<p>This research investigated the influence
and relationship of two cognitive diversity frameworks on student design team
knowledge integration capabilities and team contribution among seventy-five
(75) student teams in Purdue’s Tech 120: Design Thinking in Technology course. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>When in cognitively diverse teams, students do
not effectively integrate the knowledge available to them. Past research
results in this area have further demonstrated that students tend to get worse
at collaboration as the cognitive differences emerge and are exposed over time.
The costs of this lack of collaboration and assimilation of knowledge assets
are significant, such as diminished creativity, coordination, and other team
performance measures. The purpose of this study then, was to provide student
design teams with models or frameworks for visualizing and understanding the
cognitive diversity available to them in their team and test the impact these
frameworks have on various measures of team effectiveness: knowledge
integration, psychological safety, and individual contribution. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cognitive diversity frameworks in question have
been used successfully in various industry and organizational settings. The
first, is the FourSight Thinking Profile™. This framework is used to understand
one’s creative problem-solving preferences and how those preferences (high,
neutral, and low) impact group dynamics. The second, is the AEM-Cube®. This
framework draws on several theoretical foundations to assess an individua’s
patterns of thinking and responses to change. Both the FourSight Thinking
Profile™ and the AEM-Cube® have shown to help teams in industry settings
collaborate (DeCusatis, 2008; Reynolds & Lewis, 2017), but their use in
educational settings to solve the knowledge integration and team contribution
problem in student teams is untested. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The nearly 470 students in Purdue’s TECH 120
course were organized into teams ranging from 3-5 members by their instructors,
thus creating a total of 129 teams. The researcher then divided the 129 teams
into two fairly equal treatment groups. Each treatment group was given one of
two cognitive diversity assessments (FourSight or AEM-Cube) to complete
individually, time to review the results, and then asked to create a team
charter or contract where students discussed cognitive strengths and weaknesses
and how they planned to manage those assets and deficiencies as they worked on
a 4-week long design thinking project. Only 75 teams completed all steps of the
treatment (either FourSight or AEM-Cube) and thus were the focus of analysis. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The major conclusions of this study are that
while neither the FourSight or AEM-Cube frameworks for cognitive diversity were
more effective in raising student knowledge integration capability or overall
team contribution, these frameworks did not negatively impact the student
experience; high levels of psychological safety were maintained among both more
homogeneous teams and those that were more heterogeneous; and higher levels of
knowledge integration capabilities and team contribution were achieved by students
in varying degrees of diversity of creative problem-solving preferences and
strategic agility. While the reason(s) for such high scores for knowledge
integration capability, team member contribution, and psychological safety are
unknown, the students reported that the processes by which these teams
integrated their knowledge assets and solicited the contribution of their team
members was both positive and effective. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Further research into the effectiveness of the
treatment, the influence of demographic diversities on team functions, and the
experience of the 54 student teams that did not complete the treatment are
needed to elucidate and understand the findings of this study. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/15070332 |
| Date | 29 July 2021 |
| Creators | Matthew David Jones (8963678) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Cognitive_Diversity_and_Knowledge_Integration_in_Student_Design_Teams/15070332 |
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