Teamwork functions - the pros and cons - How to maximize teamwork efficiency - final thesis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, the authors would like to express the sincere thanks of gratitude to our research supervisor, Ms Hoang Van Trang who has always offered us enthusiastic support, guidance, comments and compliments as well Without her wholehearted assistance and encouragements in each step of the research procedure, the study would have never been accomplished Secondly, the completion of the research could not have been achievable without the dedicating contribution of fourth-year students in Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies Their devoted participation is the greatest motivation for us to accomplish the study We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of them Last but not least, the researchers also wish to send the indeed gratitude to our classmates, friends and other people who gave us feedbacks, suggestions and cheers in the completion of the study i ABSTRACT It is beyond a shadow of doubt that teamwork skills are increasingly appreciated in workplace as well as in casual society It is now widely acknowledged that the ability to work in a team has become an obligatory prerequisite for any professional occupation Perceiving that fourth – year students of Faculty of English Language Teacher Education in University of Languages and International Studies are going to be the upcoming major labor forces in the marketplace, the research is conducted to equip the population in specific and students in general necessarily essential skills to outstandingly confront forthcoming job challenges Based on the actual results and other related materials, the researchers would like to expose the common difficulties of working in a team and to propose some viable recommendation afterwards Through this research, it is expected that Vietnamese students will take thoughtful consideration of acquiring teamwork skills to boost the job performance as well as open up more avenues of employment ii LIST OF PICTURES, CHARTS AND TABLES Picture 1: Informal team _ Picture 2: Traditional team _10 Picture 3: Virtual team 11 Chart 1: The ideal number of members in a group 22 Chart 2: Common assignment delegation methods 24 Chart 3: Common problems when working in a team _ 24 Chart 4: Effective Communication Methods 28 Chart 5: Increasing Engagement Methods 30 Chart 6: Effective Tasks Delegation _31 Chart 7: Possibility of confronting same problems in teamwork _32 Table 1: Common problems when working in a team _ 24 Table 2: Evaluation of problems effects 26 Table 3: The important factors to a group success 27 Table 4: Characteristics of ideal leaders 28 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT _i ABSTRACT ii LIST OF PICTURES, CHARTS AND TABLES iii TABLE OF CONTENTS _ iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationales for the study _1 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Methods of the study _ 1.5 Design of the study _5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of Teamwork 2.2 Types of Teamwork _ 2.2.1 Informal team 2.2.2 Traditional team 2.2.3 Self‐directed team 10 2.2.4 Virtual team _10 2.3 The Importance of Teamwork 11 2.4 Benefits of Teamwork _13 2.5 Difficulties arising in Teamwork 14 2.6 Related studies 16 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY _ 18 3.1 Participants 18 3.2 Data collection instruments _ 18 3.2.1 Quantitative methods _18 iv 3.2.2 Survey questions _19 3.3 Data collection procedures _20 3.3.1 Writing process 20 3.3.2 Delivery 20 3.3.3 Collection _21 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS 22 4.1 Students attitudes towards teamwork 22 4.1.1 The ideal number of members in a group 22 4.1.2 The preferable members to form a group 23 4.1.3 The favorable role in a group _ 23 4.1.4 The relationship between leaders and members _23 4.1.5 Common assignment delegation methods 23 4.2 Common problems when working in a team 24 4.2.1 Common problems when working in a team 24 4.2.2 Negative effect evaluation of the problems _25 4.3 Recommendations for teamwork difficulties 26 4.3.1 Important factors to work thoroughly in a team _26 4.3.2 Characteristics of ideal leaders 27 4.3.3 Effective Communication Methods _28 4.3.4 Responsibility Display Methods _ 29 4.3.5 Increasing Engagement Methods _29 4.3.6 Effective Tasks Delegation _30 4.3.7 Potential problem solvers and the solving process _31 4.3.8 Evaluation after assignments 31 CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS _33 5.1 Research Findings 33 5.1.1 Findings about students' attitudes towards teamwork _33 v 5.1.2 Findings about problems when working in a team _35 5.1.3 Findings about what students often to solve teamwork problems (solutions suggested by respondents) 37 5.2 Solutions _ 39 5.2.1 Suggestions before working in a team 39 5.2.2 Suggestions during working in a team 40 5.2.3 Suggestions after working in a team _41 5.3 Limitation of the study _ 42 5.4 Recommendations for further stud _ 43 APPENDIX 44 Survey Questionnaire REFERENCES _50 vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION In recent modern society, teamwork skills have become a necessary proficiency as well as essential requirement in workplace and casual society as well Besides a wide range of researches related to the topic, this is still an alluring issue for further studies 1.1 Rationales for the study “Small teams outperform solo geniuses” (James, 2015) While Einstein or Newton does exist, they are exceedingly rare In real life, even brilliant people are just more effective and creative when working with others Teamwork skills hence are becoming indispensable for a person to accomplish life achievements Acquiring efficient teamwork skills, however, is an undoubtedly strenuous process which is obstructed by numerous obstacles This research is conducted with the target of figuring out problems and difficulties to which fourth-year Students in Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE) at University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) have confronted when working in a team and thenceforth proposing corresponding solutions In great detail, the research is undertaken based on the ground of three main reasons The first reason is determined to be the fact that the prerequisite for working in a team does increase currently, not only among academic milieu