Engineering Students' Experiences with Interdisciplinary Multiteam Collaboration

Research Paper Recommended citation: Routhe, H. W., Kolmos, A., & Holgaard, J. E. (2025). Engineering Students’ Experiences with Interdisciplinary Multiteam Collaboration. In Kangaslampi, R., Langie, G., Järvinen, H.-M., & Nagy, B. (Eds.), SEFI 53rd Annual Conference. European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), Tampere, Finland. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17631748. This Conference Paper is brought to you for open access by the 53rd Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) at Tampere University in Tampere, Finland. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License. ENGINEERING STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES WITH INTERDISCIPLINARY MULTITEAM COLLABORATION. HENRIK WORM ROUTHE a, 1 , ANETTE KOLMOS b, JETTE EGELUND HOLGAARD c, a Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, ORCID: 0000-0001-7368-9978 b Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, ORCID: 0000-0002-0186-2839 c Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, ORCID: 0000-0002-9418-8969 Conference Key Areas: a) Engineering skills, professional skills, and transversal skills, b) Improving higher engineering education through researching engineering education. Keywords: Interdisciplinarity, Collaboration, PBL, Multiteam systems, Engineering education. ABSTRACT Interdisciplinary collaboration is necessary to overcome sustainability and climate challenges and to create sustainable innovations. Therefore, interdisciplinary collaboration is an important learning outcome in engineering education. However, learning to cross the boundaries is not an easy task due to different knowledge, scientific languages, and generic competencies, neither within single teams nor in multiteam systems. In this paper, we will present data on the collaboration within multiteam systems and how engineering students experience these learning processes. The research question is: What collaborative learning experiences have engineering students working on interdisciplinary multiteam system projects encountered, and how can these experiences be used to guide the design of learning activities supporting interdisciplinary collaboration? Earlier studies identify coordination in the meaning of leadership and management as key variables in successful multiteam systems; however, in this study we will draw on the same data with lenses on the interactive collaborative aspects. This empirical study draws on insights from a case study including data from 8 engineering groups from the faculty of engineering and science working in interdisciplinary multiteam systems on system projects. Based on the students’ experiences with interdisciplinary collaboration in 1 Corresponding Author H. W. Routhe e-mail address [email protected] multiteam systems projects, four themes were identified: 1) Communication and knowledge sharing, 2) Cognitive trust and confidence, 3) Compromising and followship and 4) Collective ownership of goals. Understanding the variables and the diversity with different types of interdisciplinary projects can support the educators in the design process for the interdisciplinary learning activities. 1 INTRODUCTION Both coordination and collaboration are core elements in successful teams and interdisciplinary teams (Elias & Fiore, 2013; Noble, 2002; Reeves et al., 2018). Coordination and collaboration are closely coupled activities in teamwork; however, coordination embrace functions and the organizational structures, whereas collaboration is much more the interpersonal relations such as trust, shared mental models, and negotiation (Noble, 2002). In an earlier study on system projects in engineering education, coordination was identified as a core element in interdisciplinary multiteam interactions (Routhe et al., 2023). It might be obvious that the larger the teams are getting, the coordination of actions will increase. However, for the multiteam system projects, we have been curious about how the collaborative aspects play out. Therefore, we have revisited the data which forms the basis for the earlier article. According to (Petri, 2010) interdisciplinary collaboration is a process. A process that is challenging due to knowledge, cultural, and learning differences in the disciplines (Kolmos, 2025). To facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, it is important to distinguish between different types of collaboration, depending on the paradigmatic distances between the disciplines and the team constructions. The paradigmatic distance between the disciplines can have a narrow distance, such as different engineering disciplines with similar paradigms and work procedures or a broad distance for example across STEM and SSH (social science and humanities) (Klein, 2006; Kolmos et al., 2024; Sonnenberg-Klein & Coyle, 2024). Another dimension to discuss concerns the organizational constructions such as interdisciplinary collaboration in single teams versus interdisciplinary collaboration in multiteam systems, where a multiteam system is to be understood by inter-team collaboration between teams of teams (Kolmos et al., 2024; Routhe et al., 2024). It may be assumed that in an interdisciplinary single team, the interdisciplinarity is located internally whereas in the interdisciplinary multiteam systems, the interdisciplinarity is located externally between the different teams. Indeed, a difference that may impact the variables in the interdisciplinary collaboration. That also means that the collaboration takes different forms and possibly does have various success variables. In the literature, it is