Surveying First-Year STEM Students’ Self-Reported Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes Towards Teamwork

Authors

• Gregory R. Goldsmith, Chapman UniversityFollow
• Camilla Acosta, Chapman University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-21-2026

Abstract

The ability to work in a team is cited as a key outcome for many undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs, both as a method for improving learning and as a highly desired trait for employers. Despite a growing focus on teamwork, our ability to design appropriate teamwork curriculum is limited by our poor understanding of what students arriving at university know about teamwork, what teamwork skills they consider themselves to possess, and their attitudes towards teamwork. We delivered a mixed-methods survey to first-year STEM undergraduate students (n = 205) to benchmark knowledge, skills and attitudes towards teamwork among students from different demographics. We observed strong internal consistency and measurement invariance across demographic groups, enabling comparisons by gender, race/ethnicity, first-generation status, Pell grant eligibility, and academic major. Students overwhelmingly self-reported as highly skilled at teamwork and as having positive attitudes. We observed very limited evidence for differences in self-reported knowledge, skills, or attitudes towards teamwork among demographic groups, including when we explicitly compared among intersectional identities. Given prior evidence of inequitable teamwork experiences reported by students from underrepresented identities, our findings point to potential limitations of current self-reporting instruments and support the development of more specific teamwork items that better inform curriculum choices.

Comments

This article was originally published in Journal for STEM Education Research in 2026. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41979-026-00188-1

Recommended Citation

Goldsmith, G.R., Acosta, C. Surveying First-Year STEM Students’ Self-Reported Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes Towards Teamwork. Journal for STEM Educ Res (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41979-026-00188-1

Copyright

The authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.