Overview

Group projects are an important and necessary task in any classroom to

reinforce and develop skills within students, important for their everyday lives.
Some abilities include delegating roles and responsibilities, developing stronger
communication skills, sharing diverse perspectives and discovering how to resolve
differences. Although crucial to a student's learning throughout their school
experience, group projects may raise some issues for teachers when it comes to
assessment. Getting each individual to participate, discuss ideas and work as an
active team member to present a completed task can be difficult. There are issues
with free riders, or students who do not contribute enough to the group
assignment to receive an equal grade as the other members. As well, placing a
student from a non-English speaking background into a group must be taken into
consideration. Problems may arise from biased, inaccurate peer assessments where
students are not marking according to the rubric, but rather according to their
friendship. Assessing the student's relationships between one another is yet another
crucial, yet difficult task when it comes to marking group work.
Issues
Encouraging Accountable Learning and Responsibility:
Using group work as a tool to enhance each students knowledge can allow
individuals to think about new perspectives and gain help with curriculum. However
to ensure that at the end of collaboration each student has gained from the group
activity, an assessment should be designed to focus on learning and understanding
rather than group productivity and a completed task and should encourage
individual participation and responsibility for learning.
Encouraging individual participation can be difficult in a classroom setting
with students who have different levels of self-motivation. But as a teacher, keeping
every student accountable for his or her learning can help to ensure that all
students are participating within the group. Highlighting that each student will be
held accountable in the assessment helps to motivate students to engage and
contribute to their group instead of taking a free- ride (Webb,1997).
Designing an assessment that focuses on learning as a process lessens the
importance of a completed task and can decrease the feeling of pressure some
students feel while participating in group work and also enhance every individual
learners knowledge on the topic. As a teacher, designing an assessment that
focuses on discussion, teamwork and active involvement from each student,
seeking help and helping others, justifying opinions, and exchanging ideas
(Webb,1997) creates a safe environment for students to actively learn and develop
skills in. As well, teachers that can simultaneously focus assessment on the learning
process and encourage individual participation will help students build team skills,
develop social skills and facilitate peer learning and growth of knowledge.
Self/Peer Assessment:

Assessing group work can bring about a lot of stress to teachers due to the
daunting task of marking all of the contributions of each student to their project.
Teachers are also challenged because they are unable to accurately measure each
students individual contribution to their assignment. A lot of teachers might turn to
using self/peer evaluation in order to decrease their workload as well as get a more
accurate assessment on individual contribution (Zhang et al. 2008).
In our Evaluation course, we were tasked with reflecting on fairness, validity,
and reliability of assessment. However, if we let students self/peer evaluate, then it
would be unfair to adjust these ratings as teachers without being biased. In order to
adjust the scores, the assessment must be reliable and valid. In order for the scores
to be valid, they must reflect the individual contribution of each student, and in
order to be reliable, the assessment must be consistent across all group members
(Zhang et al. 2008).
Studies show that there is a strong group effect when students are peer
evaluating, which means that even though the teacher outlined a specific grading
rubric, the students would still grade based on other criteria (Zhang et al. 2008).
This may be attributed to the fact that the students in the study were marking more
leniently because they were able to form their own groups (Ibid).
In order to combat this, teachers may want to make the groups themselves,
or add a factor of randomness to group generation. This might hold the student
more accountable in holding to the rubric made by the teacher, and they will make
more of an effort to be engaged and interested in the peer evaluation process.
The study by Zhang also noted that the group effect seemed to increase if
groups were together for longer periods of time, creating familiarity with other
group members can make it more difficult to be objective come time to assess.
Changing groups periodically may be a tool to achieve higher rating reliability.
Free Riders:
As an educator, validly assessing a group assignment can be very difficult to
accomplish reliably for many reasons. One of the greatest challenges for teachers
when it comes to marking a group assignment is the issue of free riders (Noonan,
2012). These are the students who are a component of the group but do not
participate or contribute to the assignment enough to receive accreditation for the
understandings that are demonstrated and assessed.
Free riders can become such voluntarily, meaning they choose not to
contribute to the group work even if they are invited openly into the group and
delegated some of the work. The teacher is then faced with difficulty in how to
assign the group a grade. If that student fails to complete his part, should the other
group members be penalized and granted a lower grade as well on the assignment?
Alternatively, if the group takes over his part and completes the assignment
perfectly, should the free rider receive as high a mark as the rest of the group?
How do you justify giving different group members different grades on the same

project? These are some of the questions that teachers face when marking group
assignments.
These questions become even more complicated when a group member is
involuntarily made a free rider. Some students enter a group with full intentions to
contribute but fail to establish themselves early and lose status in the group,
confidence in themselves and engagement in the work (Noonan, 2012). Should
these free riders be examined and assessed the same way as voluntary free
riders? This issue poses as a great challenge to educators.
Foreign Group Member:
When assessing group work it is important to take into consideration the
differing ethnicities within the individual groups. A difficult example is trying to
assess groups that have a member with a non-English speaking background or
NESB. There are a couple of important aspects to look at when examining the
mixing of ethnicities. It has been found that when NESB students are grouped
together with students that speak English as their first language, the NESB students
will contribute less to the group than their English speaking group mates (Davies,
2009).
Because English speaking students are aware of NESB students lack of
contribution to group work, the English speaking students are often fearful to join
with NESB students. While there has been no correlation found between NESB
student inclusion and lower group grades, how the group acts and behaves with an
NESB student in it can drastically change. In these types of groups, typically the
person with the best language skills will dominate the majority of the writing and
speaking, allowing the other group members to use the sucker effect which is an
act in which one member of the group has their mark attached the group, but does
little to no work (Davies, 2009).
The final aspect to examine when assessing how to assess group work with
an NESB student in the group is how culture affects their participation. Some
cultures praise children to be quiet while in the group scenarios, and this can lead to
students not sharing ideas or expressing themselves, leading to the sucker effect
(Davies, 2009).
Ethics:
Ethics is a major issue in group assignments that surround not only students
but teachers as well. For students they are forced to discuss issues of plagiarism,
social justice, honesty, bullying, privacy, child labor, free speech, and inequity.
(Nelson, 2011, 41) As for teachers ethics is a constant issue that must be taught,
modeled and reflected upon. In group assignments teachers must accurately be
able to assess the individual and the group as a whole. Collaboration is a
fundamental part of establishing a strong classroom community where everyone is
able to contribute to a thriving, dynamic, learning environment that benefits
everyone.

