Overview

About CATME

The Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) SMARTER Teamwork is a system of secure, web-based tools that enable instructors to implement best practices in managing student teams. SMARTER Teamwork: System for Management, Assessment, Research, Training, Education, and Remediation for Teamwork. Since its release to the academic world in 2005, the system has been used by over 1,470,772 students and 17000 instructors. These users are all around the world, coming from over 2,200 institutions in 85 countries. The tools and training are supported by the literature on teamwork and training, along with independent empirical research. They are described in detail under the following list:

  • Team-Maker: Assigns students to teams using instructor-specified criteria selected from a list of questions or written by the instructor.
  • Peer Evaluation: Collects and summarizes student self and peer evaluations. Provides feedback to students and data to the instructor.
  • Rater Practice: Evaluates and provides feedback on students’ ability to rate accurately.

CATME is a non-profit recharge center in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. The CATME system enhances team learning by teaching students how to contribute effectively to teamwork and creating accountability for team-member contributions. The system facilitates communication among teammates and between students and their instructor. This helps student teams have the best chance of being successful so that students and instructors have positive and meaningful team learning experiences.

What CATME Can Do For Instructors

  • Assign students to more productive and better functioning teams: by using CATME Team-Maker
  • Provide instructor team healthiness reports after collecting and analyzing self and peer evaluations and evaluating team processes: Training students to rate teamwork behaviors: using CATME Peer Evaluations and the CATME Rater Practice tool
  • Train students to work more effectively in teams: through CATME Teamwork Behavior Training
  • Help students make team meetings more productive through the use of CATME Meeting Support Tools
  • Identify teams having teamwork difficulties through the use of team satisfaction questions and personal safety questions

CATME is a licensed service, but creating an account and testing the system is free for all users. Instructors can create and modify surveys for free using our Student Test Files. To create surveys with their own students, instructors must purchase a license. For more information on licenses, see our Licensing and Invoicing page.

If the CATME terms make you confused, please check the definition on the CATME Terms Instructor Dictionary page.