Map to safety: longitudinal examination of psychological safety in engineering capstone students

Teams have been favored due to the diverse knowledge access. However, diversity can also have negative effects, and team outputs can be influenced by many factors, such as psychological safety. While the effects of psychological safety have been studied, its development has received less attention. Prior research in this area has focused either on specific populations or cross-sectional effects. To add to this area, this study examined the longitudinal development of psychological safety in engineering capstone students: how it evolves, and whether this can be influenced by team-related experiences. This study showed that although psychological safety did change meaningfully with time, neither time nor experience alone could capture the change. The results could shed light on the evolution of psychological safety, as well as what factors could potentially influence its development.