PROJECT-BASED LEARNING ACROSS THE MIS CURRICULUM:

AN ASSESSMENT ON TEAM BUILDING

MOHAMMAD A. ROB & VANCE ETNYRE

School of BusinessUniversity of Houston-Clear Lake

(UHCL)Houston, Texas 77058

PROJECT-BASED LEARNING

Project or Inquiry-Based Learning is an instructional method that typically -

uses complex, real-world projects have duration & deadlines like real-life projects provides communication between team members provides planning and team work provides opportunity to take responsibility adheres to curricular framework most importantly, it provides opportunity for learning the subject matter through actions

PROJECT-BASED LEARNING ACROSS THE MIS CURRICULUM

Teaching Systems Analysis & Design through Group Projects is a common practice

One of the authors (MAR) use it in all his courses: Management Information Systems Systems Analysis and Design IT Project Management Data Warehouse & Data Mining Web Development Advanced Web Development (e-commerce)

Group projects also provide an opportunity for assessment of Teamwork Skills – one of the learning goals defined for our MIS Program as required by AACSB

THE AACSB REQUIREMENT ON ASSURANCE OF LEARNING

The new AACSB accreditation requires assessment of student learning as part of the curriculum management process in the school of business.

http://www.aacsb.edu/resource_centers/assessment/overview-expectations.asp

The Assurance of Learning standards call for each degree program to:

define learning goals, assess student achievement for these goals, and utilize what is learned through assessment to

continually improve their curricular programs.

THE AACSB EXPECTATIONS REGARDING ASSURANCE OF LEARNING

Learning goals must be defined for each degree program

Four to ten goals should be developed for each degree program

Student performance on learning goals must be assessed systematically and routinely

However, no particular approach to assurance of learning is prescribed by AACSB

Assessment of programs should include direct measures of learning

Course grades cannot be considered as program assessment measures

THE AACSB EXPECTATIONS ON ASSURANCE OF LEARNING

Assessment results must be analyzed, disseminated, and utilized by the faculty toward curriculum planning

Faculty are expected to be actively involved in all stages of the assessment process including defining goals, curriculum alignment, developing appropriate measures, implementing course-embedded measures, and

improving the school’s curriculum 

Schools also will be expected to show how assessment results subsequently impacted their curriculum planning

THE UHCL MIS PROGRAM LEARNING GOALS

To adequately prepare our MIS students for various IT-related careers, we expect them to develop skills in the following five areas, or our learning goals are:

IT Competence in Business Applications Programming IT Competence in Networking IT competence in Database Critical Thinking, and Teamwork

We will focus on Teamwork skills here

TEAMWORK SKILLS THROUGH GROUP PEOJECTS

Teamwork skills are addressed in a number of MIS courses through group projects

It is expected that the participation in group projects will sharpen a student’s teamwork skills

The specific teamwork skills emphasized in the group projects include the following:

CommunicationParticipationLeadershipInitiativeContributionCollaborationConflict resolutionGroup-decision making

ASSESSMENT OF TEAMWORK SKILLS

A questionnaire will be developed for the students to measure teamwork skills in each course

A scale of 1 – 5 (signifying respectively strongly agree, agree, fairly, disagree, strongly disagree) will be employed to measure teamwork skills

An average score of 3 or less will be considered a satisfactory skill level and that of 2 or less will be considered a mastery of the skills

IMPLEMENTING GROUP PROJECTS IN VARIOUS COURSES

Except for the basic MIS course, a group project

has typically 3 group members is semester long has at least three presentations focusing on the main learning

objectives or models used in the subject matter. They are typically aligned with the planning, analysis/design, and implementation phases of the project

requires development of documentations prescribed by the subject matter

typically requires development of a prototype requires use of specific software tools requires development of a project binder requires development of a web site for documentation, and typically weighs 20%-40% of overall course grade

The MIS course had two small projects focusing mainly on e-business or emerging technology

THE GROUP PROJECT FRAMEWORK

Key ingredients of the group project

Project

Tools & Technologies

Models & Techniques

Communication

THE GROUP PROJECT FRAMEWORK

Key Models & Techniques: Presentations are focused on models and techniques on a subject Depending on the course they include: feasibility study, data-flow diagrams, program design, project plan, dimensional modeling, snow-flake schema, star schema, cube etc.

Tools and Technologies: Be familiar with the tools and technologies used in industry Mainly the software tools such as Visio, Visible Analyst, Microsoft Project, Visual WebMatrix, etc. required for a course

Communication: Communication is very important for an IT person Presentations on key concepts and models, written documentations, and web site development are parts of communication

THE ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE

The following survey questionnaire was used to assess team building; scale: 1 – 5 (strongly agree – strongly disagree)

