The challenges of group assignments

Teachers have embraced group assignments for a variety of reasons, including providing a means for students to practice and develop transferable skills for the workplace, engaging students in authentic collaborative learning activities, enhancing deep learning and reducing the teacher’s marking load (Morris and Hayes, 1997).

Those whose primary motivation is the improvement of student learning outcomes find that, even when student projects are carefully planned, there are a variety of challenges. Things happen. Participation in the group is unequal. Students indicate a preference for individual assessment. They may not have the necessary skills to work effectively in a group. Some students are seen not to be pulling their weight. Students may not be happy with their fellow group members.

In addition to the above challenges, the nature of the task may make it inappropriate as a group activity. Steiner (1972) suggests that the nature of the task determines the degree of success for group collaboration. Tasks can be disjunctive, conjunctive, additive or discretionary. Disjunctive tasks require that an individual’s effort represent the group. Conjunctive tasks reflect the efforts of the weakest member. Additive tasks reflect the sum of individual efforts. Discretionary tasks allow the group effort to be assigned to an individual, equally assigned to all members or assigned to each member with a different weighting. If grades are awarded for individual student effort what justifies the assessment of group work?

Stein and Hurd (2000) offer a rationale for group learning in project teams that includes:

• discussion in a small group of peers helps students to make sense of a concept by building on their own experience
• formal and informal opportunities to speak within a group develop linguistic proficiencies within a discipline beyond listening and writing
• practical skills, judgement and social context developed through collaboration reveal a tacit dimension of professional and disciplinary knowledge difficult for a solitary learner to acquire
• opportunities for a student to experience academic acculturation through exposure to habits and attitudes needed for academic success.

For a group project to succeed, some class time needs to be dedicated to making explicit, or teaching, the necessary group skills.

If the intention of a group assignment is the development of such skills as teamwork, conflict resolution and presentation skills, consideration needs to be given to how these skills might be assessed; the weighting given to generic skills and to academic skills assessment; and the weighting of a group assignment in the context of assessment within the unit. In addition, group members’ contributions to the project may be limited by circumstance or inclination, and assessment protocols need to be adapted accordingly.

Considering all this, how can group assignments result in better learning for your students?

• Morris, R., & Hayes, C. (1977). Small Group Work: Are group assignments a legitimate form of assessment?, [World Wide Web]. Murdoch University. Available: http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/asu/pubs/tlf/tlf97/morr229.html [2000, 10 November].
• Stein, R. F., & Hurd, S. (2000). Using Student Teams in the Classroom: Faculty Guide. Syracuse: Anker Publishing Company,Inc.
• Steiner, I.D. (1972). Group process and productivity. New York: Academic Press.