Group Work

• Helps to develop skills such as teamwork, organisation, time management, analytical and cognitive.
• Group assessment can enable students to achieve more complex tasks than they would be able to do in an individual assessment.
• This form of assessment may reduce the workload for both the student and the staff, allowing for more time for staff to support the students with this process.
• This assessment method has a wide variety of uses.

Other advantages may include:

• Authentic assessment tasks, mirroring real-world scenarios, help students connect their learning to practical contexts, enhancing motivation.
• Group work tasks contribute to employability by offering opportunities to develop valued team-working skills, though working in a team alone may not guarantee skill improvement.
• Inclusive group work, designed to incorporate diverse backgrounds and perspectives, enables all students to contribute and learn from each other, promoting inclusive practices.

• Differing contributions as all students in a group may contributed differently, in terms of effort, academic value, standards, and autonomy. One challenge is to ensure that marks accurately reflect the level of contribution and standard achieved by individuals within the group.
• A common concern with this method of assessment is that members of the groups will not contribute to the project and will still get the credit and marks for the work. Below is a list of ways that you could design the assessment to avoid this issue:

1. Don’t directly grade the entire group; instead, make group work part of learning before an individual assignment.
2. Break down the group task sections assigned to each person. Individuals get marks for their part and for the whole group project.
3. Check individual performance to adjust the group mark. This can be done through a reflective journal, peer reflection, and discussions.
4. Use clear rating scales like attending meetings and have students score each other and themselves.
5. Ask students to record minutes from meetings.