When designing group work, it is important to distinguish between assessing the deliverable of the group and assessing the group work process. Dysfunctional groups can still produce “good” work, and vice versa. This page provides methods for both assessing the product as well as well as the process by both the instructor and the group members. In general:
- Assessing the Product: Involves measuring both the quantity and quality of each individual’s contributions within a group project
- Assessing the Process: Involves evaluating each individual’s teamwork skills and their interactions with group members. This could include cooperative behaviour, time and task management, creative problem solving, use of a range of working methods, negotiation.
- Assessment by Instructor: Means that the instructor is responsible for assigning all of the marks.
- Assessment by Group Members: Involves having each group member evaluate their own contributions as well as those of their peers, and assign marks accordingly.
Product Assessment by Instructor
All group members receive the same grade.
Advantages
- Easiest to implement - does not require any additional work aside from marking the projects
- Appropriate if group work mark is a minor part of total mark for the course
- Group responsibilities are enforced - group succeeds or fails together
Disadvantages
- Easiest to implement - does not require any additional work aside from marking the projects
- Appropriate if group work mark is a minor part of total mark for the course
- Group responsibilities are enforced - group succeeds or fails together
Questions should be specifically about the project, and are answerable only by students who have been thoroughly involved in the project.
Advantages
- Questions should be specifically about the project, and are answerable only by students who have been thoroughly involved in the project
Disadvantages
- Students may ignore group in order to study for the exam on their own
- May mean additional work for instructor when preparing the exam questions
- May not be effective - students may be able to answer the questions by simply proofreading the project
The project must be divisible into multiple tasks of equal complexity, with each student responsible for completing one task. The final mark is a combination of a group mark (e.g., 50%) and an individual task mark (e.g., 50%).
Advantages
- objective way of determining individual participation
- individual component grade may provide additional motivation
Disadvantages
- May increase interest in the project - students may be more motivated to learn about the work of their fellow group members
- Students may ignore group in order to study for the exam on their own
- May mean additional work for instructor when preparing the exam questions
- May not be effective - students may be able to answer the questions by simply proofreading the project
The instructor evaluates each student’s individual contributions based on factors such as oral interviews, periodic progress reports, meeting minutes, and direct observation.
Advantages
- oral interviews are a good way of getting information on individual participation
- enables instructor to give each student more specific feedback
Disadvantages
- very time consuming
- information obtained is often subjective and/or may be inaccurate
- class size may make it infeasible
Product Assessment by Peer Evaluation
The group receives a total mark equal to the group mark multiplied by the number of group members, and the members are then responsible for dividing this total among themselves.
Advantages
- easy to implement
- peer assessment may motivate students to
- contribute more to the group
Disadvantages
- easy to implement
- peer assessment may motivate students to
- contribute more to the group
Example for distribution of a pool of marks
- Group project mark: 70
- No. of group members: 4
- Instructor awards 280 points to group
- Advises students that difference between marks must not be greater than 20
- Group members divide marks by consensus as follows:
| Student | Mark |
| A | 80 |
| B | 60 |
| C | 75 |
| D | 65 |
| Total | 280 |
Points are awarded based on a list of completed tasks, and each student’s individual mark is calculated by multiplying the group mark by a peer assessment factor.
Advantages
- provides students with objective criteria by which to judge individual contributions
Disadvantages
- time consuming for instructor
- rating scale may be misinterpreted
- tasks all have the same weight
Example for individual weighting factor
| List of tasks | Ann | Bob | Chris |
| a) Literature search | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| b) Analysing the literature | 4 | 5 | 1 |
| c) Writing a report | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| d) Group presentation | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Individual Totals | 11 | 12 | 7 |
Rating scale
1 -Did not contribute in this way
2 -Willing but not very successful
3 -Average
4 -Above Average
5 -Outstanding
Peer assessment factor = (individual total) / (average total)
Average of individual totals = 10
If project mark = 60
Individual marks:
Ann = 60 * (11/10) = 66
Bob = 60 * (12/10) = 72
Chris = 60 * (7/10) = 42
Process Assessment by Instructor
Direct evaluation of team behaviour using teamwork logs - sample questions:
- what steps have you taken to organize your teamwork?
- what steps have you taken to monitor the effectiveness of your team?
- what steps have you taken to improve the effectiveness of your team?
- what problems have you encountered in working as a team and how did you tackle them?
- if you were to embark on a second, similar task as a team, what would be different about the way you go about working, and why?
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Process Assessment by Peer Evaluation
Process assessment is conducted through peer evaluation, where each team member assesses how they perceive the contributions of their peers using a list of key group work traits (see Appendix for an example). While individual marks are assigned based on these evaluations, the average of all individual marks must equal the overall group mark.
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Additional Resources
- Rubrics (Queen’s Centre for Teaching and Learning)
- How to Evaluate Group Work (Cornell Center for Teaching Innovation)
- Methods for assessing group work (Centre for Teaching Excellence University of Waterloo)
- Gibbs, G. Learning in Teams: a Tutor Guide. Oxford, 1995.
- Lejk, M. et al. A Survey of Methods of Deriving Individual Grades from Group Assessments. In Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Vol. 21, No. 3, 1996.
This resource was remixed from the Methods for assessing group work. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.