Presentation delivered to the 19th Built Environment Conference

10/09/2025

Professor John Smallwood, Professor of Construction Management, Department of Construction Management, Nelson Mandela University, delivered the paper ‘A seven-year review of the impact of a first-year student team building event (TBE): Enhancing the ability to manage’, co-authored with Chris Allen, to the 19th Built Environment Conference, Pretoria, on the 15 July 2025.

The aim of the research was to determine whether the intervention developed confidence in their abilities, enhanced communication amongst them, and provided an opportunity for them to test alternative thought processes, thereby better preparing the students for the challenges of first year, and the undergraduate programme. The objectives were to determine whether the activities involved in the TBE: enhanced seventeen skills; contributed to an improvement in participants’ understanding and appreciation of ten core competencies; developed the ten core competencies; impacted on seven abilities, and enhanced fifteen states / attributes relative to emotional intelligence.