A call to foster psychological safety to facilitate inclusive and effective engineering student teams and learning

Abstract

This research article presents the importance of psychological safety in engineering education. Anchoring the importance of teamwork and team-based learning, we synthesize the common issues of dysfunctional team dynamics and coping strategies based on relevant literature. Particularly, it is critical to better manage student teams and monitor student team dynamics, particularly psychological safety based on archived literature in industrial-organizational psychology and management and recent empirical studies in engineering education. Psychological safety, defined as a shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking, is shown to enhance team trust, communication, and collaboration. This paper presents the critical role of psychological safety in teamwork, enabling equitable participation and fostering inclusive learning environments, especially for disadvantaged students in teaming. The manuscript concludes with recommendations for approaches to enhance psychological safety by raising awareness, supporting disadvantaged students in teaming, and fostering inclusive learning environments. By fostering inclusivity and empowering all students to contribute to the teams meaningfully and effectively, psychological safety not only addresses the immediate challenges of team-based learning but also remediates students' intention to leave engineering major, ultimately leading to broader participation in engineering.