Uni group project assessments

[Bellini12]

DD is 2nd year at uni. In the first year one of her module assessments was group work. Luckily she had one other girl who was motivated like her. 3 other lads involved - one did a little, one did the absolute bare minimum and one never even turned up! She said it was like pulling teeth trying to get the others to work/meet up to discuss. The 2 girls carried the project and they got an ok mark. They tried telling the tutors the situation but the tutor just sent various emails to the lazy participants to no avail.

Now she has another group task (obviously now all counts towards final mark). It’s random and she’s been put with 4 lads. She met (online) with them. 2 never even went to the related lectures or done any ground work/reading. Only 1 of the lads spoke! It wasn’t a confidence thing - It’s obvious they are not serious about their degree. DD accepts that’s she is going to have to carry the whole project and is already stressed. They make no allowances and everyone ends up with the same mark regardless of who does the work!

She hates these group assessments and they seem wholly unfair! I’ve read enough in the past to see this is quite common. Just wondered how other DC’s coped? Or do they just accept they won’t get the best mark? Such a shame when if she could pick a group she would pick her motivated peers!

One of my DC is in the same situation - 2nd year at a RG uni and has been put in a group where he is the only non-foreign student and the only one who turns up to lectures. He is the only native English speaker and the others have poor English unfortunately. They won’t even meet face to face so my son is taking screenshots and keeping records of all the online meetings they have.

This is not preparation for the real world; the overseas students don’t care about their final grade and they are not motivated financially (unlike in the workplace). DC is aiming for a First and is incredibly stressed. (He’s got over 70% on every single assignment that he has done on his own since the start of the course). He was put with the same group of students last year for a group project where they got a 2:1 overall but the lecturer did say that it was borderline 2:2.

There is no peer-review element to the group coursework. DS has asked for a meeting with his tutor who is stalling. He has also emailed the student support team to ask for advice. He’s going to come out of this with £40k of debt and a lower grade than he deserves. It’s ridiculous and very unfair!

@MrsEmmelinePankhurst this sounds all so familiar. This is actually DD’s 3rd group work now. Luckily the one from the start of this year didn’t count (final grade wise). But one of the lads did do the work, but misunderstood and ended up getting 0 points for his piece which dragged the mark down. Of course now she realises she needs to check everyone else’s work with a fine tooth comb as well as her own.

Thank you @ParmaVioletTea for those insightful points which I will pass on. I think she is rather jaded from year 1 when her and the other girl personally met with the tutor and logged and sent numerous emails to no avail. She can’t ’throw the others under the bus’ even if it is evident they haven’t done the work, as she will still get an overall rubbish mark.

She’s really working hard and would love to get a 1st but knows it isn’t likely (she does well on individual assessments). I’ve told her to pick modules that don’t have group work in them going forward (which is a shame if she likes the subject). Maybe a knee jerk reaction from me. But it’s frustrating.

Also, interesting point about the international students of which I think 2 of them are in this group. They haven’t even turned up to lectures so the subject matter is new to them! Sadly DD is preparing herself to do most of the work herself which stresses her out as other coursework is due (& she does a p/t placement too). But I will encourage her to speak to the tutor (although she already says it will come to nothing). If only they could pick their own groups!

DD is also mindful that she has ambitions of doing a masters at a prestigious university (for her course) after her degree and whist this mark may end up being a small contribution - you just never know at the end whether it was significant or not!

I also think it doesn’t really compare to group work in the workplace as every employee has been interviewed and picked to carry out that position. They also have appraisals and have the threat of being sacked if they don’t perform!

@Bellini12 yes totally agree and much empathy to you and your daughter. Please do post with any update…. It’s not like group work in the workplace at all!

I agree. I don't agree with the "life isn't fair, get used to it" approach to justify unfair practices. We should be working to make assessments more fair, not adding to the amount of injustice in the world!

My DS had a lot of group work as part of his degree. The final project was worth a certain amount. There was normal a presentation element at the end with each member having to report on a separate element, often with a Q&A section and marked individually in that element. And finally the group members were all asked to submit percentages for each group member, based in their contribution, which were used for weighting the final mark for the assessment. Seemed a lot fairer that way.

It works well enough if appropriately managed. A group assignment/project with one mark for all regardless of input is not being appropriately managed, in my opinion.

No input, no mark is quite an incentive to participate adequately. Although it doesn’t always work.

If the tutor won't listen or help, whichnis unfair, might she be able to have a chat with the departmental administrator? They are senior staff in their own right and may have some clout with the tutor or the tutors senior, depending
upon the hierarchy.

Tale as old as time. It was the same when I did my first degree a decade ago and my current group project for my 3rd degree I haven’t even met two group members because they haven’t come to uni for 4 weeks on the trot.

