Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a structured approach to collaborative learning that follows a sequence of individual and group activities. Originating in the 1970s in the United States as a practical method for flipping classrooms in business education, TBL has since gained popularity across disciplines and countries. In some programmes, it has even replaced the traditional lecture–tutorial cycle entirely. Despite its widespread adoption, several strong claims about the effectiveness of TBL remain under-researched. One such claim is that TBL inherently teaches students to work effectively in teams, without explicit instructor intervention. To evaluate this, we analysed three years of student scores from TBL activities collected by the first author in a natural experiment. Statistical analysis showed that the claim does not hold. Specifically, the gain attributable to effective teamwork over an entire semester was roughly equivalent to the difference between answering one question correctly on the second attempt versus answering one question correctly on the third attempt. This finding has a clear practical implication for educators: if fostering effective teamwork is a primary goal, instructors should not rely solely on TBL to develop these skills organically. Instead, they should incorporate deliberate scaffolding and structured support to build team synergy alongside TBL.

Authors:
Fedor Duzhin, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Rebecca Goh, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

About the Presenter(s)
I am a pure mathematician by training, with a Ph.D. in algebraic topology, but now I do more research in education than in topology.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fduzhin/?originalSubdomain=sg

See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule

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