Team-based projects are widely used in both traditional face-to-face and online
programs in higher education. To date, the teamwork experiences of students in each modality
have been documented primarily through evaluative research conducted over short spans of
time and limited by a priori frameworks. The literature also reflects a lack of agreement about
what constitutes the phenomenon of teamwork in each modality. In order to address these
limitations, we conducted a phenomenological study examining the lived experiences of
teamwork among students in both face-to-face and online MBA programs in Iran. Our analysis
revealed striking commonalities in the experiences of both groups, including a shared desire
for effective leadership to alleviate the problem of free riders, as well as substantial time and
effort invested in retaining reliable teammates from one team project to another. In other
respects, face-to-face and online students’ experience differed strongly. For example, while
face-to-face participants pursued teammates with similar beliefs about how teamwork should
be accomplished, online participants found themselves pre-occupied with staying connected
with their teammates and struggled to establish common communication channels with each
and every team member. Overall, our findings suggest that while training and support for
student teamwork can partly build on the shared needs among students in both modalities, the
nature of the experience in each modality may be so different in vital respects that engaging in
one mode of teamwork does not necessarily prepare students to participate well in the other
mode. Other implications and limitations of the research are discussed.

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• A phenomenological study of teamwork in online and face-to-face student teams