Incorporating Team Science in Undergraduate Research

Abstract

Across many environments today, including work, education, and research, it has become increasingly common to use interdisciplinary teams to perform science and research to tackle a variety of complex challenges and advance innovation. The productivity of these interdisciplinary teams has been shown to benefit from an understanding of the Science of Team Science (SciTS), defined as scientific collaboration conducted by more than one individual in an interdependent fashion. Students in research at the undergraduate level receive limited training in the development of skills required to maximize team effectiveness- communication, planning, and conflict resolution. Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) provide a context for embedding team science to collect empirical evidence on student development of team science skills. This work investigates the impact of team communication and research plans on team science.