More Than the End Goal: Why Teamwork Policies Need Processes as Much as Outcomes

Global engineering accreditation bodies, including ABET, the International Engineering Alliance, and the European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education, consistently emphasize the industry requirement of teamwork competencies for engineers. These competencies include the ability to function effectively as team members and leaders across different modalities, while successfully navigating diverse and inclusive team dynamics. Engineers must demonstrate proficiency in collaborative work within both national and international contexts, as well as across multidisciplinary settings involving engineering and nonengineering professionals. This universally adopted educational standard necessitates that engineering educators develop and implement collaborative learning strategies that align with other accreditation standards. However, most engineering instructors receive no formal training in teamwork pedagogies. While accreditation boards emphasize the need to achieve these teamwork outcomes, they lack the equally important guide on the processes needed to achieve such outcomes in each context. Current teamwork delivery often contains fundamental flaws a) promoting individualism over collaboration, b) emphasizing technical skills instead of socio-technical scaffolding, c) encouraging assimilation rather than intercultural competence, and d) reinforcing power imbalances instead of fostering diversity and inclusion. Engineering instructors need more than broad goals. This paper suggests three strategies (1) create a policy framework that provides specific implementation approaches aligned with accreditation standards and more importantly, the benefit of students, (2) create a committee of teamwork implementation processes with local and diverse participants and researchers, and (3) callouts in which researchers would participate to offer guidelines to achieve the desired teamwork outcomes in their context.