Antecedents of student team formation in higher education

Background: Students often form project teams by themselves rather than impose pre-defined teams because it leads to better study outcomes. However, few scholars have investigated the mechanisms driving the formation of self-organized groups. Aims: We examine three underlying and interrelated antecedents of project team formation: friendships, familiarity with fellow team members due to prior co-working experiences, and similarity of team members regarding gender, academic achievement, and preferred collaborators. Sample: The data encompasses 70 first-year university students asked to self-form teams to carry out a semester project. Methods: We utilize Exponential Random Partition Models. This new method allows us to model how friendships, familiarity, and similarity affect self-organized group compositions while accounting for each factor's relative importance. Results: The results show that friends are more likely to end up in the same team than non-friends. Similarity is also an important antecedent for team formation: Students with the same gender and similar grades are more likely to end up in the same team. Familiarity and preferred collaboration showed negligible effects. Conclusions: Our findings emphasize that educators must consider academic and non-academic factors when allowing students to self-organize in teams, depending on what goal educators strive to achieve with team projects.