Abstract:

At present, not only good technical skills are required for higher education students. Soft skills are becoming each day more important and students do not directly learn these type of skills in classical engineering and biotecnology courses. The ability to collaborate in working groups (namely in Laboratory classes) clearly allows the students to develop these soft skills and is highly valued by employers. This paper follows a research line which included teams of students from Biotechnology Bachelor at Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Barreiro, Polytechnique Institute of Setúbal and started with the second year students of the course of Laboratory IVB in the academic year of 2016/2017. In the academic year of 2020/2021, this study included for the first time students from the first year of the Biotechnology Bachelor – course Laboratory II (2.nd Semester). This study continued with the same students during the academic year 2021/2022 – courses Laboratory IIIB (1.st Semester) and Laboratory IVB (2.nd semester).

A survey was carried out using the Sparkplus software, and the students’ performance was evaluated in the following four categories: leadership, efficient functioning of group, number crunching and writing report.

In the scope of Laboratory II course, the total number of students inquired were 58. From these, 38 students have answered this survey (65,52 %). This rate was lower than the rate observed in previous studies for the second year students of the Biotechnology Bachelor, showing that the first year students are not so aware of peer evaluation and are not yet motivated of this type of methodologies.

From these 58 students, 32 were male (55,17 %) and 26 female (44,83 %), showing a good distribution of gender for this group of students.
Interestingly, it was possible to obtain more responses regarding hetero-evaluation factors (RPF) when comparing to self-evaluation factors (SA/PA). The answers were respectively 38 (65,52 %) and 21 (36,21 %). This fact shows that the students self-evaluation rates are lower than those given by their peers.

As observed both for hetero-evaluation and self-evaluation, the majority of the students have rates close to 1, meaning that their self-evaluation is correct and agrees with their peer-evaluation. 22 of 38 students (57,89 %) were in this range for hetero-evaluation and 10 of 21 students (47,62 %) were in this values for self-evaluation.

The students involved in this study carried out for Laboratory II courses are currently attending the second year of the Biotechnology Bachelor. The objective is to follow these students over time and to study their evolution. They have answered to similar surveys for Laboratory IIIB (1.st semester) and Laboratory IVB courses (2nd. semester).

In the scope of Laboratory IIIB course, the total number of students inquired were 54. From these, 52 students have answered this survey (96 %) which 54% were female and 46% were male, that is a similar gender distribution as in the previous year. The SA/PA (self/peer evaluation) factor remains close to 1 (0,9 - 1,1 for 69 % of the students).

Regarding Laboratory IVB course, the number of students inquired were 54 and are still answering to this survey.

The differences observed over time will be presented to identify the students’ main difficulties.

The students considered interesting to reflect the survey results (RPF- Relative Performance Factor) in their final classification.

Keywords:

Teamwork, Soft-skills, Laboratory Classes, Sparkplus.