Group work issues at uni - AIBU to not be happy with the lecturer's response?

[groupworkblues]

We have to give a group presentation next week as a group of 6. Two of the members have not been turning up to meetings and ignoring WhatsApp messages and emails sent to their university email address. They will turn up to the occasional meeting, but miss most of them. Most of the time they won't message or give any reason for missing the meeting, or they will let us know during the meeting that they can't attend due to work, a society meeting (where they were doing craft activities, so nothing compulsory) or an appointment they would have know about in advance. They make no attempt to reschedule the meeting or flag to us in advance to ask us to change the date/time.

Their contributions to the presentation has been pretty rubbish. Both aren't really relevant to what was asked of them and they both have misunderstood what was needed (and we've not been able to clarify as they're not in the meetings).

We spoke to the lecturer as our attempts of speaking to them on WhatsApp, email and in person haven't helped. They responded that they were frustrated for us, but if we want a good grade we'll have to just get on with it and do their sections ourselves.

Agreed. Maybe some lecturers just don't realise how often this happens!!

I had this a few years ago. Lecturers typically don’t bother too much about this kind of thing but your course coordinator absolutely should.

Compile a list of meeting dates and those in attendance, and if possible, submit the rough drafts of written work that group members have provided.

Our group project got the highest mark in the class (over 70), but the person who didn’t contribute had their mark capped at 40 (just a pass) by the course coordinator for their lack of effort. The lecturer had no say!

This seems so pointless and unfair. I don't get why you would chose to give out group work.

Also seems strange to give out 40% to those that haven't contributed.

Group work at Uni DOES NOT prepare you for work in the real world.
That's a bonkers idea.

Totally agree.

I didn't have to do any group assignments for my undergraduate degree, as it wasn't really the trend back then... apart from my dissertation, everything was exam-based back then.

By the time I did my Master's degree, group work was very much in vogue. I had had years of professional experience at that point, including lots of collaborative projects. University group assignments did not bear any real resemblance to these and would not have prepared people for the workplace in any way.

I don't know if Universities actually believe that they are genuinely building valuable employability skills through this kind of assessment or if that is just the official rationale to justify a practice that ultimately just reduces the marking burden for academic staff.

Even if the group work mark means that some are graded ever so slightly up even though they can clearly show they and one other person did the vast majority of the work, those in the team who did fuck all don't care. Lots of them were international students who are just here for the experience and kudos of studying at a top uni in the UK. As long as they walk with a 3rd they do not care. Obviously for some who have graduate jobs lined up their classification matters.

It dented Dc's second year grade which counts toward their degree. The mental toll of letting actual outside people down due to the work, knowing every week that your team won't show is completely shit. The lecturers knew as they reported in all the way through but didn't seem to care enough to push the grades up by much at the end. They felt dejected. Dc and the other person who did work spent a lot of time on some other modules to help push their grade up and of course due to the marking strike those pieces of work have been ignored and the weighting shifted to those that were marked. Dc and classmates are completed pissed off, fed up and sick of feedback to uni staff through the proper channels being ignored. They were told by those in the years above it happens every, single year. Staff don't change anything.

In fact Dc and the other hard working person made out they did not know each other so they could work on a 2 person group project this year (final) because neither of them were prepared to risk another person tanking their grade in their final year. Why they had to choose someone they didn't know I have no idea. Why would you risk that?

Ah, it's an age-old problem when it comes to university group work.

It happened to me with my dissertation project.

I was working on a data collection project with 6 others. And when it came to analyzing the data, I knew it needed doing, so just cracked on and did it. It took me HOURS AND HOURS. No one helped me, or even offered to help.
I shared the analysis with ONE other member of the group, who I'd worked with quite closely at the data collection stage, but the others could go jump off a cliff as far as I was concerned. They had the same raw data I did, so I just left them to it.

Ugh, I'm also going through this at uni too as a much older student and it is frustrating. I enjoy group work and appreciate the value in it as a concept especially for those who need more experience etc, however, it can't ever really be comparable to real life teamwork. I have not worked in employment where the level of underperformance displayed by some students has not resulted in disciplinary, and in some cases their arses being managed out of the door.

Thankfully my lecturer has let it be known that mark's can be downgraded for those free riding. But not sure this a satisfactory consolation as the poor standard of work delivered by one student will likely result in a lesser grade for the group overall. It's really disappointing and deflating that 25% of my assessments will be group projects where the grades will be reflected in my overall result at the end of the year. Is it really fair that a few students can potentially have this much impact on those working hard to try and achieve top marks?

I think mature students are more likely to be frustrated by this issue as they have more work experience behind them and they recognise that group uni projects don't resemble real life teamwork. Younger students with less work experience may be less likely to question the official explanation.

Exactly.

If your colleague fails to deliver at work, and you have to save the day, a competent manager notices that. And it reflects well on you, it's remembered in future. Whereas in these uni assignments, you'd just get the same grade that you'd have got alone, at best.