The finished product is an important indicator of group dynamics that effectively

represents the complex internal processes, (Nelson, 2011, 42) associated with any
group. It is important that teachers assess not only the finished product and
presentation, but the relationship between group members that fundamentally
drives all group work. The role that teachers play in ensuring group work is
successful can be dependent upon the rubric or establishment of a group contract
or protocol. This will ensure that all students are following procedures and given
guidance to stay on task. Teachers can give students a role in assessing group
dynamics that could play a vital role throughout the entire project.

Strategies:
1. Team-led individual: Groups produce a written submission. Feedback is given but
no grade. Further developing the group work, students then work alone and hand in
an individual assignment for a grade (Maiden, & Perry, 2011).
2. Examination Follow-on: Uses two pieces of work however both are graded. The
same grade is given to all members for the group assignment however a
subsequent individual assignment/exam is given requiring detailed knowledge of
the group project (Maiden, & Perry, 2011).
3. Give each member of the group a duty: The duties do not need to be the same
level of difficulty, but this is an easy means to incorporate NESB students into the
work, as well as ensure everyone is participating. (Davies, 2009)
4. Provide time at the beginning of group work for socialising, allowing the NESB
and English speaking students to mingle and become familiar with one another.
(Davies, 2009)
5. Emphasize individual accountability in the assignment to students by giving
written or verbal instructions; Each member of the group is expected to
demonstrate (Webb, 1997)
6. Create groups that every student feels comfortable working with. Helping to
facilitate an environment where students can ask questions freely and discuss
topics openly with all members.
7. Group contracts that lay out responsibilities, tasks and protocols. If a student
breaks the contract then he or she is responsible for the assignment individually
(New Technology Networks, 2016).

8. Yellow and Red Card Method: students who are lacking participation can be
issued a yellow card as a warning and if behavior persists then a red card is issued
and group member is terminated (Nelson, 2011)
9. A rubric that measures individual contributions and clearly outlines what the
students role is and how it fits in with larger goal of group; therefore the teacher
will know what each student is working on (Nelson, 2011)
10. Establishment of time limits and goal sheets that will effectively help manage
group and individual work (Nelson, 2011)
11. Anonymous student assessment of individual efforts (Nelson, 2011):
A. Numerical: using a prime number students will divide the number amongst group
members and explain why he or she was rated as such. For example the teacher
will give the students 17 points to divide amongst group members, with some
receiving more or less points.
B. Character roles from fiction: For example Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Where character traits will be designated to denote work ethic, leadership, and
input accordingly. As an example, Papa Bear representing a large leadership role,
Mama Bear representing a strong work ethic, Baby Bear being loud but still apart of
the family, while Goldilocks wasnt a part of the family but was still a part of the
story.
C. Continuum: Students will place group members on a continuum based on their
engagement, leadership, presence, understanding and encouragement.

Resources:
www.assessmentfocus.com
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/altmangroupprocessrubric.pdf Peer
assessment)
https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/examples/courselevelbycollege/hss/tools/jeria.pdf
(Rubric for group presentation with individual grade portion-marked as group and as
an individual)
http://www.etfo.ca/Resources/ForTeachers/Documents/Assessment%20for
%20Learning.pdf
https://www.teachervision.com/tv/printables/scottforesman/Math_K-2_AF_3.pdf
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/active-readingthrough-self-30702.html
https://newtechnetwork.org/resources/collaboration-vs-group-work/

Citations
Davies, W. (2009). Groupwork as a Form of Assessment: Common Problems and
Recommended Solutions. Higher Education, 58(4), 563-584. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.alu.talonline.ca/stable/40269202

Maiden, B., & Perry, B. (2011). Dealing with freeriders in assessed group work:
Results from a study at a UK university. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education, 36(4), 451-464. doi:10.1080/02602930903429302

Nelson, T. (2011). Assessing Internal Group Processes in Collaborative Assignments.

The English Journal, 100(6), 41-46. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.alu.talonline.ca/stable/23047879

Noonan, M. (2012). The ethical considerations associated with group work

assessments. Nurse Education Today, 33(11). Retrieved September 21, 2016, from
http://uleth.summon.serialssolutions.com

Webb, N. M. (1997). Assessing Students in Small Collaborative Groups. Theory Into

Practice, 36(4), new directions in student assessment, 205-213. Retrieved October
02, 2016, from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.alu.talonline.ca/stable/pdf/1477365.pdf

Zhang, B., Johnston, L., & Kilic, G.B. (2008). Assessing the reliability of self- and peer
rating in student group work. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(3),
329-340. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/61968788?
accountid=12063