Establishing team norms is critical in ensuring positive student collaboration and performance, yet there is a lack of literature describing how early learners in IPE learn about and practice establishing team norms. To develop skills to establish team norms, health professional students at the University of Michigan enrolled in the core interprofessional education (IPE) courses: Introduction to IPE (Fall 2024) and Longitudinal Interprofessional Family Experience (LIFE) (Winter 2025). These were early learners in their professional programs.
This mixed-methods study examined students’ perceptions of establishing team norms following engagement in Intro to IPE and LIFE. During Intro to IPE, learners responded to a reflection prompt: “List 2–3 ‘norms’ that you expect or would like established in teams you work with. In doing so, think about what makes teams function successfully.” Through thematic analysis, seven major themes were identified: Active Listening, Communication, Respect, Team Bonding & Collaboration, Organization, Accountability and Responsibility, and Time Management. An example response that aligned to the theme of respect included: “Mutual respect. Not judging anyone or being disrespectful of ideas shared.”
The seven themes informed the development of a quantitative survey to assess students’ perceptions of team norms in interprofessional collaboration and included a series of statements. The survey was distributed after students completed LIFE to gauge long-term perceptions towards team norms following the two core IPE courses. Descriptive statistics were performed to analyze survey data. The survey results indicate strong overall agreement, with the majority of students responding strongly agree or agree across all measured aspects.
The abstract addresses the theme “Preparing Students for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice” by highlighting a longitudinal IPE experience that explicitly provided opportunities for students to practice and reflect upon establishing team norms. The mixed methods approach provides rich data from early learners and their experiences of collaborating in an interprofessional team early in their training. The project findings illustrated how team norms developed under classroom settings can be translated into collaborative behaviors in real-world experiential settings.
This lightning talk will highlight the role of team norms in promoting effective collaboration in interprofessional healthcare teams. Attendees will gain insights into early learners’ perceptions of team norms and major themes of team norms that can be incorporated into future curricular development for health profession programs. The talk will illustrate how longitudinal development of team norms from a classroom setting prepares health professional students for real-world clinical settings to deliver excellent patient-centered care.