sometimes difficult to discern between teamwork in disciplinary and interdisciplinary contexts and even which kind of interdisciplinary contexts, as authors analyze collaboration patterns in general (Kolmos et al., 2024). This might not be wrong, as there are some generic features in any collaboration; however, in practice, this might play out very differently. To be able to facilitate teamwork for both academic staff as well as students themselves as actors in the process, we need to get closer to the variations in the educational practices. In a recent study, types of project teams and disciplinary and interdisciplinary approach were compared resulting in six different categories, among which there is a system project with the aim of developing technological systems based on several disciplinary teams, from different disciplines, working together (Kolmos et al., 2024). The emphasis on both single teamwork and teamwork in a multiteam system is rather new in engineering education. Most of the literature on successful teamwork concerns single teams, and there has been less focus on constellations such as multiteam systems. There are many different models for successful teamwork in single teams, where a team, by definition, is a group of individuals working on a common goal (Atkinson, 2001; Klein, 2014; Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). In a study on teams in companies, mutual accountability, ownership of goals, open-ended discussions, and shared commitment are identified as core elements in becoming a successful team which all emphasize the collaborative aspects (Katzenbach & Smith, 2006; Katzenbach & Smith, 2008). Other scholars are adding conflict solving and constructive communication (Hall & Weaver, 2001). With the focus on interdisciplinary teams, variables such as interdependence, personal trust and cognitive trust are important, and it is important that the team builds shared knowledge (Newell & Bain, 2018). Besides, the more complex multiteam systems have a common goal that co-exists with individual team goals (Mathieu et al., 2001). Indeed, other examples of variables for interprofessional and interorganizational collaboration and teamwork may come from health care where communication is regarded essential (Karam et al., 2018; Sharp, 2006). With all these variables as point of departure for an understanding of interdisciplinary multiteam collaboration, an explorative study of students’ experiences from participating in interdisciplinary multiteam systems projects is presented. We will present the students’ experiences in system projects with narrow interdisciplinary collaboration among disciplinary teams in a multiteam system consisting of several disciplinary teams. This leads to the following research question: What collaborative learning experiences have engineering students working on interdisciplinary multiteam system projects encountered, and how can these experiences be used to guide the design of learning activities supporting interdisciplinary collaboration? 2 METHODOLOGY The context for this study is a rather new initiative on multiteam systems where students participated in three different systems projects, all part of the leadENG initiative at Aalborg University (AAU) (Geil et al., 2023). All the students were from the Faculty of Engineering and Science at AAU. The students’ experiences in this study are based on eight semi-structured group interviews conducted in spring 2022 (Routhe et al., 2023). Out of 17 participating disciplinary groups in total, four disciplinary groups from 2nd semester and one disciplinary group from 6th semester were interviewed. The students represent three different projects. Three of the groups were interviewed twice, within two months, see Table 1. The group interviews were conducted in Danish. The coding took place in NVivo, and quotes are afterwards translated to English. The interviews were coded in two rounds, firstly with emphasis on coordination (leadership and project management), and in the coding process there were many quotes which were not analyzed as these were more about interpersonal relations. The coding in this study re-visited the interviews with a systematic focus on the students’ interpersonal collaborative experiences, that was not included in the previous research (Routhe et al., 2023). This specific data concerning interdisciplinary collaboration has then been coded with an inductive data driven approach to find themes related to the students’ experiences of interdisciplinary collaboration (Gibbs, 2018). In these systems projects the interdisciplinary collaboration is an inter-team process, and hence the focus in this study is located on the inter-team collaborative experiences. Table 1. Overview of the semi-structured group interviews. Project Interviewed Team 1st Interview 2nd Interview Vertical Windmill (9 groups in total) 2nd semester Engineering Science 5 students 4 students 2nd semester Materials and Production 6 students 5 students Small Electrical Vehicle (6 groups in total) 6th semester Materials and Production 5 students 4 students 2nd semester Materials and Production 5 students Stirling Engine (2 groups in total) 2nd semester Materials and Production 6 students The thematic analysis has been an iterative process, where the themes have been adjusted currently to express the students’ experiences. Four themes were finally identified to describe engineering students’ experiences with interdisciplinary collaboration in multiteam systems projects: 1. Communication and knowledge sharing, 2. Cognitive trust and confidence 3. Compromising and followship 4. Collective ownership of goals These four themes are elaborated in the next section. 