Ive had to push the rock up the hill myself every time. Got a first every time though because like hell will their shit work affect me. I just do it all myself. Fair? No. But those are the ropes.

Sorry to hear that @LadyCrustybread but well done to you for doing so well regardless.

It’s early days for this project (but it’s pretty obvious how it’s going to go) so I suspect she will have to do the same (and log everything too). DD isn’t an overly confident character so I’m not convinced she will kick up the fuss that you or I would do.

@Bellini12if she’d like some advice I tend to follow a few tactics which sometimes get people to do some work.

1. create a master document that lists everything that needs doing. They need to be able to see this and add to it if they stop being lazy.

2. Ask them if there’s any part they would like to do - if nobody replies say that you will assign them tasks if they don’t pick one. That you will send documentation showing the division of the tasks to the tutor so he knows what you have each done. Then slap their name in big bright text next to a section on the master document.

3. Mark off each item you do with your name in big bright lettering when you do it so they can see how much you’re having to do.

Essentially take charge, make the tasks clear, give them a choice to have agency, remind them you will grass if they don’t do anything and show them how hard you are having to work. Eventually people usually pitch in a bit more when I do this. But it takes confidence and it’s yet more work for you.

That’s brilliant @LadyCrustybread I will send her this advice!

As you say, more work for her but will certainly help her delegating skills. I assume she will also has to check their work and help with improvements. But it certainly pushes the onus onto them.

In real life project-based work streams are organized by hierarchies (partner/manager/couple of consultants/four associate consultants etc). Student societies function along these lines whereas group work at university is organized along communist ideals.

How did you manage a 1st with the Q&A? We were marked as a team for this and overall presentation. I had 3 people who failed the module and retook it and hadn't been to the lectures, one didn't turn up to the presentation. I was told that I should have ensured they all knew their presentations as well as having done all of their slides myself!

I answered all of the questions. Sounds like your set up was different to mine. I’m sorry that it affected your grade that sucks

Nope.

Team leaders and other roles are assigned. Admittedly, this is usually decided by the students themselves. Depending on the level, they may also have to report to a board of directors made up of academics.

This is STEM. It may be different in other airy-fairy disciplines.

I think the advice from @ParmaVioletTea is spot on. Group projects are a nightmare! DS has just been through the same but managed to document everything and then appealed his mark and was successful. A tip for future is if you know you have a
group projects coming up make the right (hard working) friends on that module and ask if you can work in a group with them. I successfully did this by pointing out the stress from other group projects. If you present the solution (the new group) they do sometimes let you change.

DD assumes it was random who she has been put with. Does make me wonder if she was placed with them as they know she’s a hard worker?

She also had to do a presentation during her first group work and one guy didn’t turn up (to any of the meetings!) Another claimed his laptop wasn’t working (err you can use a pc in the library?) so didn’t get the correspondence ( he knew when the deadline was). It literally was like ‘the dog ate my homework’ type excuse. They scraped a 2.1 (60%) and only because the girls wrote all the slides and carried the presentation. The boys just read a script. It was down to the wire and a lot of stress. The breakdown of marks showed their lowest mark for ‘communication and preparation’ or something like that. But there was nothing more they could do.

If there is a next time I’m going to ask her to try and pick her group (citing reasons why).

I hated group work too. I used to send it in without the names of the lazy people

I am curious as to how this works if there is only 1 person doing the work? In my case none of the others admitted they had done nothing and one had bothered to read the slides they had to present which was their sum effort. How would their opinions have affected my grade when they would never admit they didn't understand a word of it and I had done it alone (despite much begging).

Ultimately, the mark awarded to each student is down to the assessor. In a case like this, it is very likely that the student that is doing all or most of the work would contact the module tutor to alert them of the situation. Usually this happens before the peer assessment but sometimes after. All the group may then have to provide evidence of their individual contribution.

For all peer assessed assignments, the assessor reviews the peer marks the group members give each other along with the justifying comments and looks for anomalies. They may then ask for more information before arriving at a final mark for each student.

Mine is STEM (my last one was airy fairy) and there have not been any roles or team leaders assigned. Nor do we report to anyone…

That is a completely different experience to mine. I asked my tutor several times what to do, the first time he refused to say anything stating it was part and parcel of "group work" for me to find ways to get the group together and make people do their share. When it got to the week before and I had still had no luck I had no response. In the presentation he actually berated me personally for being unable to get "my" group to a higher standard. I have no idea how I was meant to resolve the situation, to this day. If they had been allowed to make me get a worse grade I have no doubt my group would have voted me poorly if they also didn't get a good grade.

The airy-fairy thing was tongue in cheek.

What can I say? Not all universities are the same.