Few students manage to leave university without a group assignment horror story; it’s pretty much a rite of passage.
One of my friends was assigned to a group where two out of five members never turned up to class or replied to any messages. Despite doing everything asked of her by the co-ordinator to get in contact with them, the entire group’s mark was capped at 55/100.
For my French group assignment last year, which involved filming a mock news broadcast, an insistent group member demanded that I dress as Marine Le Pen, including wearing a hideous blonde wig, and parade around the university campus. The video was then shown to the whole class. Definitely my most embarrassing university moment.
So yes, I’m a group assignment hater, as are many other students. But I didn’t expect anyone other than students or universities would ever pay any attention to this issue.
A few weeks ago, however, federal opposition education spokesman Julian Leeser called for universities to abolish group assignments. His key reason was that students hate them and that “in most cases, there is no compelling justification”.
In my view, the fact most students hate group assignments isn’t a valid reason to get rid of them. Students hate a lot of things. Any tutorial before midday. In-person lectures. Assignments in general. Does that justify getting rid of them?
First, it’s worth looking at why universities use group assignments, for which there are at least three identifiable reasons: 1. Reducing the marking workload for assessors. 2. An increased pass rate. 3. Teaching students essential collaboration and communication skills.
To me, the first two reasons don’t justify the existence of group projects. If assessors don’t have enough paid hours to mark four pieces of work instead of one, then either more staff need to be hired or existing staff need to be allocated more hours.
And if a student isn’t at a level where they can pass a subject, they need individual, tailored support, not a get-out-of-jail-free card that lets them sail by on the back of someone else’s work. That’s essentially giving them a fake grade so they won’t fail a subject. The point of university is to learn, not to pass.
This third reason, however, is a critical one. Group assignments are an opportunity for students to role-play workplace behaviour, practising their collaboration, negotiation, communication and delegation skills. These are important skills for any job.
However, in practice, it’s rarely the teamwork or collaboration component that’s assessed in a group assignment. In my experience, these assessments aren’t really designed with group work as their focus; they’re similar to the tasks we usually complete individually, such as writing an essay, so students tend to break up the assignment, completing their part individually instead of working together. Furthermore, the assessor usually only marks the final piece of work, rather than observing the students along the way and assessing their communication skills.
As a result, these assignments often test the combined thinking and writing abilities of the group – or worse, the abilities of whichever student takes on most of the workload – instead of the way the group interacts with one another.
For group assignments to actually teach and assess the negotiation and communication skills that are meant to be their priority, the way they’re designed needs to change.
This could mean that the assessor observes students planning the assignment together or working on it in class. Students could also complete peer-assessment surveys at the end of the project, where they can tell their assessor how evenly distributed the workload was, and how collaborative their group members were.
These kinds of assessments exist. A friend studying nursing at Deakin University tells me that in her group assignments, the group has to fill out a document detailing each member’s role for the assessment before they begin. There’s also a reflection component of the assignment to be completed after, where students must “critically reflect on [their] communication and collaboration within [their] team.”
I don’t know if this is university-specific or degree-specific, but no one else I’ve spoken to has had an assessment like this. I’d like to see this become the norm for group assignments – tasks that are actually designed to reward teamwork and equal effort, and which are assessed based on the process rather than the end result alone.
Saria Ratnam is a University of Melbourne arts student.
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