Investigating Required Group Dynamics and Motivational Strategies for High-Performance Study Teams

The objective of this article is to explore what are the group-related dynamics and motivational strategies for becoming a high-performing engineering student team in a university environment applying a problem – and project based learning (PBL) model. It reflects an interest in engineering students’ motivation to learn in groups – a poorly researched area within Engineering Education in times of great educational, societal and environmental need for engineers who possess such collaborative skills and competencies. The theoretical framework is constructed by contemporary theories about relational dynamics (liquidating, maintaining or evolving ways of interaction), 6 strategies to support or inhibit
motivation in collaborative learning and theories on high-performing teams. Empirically, the study is based on recorded real-time interviews and actions of three selected first-year engineering student teams’ collaboration and interaction, with 5 or 6 students in each group. Theoretically, the article concludes that high-performing study teams are characterised by an
ability to stay curious and draw learning and nourishment from internal differences, while still keeping an explicit learning focus. Being able to acknowledge and work with unresolved differences is an ability that puts the team on a constant evolving learning curve. Reflecting upon and being able to master 6 specific motivational strategies creates the most supportive and developing framework to do so. From an empirical point of view, we show how this plays out in three specific teams and conclude that our three engineering student teams are on their way to become high-performance teams,
displaying qualitatively different versions of what an efficient study team looks like.