Assessing group work: challenges and tips
Group assignments offer various advantages for students, including preparation for their future careers, efficient peer learning and the opportunity to tackle more complex academic issues.
However, supervision and assessment of group work present challenges such as identifying students’ individual contributions and tackling free-riding. This article offers tools and suggestions for managing and assessing group work.
Monitoring the group work process
Monitoring the group work process helps prevent free-riding and contributes to fair assessment, although it requires extra effort from instructors. Some methods for efficient group supervision include:
- Be present to support and guide students during in-class group work sessions.
- Encourage students to report problems in good time.
- Hold evaluation meetings with students during and/or after the collaboration.
- Have students keep a logbook, discussion forum or minutes of their work.
- Schedule time for the group to reflect on their collaborative experience, the tasks they completed, and the results they achieved.
- Consider technologies such as project management tools or remote collaboration platforms (e.g. Teams or Canvas).
- Be prepared to intervene in conflict situations if necessary.
- Identify and reward individual contributions.
In the final assessment of the course, it is essential to assess not only group work but also individual performance. Assessment regulations at the Faculty of Humanities require students to be assessed partly on the basis of their individual performance to ensure that everyone achieves the learning objectives. This can be achieved through the following methods:
- Peer or self-assessment: these techniques can help identify each student’s individual contributions.
- Use of specific evaluation methods to assess individual students’ contributions. Some of these methods are detailed below.
The instructor ultimately retains final responsibility for assessing students. Input from peer and self-assessment serves primarily as an advisory tool.
Assessment methods
| Yourself | Student A | Student B | Student C | |
| Enthusiasm / participation | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Coming up with ideas | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Understanding requirements | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| Contribution to team | 2 | 3 | 2 | -1 |
| Organising the group | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Performing tasks efficiently | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Average | 2,0 | 2,7 | 1,8 | 0,5 |
3 = Better than most group members
2 = About the same as other group members
1 = Not as good as others
0 = No useful contribution at all
-1 = Disruptive to the group
Students rate their own effort and that of their peers in the collaboration process. In case of deviations from the average (here 2.0), the teacher may decide to raise or lower the group grade for individual students.
| Student A | Student B | Student C | Student D | |
| Finding sources | 3 | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| Analysing sources | 3 | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| Writing report | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Group presentation | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| Average | 3,0 | 1,5 | 4,3 | 3,0 |
1 = No useful contribution at all
2 = Good try, unsuccessful
3 = Average
4 = Above average
5 = Extremely good
Students assess the contributions of their groupmates. In case of deviations from the average (here 3.0), the teacher may decide to raise or lower the group grade for individual students.
| Student A | Student B | Student C | |
| Student A gives | 80 | 40 | 60 |
| Student B gives | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Student C gives | 70 | 50 | 60 |
| Total points | 210:3 = 70 | 150:3 = 50 | 180:3 = 60 |
Each student may divide a certain number of points (180 in this case) between themselves and group members (not anonymous). In case of deviations from the average (60), the teacher may decide to raise or lower the group grade for individual students.
| Student A | Student B | Student C | ||
| Student ? gives | 15% | 60% | 25% | 100% |
| Student ? gives | 30% | 40% | 30% | 100% |
| Student ? gives | 25% | 50% | 25% | 100% |
| Total points | 70:3 = 23,3% | 150:3 = 50% | 80:3 = 26,6% |
Students anonymously rate their perception of each group members’ contribution to the final result (as a percentage). In case of deviations from the average ( in this case 33.3%), the teacher may decide to raise or lower the group grade for individual students.
Assessment regulations
When drawing up assessment regulations for group work, we must take variance in individual performance into account. Several scenarios are possible here:
- The entire group earns a failing grade and must redo the assignment as a group.
- If the final product is satisfactory, but some students were absent or did not perform as expected, these students can redo the assignment individually or perform an additional task. This does mean that the learning objective of collaboration must be assessed elsewhere in the curriculum.
- In some cases, one or more students will have to redo the course (and thus the assignment) in a new group.
Each of these scenarios should be included in the assessment regulations.
Tips for managing the group-work process effectively
The success of group work depends strongly on how well students are prepared and whether expectations are clear. Therefore, the following guidelines are important:
- Train students in the essentials of working in a group: have them draw up their own rules of conduct or help them draw up a group work contract. This allows us to intervene when rules are not followed.
- Help students agree in advance on the division of tasks. It is not realistic to expect all group members to contribute equally to every task.
- Ensure transparency about the assessment of the assignment. Share rubrics and evaluation forms in advance and emphasise that students’ individual grade may differ from the group grade.
- As a teaching team, reflect on the role of group work within the curriculum. Too much group work with the aim of reducing staff workload may result in individual learning objectives not being assessed, which makes it difficult to safeguard the exit qualifications of the degree.
Questions?
Please contact the Humanities assessment specialists for questions about setting up or assessing group work.