PhD defence Roosmarijn van Woerden: Mastering Teamwork in Multidisciplinary Student Teams

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Studenten faculteit Geesteswetenschappen. Foto: Tim Vermeire (via Huisstijlplatform)

On Monday 4 November, Roosmarijn van Woerden will defend her PhD dissertation ‘Mastering Teamwork in Multidisciplinary Student Teams’. In this dissertation, van Woerden examines how students can be trained to become effective collaborators capable of bridging differences between team members.

Teamwork in Multidisciplinary Teams

Currently, teamwork education falls short, particularly for multidisciplinary student teams. Too often, students are placed in teams to perform a task together without learning how to work well together and with little guidance on the teamwork process. Van Woerden highlights the lack of a clear competency framework for collaboration and a thorough translation into specific learning objectives, learning activities, and assessment.

Teamwork in multidisciplinary teams is challenging, as team members have different disciplinary backgrounds and often work on complex tasks using an interdisciplinary approach that is still under development. Students frequently lack sufficient teamwork skills and show suboptimal teamwork behaviour. The development of these skills has not been adequately addressed.

Students and their learning needs

Students struggle to hold structured meetings in which they collaborate on a single task, have in-depth integrative discussions, and make good decisions. They shy away from discussing suboptimal team processes and interpersonal frustrations but spend considerable time on task division, planning, uncertainty reduction, and distractions during meetings.

Van Woerden demonstrates that students have various learning needs for collaboration in multidisciplinary teams. They wish to enhance their self-knowledge and self-confidence, and learn to understand and bridge differences between team members. They also want to foster a positive attitude, motivation, and shared responsibility. Additionally, they aim to take on different roles, discuss key teamwork aspects at the start of collaboration, and improve their ability to address and resolve problems within the team.

Start date and time
End date and time
Location
Hybrid: online (click here) and at the Utrecht University Hall
PhD candidate
R. van Woerden
Dissertation
Mastering Teamwork in Multidisciplinary Student Teams
PhD supervisor(s)
Professor I. van der Tuin
Professor S.G.L. Schruijer
Co-supervisor(s)
Dr M.M. Goch