3 FINDINGS In this section, the findings from the students’ experiences are presented according to the four themes listed above. 3.1 Communication and knowledge sharing The findings indicate that the students understand the importance of communication and knowledge sharing and establish ways of communicating as one of the initial elements in the collaboration. “There's maybe one thing to add to that with the communication. That was one of the first things we talked about. [….], we can probably do that by having a Teams chat like this, and then people can write in there in the Teams chat.” (Student at 2nd semester) In the beginning of the semester, it is more declarative knowledge. However, during the semester, the need for closer collaboration is experienced by the students and more procedural or relational knowledge is needed. “I feel like at the beginning, it's much more practical knowledge sharing, that's where you overlap. ‘What should the screws look like?’ Okay... Or something… It's not so much you do this, I do this...” (Student at 2nd semester) However, with an increased need for knowledge sharing, the students are aware that asynchronous communication may not be sufficient anymore. “The thing about communicating over Teams in leadENG, it doesn't work... No. There needs to be a more active contact system so you can get hold of people right away, a rolling chat, something like that. The thing about you leaving some message on Teams and people checking it once a week or something….” (Student at 2nd semester) Indeed, the findings indicate that the students experience how the need for communication changes during the semester and that there are different kinds of knowledge and hence different methods of communication and knowledge sharing. “There was a period in the last few weeks leading up to our handover where our group room was almost just a revolving door for other groups. Especially the other wing group we collaborated with, they would come in and be like ‘no, we'll just have to adjust this, we've made a mistake’. (Student at 2nd semester) During the last phases in the projects co-constructing becomes the key and the knowledge becomes more and more relational, and active participation was the way to succeed. “[…} then it was all on Teams until we started building it, and you could just, you could feel it right away, that as soon as all the groups were down in the workshop, and you could just talk to each other, where you were. And you could go and look at it in reality, and look ‘well, but your part, it actually looks like this’…. So, the productivity, it just quadrupled or something like that…” (Student at 6th semester) These findings indicate that students, based on their own experiences, are aware of the importance of communication and that they have been able to identify, design, and evaluate communication methods needed in the different project phases. Communication methods that support the interdisciplinary knowledge sharing in the inter-team collaboration process. 3.2 Cognitive trust and confidence Cognitive trust in an interdisciplinary context is about the confidence and the belief that students from other disciplines have the necessary competencies and capabilities to make decisions and to work on the common project. “I don't really think we've had any conflicts like that. But it's also because many of the groups have had the role of experts in their field... So, it's very much like ‘you're the expert, so we choose to believe it, and then we have to try to see how it matches the schedule when we're going to build it’.” (Student at 2nd semester) The quote above may also indicate that though they trust the other teams, there is a distance between the different teams, and they choose to believe they are right and if not, they will try to see what happens. The trust is focused on the other teams – inter-team trust - not trust or confidence at a personal level. Moreover, the findings may indicate that students rely on the other disciplines’ knowledge to improve their own work. “So, some of the things that work well. For example, because we are Machine and Production, we don't necessarily have a lot of control over thermodynamics and the energy part of the engine. And then we know that we can ‘steal’ a lot of things from the opponent group.” (Student at 2nd semester) What is important to note again, focus is at the team level, not at the personal level. However, it might be difficult for students at a higher semester to trust students from their own discipline at a lower grade level, whereas students from other disciplines may add to their knowledge, though the trust may increase with students from higher semesters in general. “[…].. just like we do Machine and Production, that is, study Machine and Production. But it has definitely been different to have some Energy Technicians involved as well. They come from a slightly different point of view, actually a completely different point of view. So, it has definitely been exciting to have them involved as well. But again, I think you would benefit more from it if they were in a higher semester…” (Student at 6th semester) The findings indicate that the students do recognize that they may trust the knowledge from other disciplinary teams and that it may be a gain for their own learning, though they value knowledge more from older students. The students have experienced the importance of identifying and recognizing cognitive trust and confidence in multiteam projects and evaluate in which ways cognitive trust between interdisciplinary teams can be established. 