Grading group work individually

In this chapter:

Intent
Problem
Solution
Applicability
How to Implement
See Also
Source
References
Community Discussion

Intent

Provide a more fair and mathematically accurate assessment for individuals on group projects, by eschewing a single grade for the group and assessing students individually.

Problem

Group work is a valuable pedagogical strategy that teaches students how to work with others effectively and productively, a necessary life and job skill. The purpose of group work should be for students to learn specific skills and/or content as a result of working together.

Assessment of group work typically entails a single group grade given to each individual. There are several problems with this state of affairs:

Because everyone in the group receives the same grade, the grade does not reflect what an individual student learned. Group grades hide uneven performance, contribution, and achievement among group members.
Group grades often assess the final product, rather than individual knowledge and skill gains.
Strategies that are often used to “correct” group grades (by, for example, accounting for how much individuals contribute to the product or individual collaboration skills) are really mechanisms to motivate and manage behavior. Grades should measure learning and not behavior.
Working collaboratively is a practice we want students to develop, not a standard to assess.

Solution

In order to accurately assess both the success of the group (defined above re: learning specific content and skills together) and individual learnings, instructors must assess each member’s learning individually, after the project is complete.

The instructor should:

Explain that the purpose of group work is not to produce a particular product, but as a mechanism for students to learn content and/or skills together in the process of producing a product.
Explain that students will be individually assessed on learning after the project.
Work with students to establish expectations and norms around effective group work.
Give students clear and frequent feedback related to these expectations and norms, as well as reminders about the purpose of group work as learning vs. production.
Assess each student individually on the content / skills.

Applicability

This play is applicable to many different course sizes, subjects, and structures. The play leaves the parameters of the individual assessment open, allowing a lot of instructor flexibility. See the next section, “How to Implement”, for examples.

How to Implement

Here are some examples of individual assessment strategies that work for various course contexts:

Traditional exams can work in a variety of course sizes and types, and may work particularly well for large classes. Even multiple choice questions can assess students’ content and skill knowledge, as well as their ability to apply concepts and skills to novel scenarios.
Oral exams are better suited to smaller classes, where an instructor can conduct a short interview with the student to assess learning. Instructors can ask follow-up questions, which potentially makes this a very powerful method of assessing learning.
Project extensions are a way to have students demonstrate learning within the work product itself. In this scenario, students perform further development or refinement of the work product on their own, extending and building upon the work of the group. This strategy may work well in project-based classes and/or capstone projects.
Annotations allow students to provide further description of, or context to, the group product, which can demonstrate depth of understanding of the underlying concepts.

Source

Source: Feldman, J. (2023). Grading for equity: What it is, why it matters, and how it can transform schools and classrooms. Corwin Press.

Described by: Amy Csizmar Dalal (adalal@carleton.edu)

References

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Community Discussion

Community members are free to comment on, ask questions about, share experiences, or otherwise contribute to knowledge about this play by posting comments below. See Chapter 33. Join Our Discussions for details.

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