Association between personality traits diversity in teams and their performance in a semi-virtual learning environment

Teamwork skills is an essential component of engineering professional skills. Engineering colleges rely on projects to develop students' teamwork skills. Traditionally, this is done in an in-person setting where students hold meetings, discussion, and design activities related to their projects. In this context of traditional in-person learning environment, data has suggested an association between some personality traits and team performance; and between specific learning styles and team performance. It is unclear how this is affected in a semi-virtual environment. Moreover, the extent to which diversity in team-members personality type and learning style is associated with their team performance, in a semi-virtual learning environment, is in need of exploration. The 2020-2021 cohort of first-year engineering students has inaugurated a new era in higher education. This era holds unprecedented effects and COVID-19 related uncertainties, setbacks and challenges for students and colleges. Several colleges have opted for a semi-virtual learning environment in order to mitigate the spread of the virus. This paper is situated in the context of a semi-virtual team-based first-year engineering course in a Midwestern Research 1 institution. Our research question is formulated as follows: To what extent does diversity in learning style and personality type in a team associate with their team dynamics in a semi-virtual learning environment? To answer this question we administered to students a Qualtrics survey designed to collect data for students profiles in personality type and learning style. We used the BigFive Personality types: Open vs. closed to experience, Conscientiousness vs. casual, Extroverted vs. introverted, Agreeableness vs. disagreeableness, Neurotic vs. stable; and the VARK (Visual, Aural, Reading/Writing, Kinesthetic) questionnaire for the learning style. These instruments have evidence of reliability and have been used with US engineering students. Peer–evaluation data and team effectiveness as the dependent variables are used to assess team dynamics.