Same issue too about 25 years ago - the lecturer we had told us to split the marks across the team as to who we felt deserved the marks - we all gave ourselves an even mark except the guy who did sod all and we gave him a scrape pass of 40%

The best group project I did at uni was one where there were two components to our grade:

1. overall output of the group
2. everyone int the group got to rate everyone else's contribution

So even if the overall output of the group was good, if you had contributed very little it would impact your score.

At the risk of outing myself, we had this many years ago. It got to the point where the only plausible solution was for us to film the entire presentation person by person, edit it all together and show this as our "presentation".

3 of us had every excuse not to be there and work (lone parent, abusive relationship, no money to eat) but we were the ones doing everything while 2 freeloaders just didn't and relied on us for everything.

We simply showed our film. We barely passed and it cost me my First, but by then I was so fed up with the entire unfairness of it all that I didn't give a damn anymore.

It’s annoying but this happens in the work place too- hence why courses include group work I guess.

I had this issue at Uni and there was a form you filled out explaining the weightings of contribution and the mark was adjusted accordingly. The Lecturer probably knows just fine and I know it was obvious on our presentation the slacker didn’t have a clue what they were talking about- but you need to raise it formally.

Some universities clearly have systems in place to deal with non-contributors. Others tell students to suck it up when issues see raised. And some clearly give 40% to students despite knowing that they have done fuck all because they know that the students would fail otherwise.

Saying that courses include groupwork because that's what happens in the workplace is a cop-out if there are no mechanisms in place to deal with underperformance.

Out of the hundreds, was anyone ever the one who didn't contribute? Presumably not if it was a job interview, but even outside that every tale/anecdote I've ever heard about group work the person telling it has done all the work, which is a bit statistically unlikely really. This thread is the same.

Yes its not their problem at all. But also you are as a group well within your rights not to include the lazy fuckers, stop inviting them or contacting the., don't tell them when you're doing the final presentation, don't include their work and make sure the entire Judging panel or whatever are well aware that you are working as a group of 4 instead. Make sure they get fails and you get passes.

Create a paper trail with the lecturer before the deadline, spelling out clearly that their lack of contribution will negatively affect the end result.

You need to do this before the deadline.

Reference your earlier conversations about this.

In a similar situation the lecturer marked the project on the basis of 3 not 6 people involved.

The other 3 contacted the student two hours before the deadline and tried to blame the project leader for not contacting them.
Absolute bullshit.

In this case it was an important project with a high percentage for end of year exams.

It worked out because the three who worked hard all made a complaint and created a paper trail to the lecturer in preparation for a mitigation complaint if they were penalised.

Paper trail is key.

Had similar problems on an MSc course (all mature students)
TBH I found the ones that didn't contribute mildly less irritating than the really dim student who did turn up, but disrupted everything and wanted a presentation to look as if it had been put together by a bunch of six year olds.

I did an MSc a few years ago. Most people did something for assessed group work but some much more than others, and one contribution was just a cut and paste job that I had to heavily paraphrase last minute and run through the plagiarism software a few times till it came up ‘clean’. 15% of our mark was awarded individually based on what we wrote in a compulsory individual submission where we described what we’d done and what other members had done. This was private, ie other group members couldn’t see it , only the markers. I assume that if everyone said the same person did nothing they wouldn’t get anything of the extra 15% available on top of the group mark. Marks I got always seemed fair to me and this seemed a fair assessment design.

If they hadn’t been, as an ex-academic, I’d perhaps have contacted the external examiner to give them a heads up as their role (albeit paid a v small honararium) is to mark the marking. Or maybe some curriculum lead/ director of teaching, learning and assessment etc. Seems to be a growing issue as keeps cropping up on here.

In a project situation it often happens that there can be a bit of an imbalance and one or two pull it together.

This isn't the worst of situations, but is completely seperate from a couple of CF's who play no part whatsoever yet expect to benefit.

It is a difficult part of a course but does force students to find their steel and advocate for themselves.

Students prefer to make their own groups as a result and are often allowed to a mature level, less so at under graduate level.

This drove me up the wall at uni. I got stuck in a group with 2 other people who were best friends and lived together.

They did no work, turned up about an hour late every time we met. I ended up doing all the work because I didn't want to fail the project. The lecturers didn't seem bothered as long as the work was done.

The friends turned up on the day and read through some slides of my presentation I'd written. We all got given a group grade of B. So basically they got a B for doing fuck all.

Reading your post brings back all the rage I felt about this 15 years ago! 😂

I'm assuming that as you were graded with a letter, it didn't count towards your degree grade?

I agree this doesn’t happen in the world of work. It’s not preparation for anything other than the weirdness of the academic world.

In work - absenteeism is a matter of record. If a colleague is not present in a meeting the minutes show this. If someone in a project is floundering or not pulling their weight it’s noted.

I agree the only thing you can do is organise the whole thing between the 4 engaged students. And assume they won’t be at the presentation.