Developing students’ teamwork skills in a cooperative learning project

This paper aims to apply the inventory – Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) to examine the development of teamwork skills among freshmen from the Chinese Mainland through a cooperative learning activity (group project) in the context of Hong Kong.

The questionnaire survey was conducted twice, at the beginning (pre) and end (post) of the group project; qualitative interviews were undertaken after their project completion.

It was found that, except for Category 5 (having relevant knowledge, skills and abilities), the post mean scores in all items of other four categories declined, because students’ Chinese Mainland backgrounds led to their different understanding toward teamwork, as unveiled by the qualitative interviews. However their project completion enabled them to acquire the relevant competencies, causing the rise in the mean scores of Category 5.

Limited by the small sample size and American-driven CATME, this study did not observe the significant improvements in students’ self-reported evaluation of teamwork. There should be more applications of this instrument into the Asian and Chinese contexts for having it adapted to different national and cultural situations.

As a gap observed in Chinese Mainland students’ understanding to teamwork, overseas education institutions can incorporate this for curriculum development.

As a pioneer work in applying the CATME in the Chinese Mainland situation, this study implied a significant room for such kind of inventories mainly originated from west to incorporate the diverse national and cultural characteristics.