Interdisciplinary teamwork artefacts and practices: a typology for promoting successful teamwork in engineering education

Professional organisations and engineering educators in Australia recognise that interdisciplinary teamwork skills are increasingly important for engineering graduates to develop. However, knowledge and resources for how best to develop those skills is underdeveloped. This article addresses that gap by introducing a new conceptual framework and typology for promoting successful interdisciplinary teamwork. The analysis is based upon several long-term ethnographic studies of interdisciplinary student teams. The conceptual framework is called Interdisciplinary Teamwork Artefacts and Practices (ITAP), and the six types of ITAPs are: (1) orienting, (2) operating, (3) levelling, (4) proposing, (5) aligning, and (6) structuring. This typology can be used to help instructors and students alike navigate the challenges of interdisciplinary teamwork while maximising interdisciplinary learning outcomes. ©, Engineers Australia.