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!

As far as I’m aware they don’t get an individual grade - the group gets awarded a mark as a percentage which equates to a grade. They then get a breakdown of the marks.

It’s also the mental load on the motivated member having to remember to nag people and send reminder emails, check their work and make sure deadlines are met whilst the others are sitting pretty!

Dc has had this unfortunately - paired with a lazy student who just used AI to do the work and didn’t check results (which were wrong). The level of English understanding wasn’t at the level needed either. Dc ended up quite stressed and basically had to do the other students work and their own (difficult as they have dyslexia). The marks for the project were fairly important for that particular module.

I know they have to collaborate and team work but these group efforts shouldn’t count towards the grades.

I've seen students put in Extenuating Circumstances claims for similar to this and have them accepted

whereas group work at university is organized along communist ideals.

The thing is, most learning is collaborative. Great discoveries are rarely made by lone hermit-like geniuses. THat's why labs work in teams, researchers have research assistants and postdocs, ad so on.

So in terms of mapping onto how humans learn (as social beings) through discussion, collaboration, pooling knowledge, asking each other questions, challenging interpretations, group work makes a lot of pedagogical sense.

But if students are fixed on getting a specific mark, or do work only to get a grade, then their learning is less effective.

What I find with current undergrads is that they are far less motivated to discuss, collaborate, challenge, or ask each other questions in any way. I run quite open seminars, where the learning is done by a combination of preparation (reading the set reading & reading around the set reading) and then discussion in the seminar.

It's a real problem. So when we try to model good learning via collaboration (and assess it because students won't do anything unless they have to for assessment sadly) the same patterns of hesitancy to discuss, or lack of motivation to collaborate. are evident.

Nothings changed in 25 years OP. This is exactly how my group work went down too all those years ago. Don't worry its character building. I will say for my 1st year group project, after we presented our creation and had the report marked we were asked if we all contributed equally and how we would like the points split, the person who didn't even bother to turn up for the hand in got 0...

I hate group work too.

One in 2nd year there were supposed to be 4 of us, 1 left the course, 1 could never meet because 'I have kids' I was quite happy for her to bring her children.
3rd was in a domestic abuse situation, I have crap health.

The two of us carried the project and we got an 'A', but Ms 'I have kids' complained to the tutor that she hadn't done enough.

We ended up in a meeting with the tutor, we said we were happy for her to have an 'A' but if she wanted to be graded on her contribution that was fine too.

She still wasn't happy.

I was a mature student, the next group work I was with two people I had never met before. I told them, 'Let me be in charge and I will get us an 'A''.

OP

Tell DD to document everything, every meeting, who turned up, who contributed what, copies of emails etc - she can put it in an appendix to the work.

My undergraduate experience was back in the 1980s. So its discouraging to hear that at some unis things have not moved on. After my unsatisfactory group experience I was careful in my final year to choose courses where I was working entirely alone. As for the workplace there will always be those who seek to ride on others cat tails. And there will also be people trying to claim credit for work they never did. Usually you can set them up to deliver some kind of report or presentation where they will flounder.

DS has to do group work as part of their Degree. On each one they have to give the other participants a grade. This can lead to the other’s having their grade moved up or down depending on how the group graded them.

It also means that the groups police themselves and there’s no need for the staff to try and chivvy along reluctant and lazy adult students. Seems to work well.

I hate group and team work because contributions are never equal. You can usually work it so that lazy members have some discrete responsibility for which they must report or account. You can then use that as leverage by reminding them of the implications of failure to do their part. No one wants to risk being names and shamed.

Group work sucks and is only set because it's quicker for the lecturer to mark. ( daughter of a uni professor).

My dd had the same with group work. It all sounds shit and unfair, and I don’t think group work projects should count towards the final degree grade.

Group work is set so the students get experience working in groups. It is also mandated by accrediting bodies. Particularly in the final year of master’s level courses.

By the time a group submission is marked and appropriate individual marks sorted out there isn’t a huge amount of difference in marking time.

DS friend has this in master's course. A big slacker who didn't put any effort. All evidence was shown to the course leader who then gave the guy a big 0. Rest of the team got the marks.