Self and Peer Assessments of Teamwork Skills in an 8th Grade Math Course Using the Teamwork Skills Inventory

Abstract

Today’s society requires individuals to have effective teamwork skills in order to be successful at work. The researchers in this study felt the need to provide teachers with an opportunity to see the benefits of including teamwork skills assessment in their classroom and the positive effects it can have on students. Specifically, this quantitative study utilized the Teamwork Skills Inventory in an 8th grade math classroom and focused on the following: differences between gender perspectives of teamwork skills, self and peer assessments of teamwork skills, the most identified teamwork skills and the least identified teamwork skills. A formative and summative self and peer assessment was conducted during a recency project wherein deidentified data was analyzed using SPSS v.26. The findings were analyzed according to the four research questions. Research question one did indicate a significant difference between formative and summative findings when comparing and contrasting the self and peer formative and summative data. Research questions two and three identified teamwork skills according to the most and least observed by team members’ self and peer perceptions. Through the summation and frequency of the data, the peer formative, peer summative, self formative, self summative, subscale peer formative, subscale peer summative, subscale self formative, and subscale self summative results indicated the most and least occurring teamwork skills for each category. Finally, the findings for research question four did not indicate a difference in gender perspectives on teamwork skills. The implications can assist 8th grade math educators by providing a list of teamwork skills that the majority of students should and should not be able to perform within their class. While the possibilities for future research are vast, a possible correlation study could be conducted to identify the age threshold in which females become more proficient in teamwork skills than males as this study did not find a significant difference between gender means.