiveness as team members indicates that their communication skills, specialized knowledge and competences needed for project tasks are on a quite satisfactory level. However, three other dimensions of effective teamwork behaviour require improvement, i.e. task controlling and keeping team on track, expecting quality of teamwork and contributing to the team's work.

Finally, basing on the literature review, the authors propose several hints on how the students' team projects should be pursued by academic teachers.

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Keywords

team work; group effectiveness; teamwork skills; teamwork attitudes; CATME; communication skills

AUTHORS

Aleksandra Rudawska

Szczecin University

Malwina Szarek

Szczecin University

About the article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15219/em55.1104

The article is in the printed version on pages 12-21.

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How to cite

A. Rudawska, M. Szarek, Postawy studentów względem pracy zespołowej i ich zespołowa efektywność, „e-mentor” 2014, nr 3 (55), s. 12-21, http://dx.doi.org/10.15219/em55.1104.