title: The development of a rubric for peer assessment of individual teamwork skills in undergraduate midwifery students.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Poor teamwork is cited as one of the major root causes of adverse events in healthcare. Bullying, resulting in illness for staff, is an expression of poor teamwork skills. Despite this knowledge, poor teamwork persists in healthcare and teamwork skills are rarely the focus of teaching and assessment in undergraduate health courses.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To develop and implement an assessment tool for use in facilitating midwifery students' learning of teamwork skills.
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper describes how the TeamUP rubric tool was developed. A review of the literature found no research reports on how to teach and assess health students' teamwork skills in standing teams. The literature, however, gives guidance about how university educators should evaluate individual students using peer assessment. The developmental processes of the rubric were grounded in the theoretical literature and feminist collaborative conversations. The rubric incorporates five domains of teamwork skills: Fostering a Team Climate; Project Planning; Facilitating Teams; Managing Conflict and Quality Individual Contribution. The process and outcomes of student and academic content validation are described.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The TeamUP rubric is useful for articulating, teaching and assessing teamwork skills for health professional students. The TeamUP rubric is a robust, theoretically grounded model that defines and details effective teamwork skills and related behaviours. If these skills are mastered, we predict that graduates will be more effective in teams. Our assumption is that graduates, empowered by having these skills, are more likely to manage conflict effectively and less likely to engage in bullying behaviours.
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Human Sciences, Southern Cross University, Locked Mail Bag 4, Coolangatta, Qld 4225, Australia. Electronic address: Carolyn.Hastie@scu.edu.au.
authors.forename: Carolyn
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hastie
authors.affiliation: Southern Cross University, Southern Cross Drive, Bilinga, Qld 4225, Australia. Electronic address: kathleen.fahy@scu.edu.au.
authors.forename: Kathleen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fahy
authors.affiliation: Southern Cross University, P.O. Box 11, Mandurang, Victoria 3551, Australia. Electronic address: jparratt@bigpond.com.
authors.forename: Jenny
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Parratt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003479:Curriculum; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008880:Midwifery / Q000193:education*; D010379:Peer Group; D015397:Program Evaluation; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Collaboration; Communication; Midwifery students; Peer-assessment; Teamwork