but also in a social environment because teamwork has been recognized to be the great solution to accomplish mutual tasks Teamwork may happen roughly in every single activity, from as simple as cooking to as complicated as doing an intellectual research, all of which highlight the significance of attaining teamwork skills to succeed This leads to the necessity to find out difficulties in working in a team and corresponding measures to increase the level of proficiency regarding teamwork among the population Secondly, the research is conducted due to the obligation of working in a team given in undergraduate curriculum It is currently witnessing the popularity of teamwork becoming a compulsory task in relatively any intellectual courses Students are required to work in a group for mutual assignments on an excessively regular basis A substantial number of students are detected to suffer from teamwork failures due to the shortage of teamwork skills such as leadership skills, communication skills, or coordination skills To help ULIS students in specific and undergraduate students in general acquire efficient teamwork competencies to enhance academic performance, this research will locate underlying problems causing disruption and obstacles on teamwork as well as corresponding suggestions to assist them on utilizing teamwork in many upper-level courses The final reason why researchers chose this subject matter is that its results can be in the long term used to optimize one’s teamwork skills in further professional careers Everyone in the workforce works as a team member at some points in their career (Lawler, Mohrman, Cohen, & Ledford, 1998; Nielsen, Sundstrom, & Halfhill, 2005) Teamwork plays an even more important role in workplaces than it does in schools as from small startups to large corporations, teamwork decreases burnout and increases company's overall productivity There observes a high possibility of the fact that a small lack of teamwork skills in professional workplaces can lead to extremely serious consequences Hence, to properly acquire teamwork skills, this research will be carried out to provide sufficient knowledge and solving methods to teamwork problems to prevent unexpected consequences in professional careers In brief, the increasing demand for teamwork in life, in academic performance and in professional careers are regarded as three major rationales stimulating the authors to choose the research title; and surmounting difficulties as well as feasible solutions for FELTE students at ULIS in particular and graduates in general to facilitate teamwork competence in any environment is mandatory 1.2 Aims of the study Several researches have been carried out on the concept of teamwork This research work is not a right derivation from all other works as it focuses on the fourth-year students in FELTE of ULIS to figure out and examine several specific objectives The research is momentous to identify some background teamwork-related information, which enables the authors to grasp considerable knowledge and even profound understanding of functioning in a team Secondly, the research will reveal the students’ attitude towards working in a team and reckoning their teamwork efficiency Last but not least, the impacts of working in team among the last year student at FELTE of ULIS especially on negative aspects will be clarified In other words, the study is to scrutinize underlying problems that FELTE fourth-year students have confronted on a frequent basis and to propose certain excellent suggestions Due to these prime objectives, hopefully, the researchers would like to provide a more comprehensive view of teamwork, prevailing issues and feasible solutions in particular in order to encourage teamwork efficiently, and increase academic performance as well as practical soft skills for life 1.3 Scope of the study Due to the lack of time to collect the adequate data and in-depth knowledge of the objects on a large scale, the research is conducted on the range of 100 FELTE students from ULIS in the academic year 2014 - 2018 This scope is chosen based on the ground that the population is identified as lastyear undergraduates who have four-year experiences in working in groups, hence they possess a deeper understanding about teamwork issues more than the first, second and third-year students The survey results will be captured accurately and reliably for data analysis Moreover, the final-year students are potential members of the upcoming labor forces so enhancing teamwork skills is one of the most critical competencies in their preference to improve and be qualified to the professional career afterward Accordingly, these are the objects that need to be surveyed, interviewed and investigated so that the paper gives an overview of experiences, benefits, challenges and solutions about the most effective teamwork Due to these two core reasons, the fourth-year FELTE students at ULIS are utterly promising participants for this subject matter 1.4 Methods of the study The research will be defined and analyzed by the method of quantitative in which the data is gathered using structured research instruments to rapidly reach the research aims Basically, quantitative research is the systematic empirical investigation of observable phenomena via objective statistical, mathematical or computational techniques It is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories, and hypotheses pertaining to phenomena Quantitative research is used to test hypotheses in experiments because of its ability to measure data using statistics in a fast and precise way Moreover, analyzing the data with the assistance of automatic and precise IT systems will yield unbiased results that can wholly generalize and describe a population which is too large to observe directly ... designed to find out students’ perspectives on teamwork, all their comments and suggestions were noted and assessed The questionnaire was put online and e-mailed to all the current final- year FELTE... comments and suggestions were noted and assessed The questionnaire was put online and e-mailed to all the current final- year FELTE students in February 2018 thanks to QH.2014 FELTE’s monitors and. .. and relevant informants There are two below-listed common characteristics of the population to declare to be a preferably contributive group to the success of the research First of all, the final- year