Psychological safety as a driver of student learning outcomes in team-based learning environments: The mediating role of teamwork quality

With the rise of constructivist approaches, team-based learning (TBL) has gained popularity as an instructional design in the field of management education. The extant research indicates that the positive effects of TBL on student learning outcomes, which many studies report, might depend on individual as well as social-contextual drivers. In this paper, we introduce psychological safety and the quality of teamwork processes as two important social-contextual drivers of student learning outcomes in TBL settings. Based on research on team processes and TBL, we argue that psychological safety fosters student learning outcomes because of its positive effect on intrinsic motivation and group interaction. We further hypothesize that the relationship between psychological safety and student learning outcomes is mediated by the quality of teamwork processes within the student teams. A field study based on a computerized business simulation involving 169 undergraduate management students, nested within 44 teams, at a German university supports our hypotheses. We contribute to research on constructivist learning and TBL by introducing psychological safety as an important driver and the quality of teamwork processes as a mediating mechanism for student learning outcomes in TBL settings. Our study also has practical implications for the design, support, and facilitation of psychologically safe team-based learning environments.