3.3 Compromising and followship The students experience that flexibility is needed, which is expressed as compromising or followship, and they recognize that there might be different opinions concerning the right solution. “I think there will definitely be more opinions about what the best solution would be.” (Student at 2nd semester) Moreover, the students experience that making compromises and listening to different opinions takes time and might lead to delays. “And in terms of being able to choose it, we had to wait, we had to wait for, … the generator group. What kind of generator would they have? … What do the blade groups say? How much, how fast can we rotate? There is a lot of delay, you had to wait for a response from them in order to be able to take some actions….” (Student at 2nd semester) However, the findings indicate that the students were able to find compromises to solve emerging conflicts and again, it is important to note that focus is on the interteam level and not at a personal level. “I won't say we haven't had major conflicts in terms of collaboration, I think pretty much everyone was willing to collaborate with each other. So, I don't think anyone just came out and said, ‘we'll just do this, then all the rest of you just have to agree’. I think pretty much people were willing to compromise and kind of make it work.” (Student at 6th semester) And sometimes a compromise is needed to proceed. “I think it ended with us saying that this project has to become something, so we probably have to compromise so that we don't just get stuck with this problem until the project is over.” (Student at 6th semester) Sometimes making compromises may not be the best solution for the individual team. However, to accomplish the common objectives or goals the “best” solution is not necessarily the right solution. “You probably have to compromise a little more than you really wanted to, because you can't just take over their project and say they have to do something specific. So, we ended up more or less going with most of the requests they had, and then we just incorporated them. It was the easiest way to work forward….” (Student at 6th semester) The students’ experiences indicate that they can analyze and develop the multiteam collaboration processes and consider the strengths and weaknesses using compromises and followship. 3.4 Collective ownership of goals The awareness of common goals and ownership of the goals are important drivers for the interdisciplinary collaboration and are experienced by the students. “…. These are little things like that, you can say it's not something that will ultimately make our projects go down the drain, but it's for the leadENG project itself as a whole, if it's going to be a car we're going to show at the conference that can drive and stuff and collect data on, then that has something to say….” (Student at 6th semester) Adding to the understanding of the collective ownership, everything needs to fit together if the goal shall be succeeded, and that the common goals create the interdependency among the teams, as “it’s all interdependent” and “it’s all connected” as one student at the 6th semester formulated. And as the final quotes signal, the collective ownership based on a common goal and the interdependency between the different disciplines and teams is important for the collaboration process. “So, we in the chassis group are directly dependent on all the other groups because it all has to be mounted on the chassis. So, there it has to fit together.” (Student at 6th semester) “Well, I would say if they don't have a chassis, they can't make the car run. We are all dependent on each other.” (Student at 6th semester) These findings illustrate that students experience that with the complexity in multiteam systems and different team goals, collective ownership and common goals are important antecedent parameters for interdisciplinary collaboration. 4 CONCLUSION The findings above related to the students’ experiences participating in narrow interdisciplinary multiteam system projects address four different themes for collaboration 1) Communication and knowledge sharing, 2) Cognitive trust and confidence, 3) Compromising and followship and 4) Collective ownership of goals. The students’ experiences reflect that, when they describe their experiences, they equalize the other disciplines with the other groups except for the 6th semester group and 2nd semester group from the same discipline. Moreover, the findings indicate that when participating in interdisciplinary and multiteam collaborations the communication differs compared to single team interdisciplinarity. The disciplinary boundaries are between teams. Similarly, compromising and eventually cognitive trust take place in the disciplinary boundary between the teams. Finally, goals exist in a hierarchy with common goals for the system and separate goals for the individual team, which is aligned with the theory of multiteam systems. For educators designing interdisciplinary students’ projects, it is important to be specific about the actual interdisciplinary setup, whether it is single team or multiteam systems, as the collaboration process is different accordingly. It is necessary to understand the variables involved in interdisciplinary collaboration and the diversity with different types of projects when educators design the interdisciplinary learning activities. Furthermore, results of this paper also point at more practical implications, most notably a careful consideration of potential learning objectives to strengthen the focus on interdisciplinary multiteam system collaboration in engineering education. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This research was funded by The Grundfos Foundation, (Grant No. 2021-005), Denmark.