1. The group project significantly helped me to improve my understanding of the course materials

2. The group project helped me to improve my oral communication3. The group project helped me to improve my written communication4. The group project helped me to understand teamwork5. I had fair participation in forming my team at the beginning of the

semester6. In general, members in my team participated fairly equally in all group

activities7. My team members took responsibilities of their task or work8. My team members showed interest in initiating a task or work9. My team members completed their portion of the task/work on time10. My team members responded to my e-mail or telephone call on time11. My team members were helpful in resolving differences/conflicts

between us

Note, the first three questions have no direct relationship to team building

THE ASSESSMENT DATA

The survey was conducted for two semesters on four courses

There were 100 respondents in the survey

There were 52 undergraduate and 48 graduate students

The MIS course is purely undergraduate for all majors

Systems Analysis & Design is mixed undergrad and grad

The authors believed that response from grads would be significantly different from undergrads; as majority of the grad students typically work in an IT area (Hypothesis 1)

The authors also believed that there would be significant differences in the response to 11 questions (Hypothesis 2)

THE ASSESSMENT RESULTS: MEAN RESPONSE

Question/Course MIS SAD WEB ADWEB ALL

Helped to understandcourse materials 2.64 1.87 1.7 1.57 2.01

Helped to improve oral communication 2.56 2.39 1.7 1.71 2.25

Helped to improvewritten communication 2.60 2.43 2.6 2.29 2.49

Helped to understand teamwork 2.16 2.26 1.5 1.57 2.06

I had fair participation in forming team 2.04 1.96 1.6 1.57 1.86

Group members participated fairly in teamwork 1.68 2.05 1.3 2.29 1.86

Team members took responsibilities in their work 1.64 2.17 1.4 1.71 1.79

Team members showed interest in initiating work 1.68 2.24 1.1 2.29 1.90

Team members completed their portion of tasks 1.56 1.89 1.3 1.71 1.74

Team members responded to e-mails/phone calls 1.76 1.81 1.2 1.86 1.69

Team members were helpful in resolving conflicts 1.56 2.04 1.5 1.86 1.75

* Scale: 1 - 5, and a smaller number means a greater degree of agreement

THE ASSESSMENT RESULTS: MEAN RESPONSE

Question/Course UG GRAD ALL

Helped to understand course materials 2.21 1.79 2.01

Helped to improve oral communication 2.50 1.98 2.25

Helped to improve written communication 2.52 2.46 2.49

Helped to understand teamwork 2.17 1.94 2.06

I had fair participation in forming team 1.92 1.79 1.86

Group members participated fairly in teamwork 1.64 2.10 1.86

Team members took responsibilities in their work 1.67 1.92 1.79

Team members showed interest in initiating work 1.81 2.00 1.90

Team members completed their portion of tasks 1.58 1.92 1.74

Team members responded to e-mails/phone calls 1.65 1.73 1.69

Team members were helpful in resolving conflicts 1.69 1.81 1.75

Overall 1.93 1.95 1.94

* Scale: 1 - 5, and a smaller number means a greater degree of agreement

THE ASSESSMENT RESULTS: GENERAL OBSERVATION

Questions 4-11: Team Building (<2.0) The average responses on team building show that students

had a positive experience towards team building - less than 2.0 signify mastery of the skills

Question 1: Improved understanding of Subject Matter (<2.0) Results shows that group project helped students to learn

course materials Exception is the MIS course ( >2.0); which is expected as the

group project is not based on the overall subject matter

Questions 2 & 3: Improved Oral & Written Communication (>2.0) In general there is no effect of group project on oral and

written communication. This is expected, as there were no special emphasis on

communication in Team Building other than e-mails or telephone calls

THE ASSESSMENT RESULTS: FURTHER ANALYSIS

The result of a two-tailed t-test did NOT show a significant difference between the overall response level of undergraduates (1.924) and graduates (1.949) – opposing hypothesis one

The t-statistic for the difference was 0.466 - much smaller than the 1.962 critical value required for a significant difference at the 0.05 level of significance.

The authors also believed that there would be significant differences in the responses to the eleven different questions

This was affirmed by a one-way analysis of variance test which had a measured value of 8.181 for Fisher’s F-Test significantly higher than the critical value of 1.839 – supporting hypothesis two

THE ASSESSMENT RESULTS: FURTHER ANALYSIS

The authors found that there were three statements which received responses significantly lower than the overall average

response of 1.936: 9. My team members completed their portion of the task/work on time

( mean response = 1.740, t-value = -2.137, critical value = 1.962 ) 10. My team members responded to my e-mail or telephone call on time

(mean response = 1.690, t-value = -2.703, critical value = 1.962 ) 11. My team members were helpful in resolving differences/conflicts

(mean response = 1.750, t-value = -2.047, critical value = 1.962 )

The statements which received significantly less agreement than the overall response were:

2. The group project helped me to improve my oral communication (mean response = 2.250, t-value = 3.433, critical value = 1.962 )

3. The group project helped me to improve my written communication (mean response = 2.490, t-value = 6.064, critical value = 1.962 )

CONCLUSION

All students in a semester-long project closely-related to subject matter had a positive experience on team building

In general, there is no significant difference on team building between the undergraduate and graduate students

Students of the general Management Information Systems course, taken by all undergraduate business majors, have an overall positive experience on team building, than the MIS majors who may have had several group projects during their course of study

Analysis of data for a cross-listed SAD course show that undergraduate students have a more positive attitude towards team building than graduate students - may be for the same reason as mentioned above

Thank You

&

Questions?