Enhancing the effectiveness of groupwork and group-based assessment

For students of the former School of Information Management and Systems

Also see below: Guidelines to enhance team effectiveness with group assessment tasks

Introduction

Group-based assignments are a common feature of tertiary education. Used well, they can provide a valuable learning experience for students. However, students often express reservations and dissatisfaction with group-based assessment.

Difficulties with Group Assessment

Typically students have raised concerns relating to:

Unfairness in allocation of workload
Inequity in marks assigned - penalising high achievers and rewarding low achievers
Group management issues
Difficulties in part-timers scheduling a common meeting time and meeting time and meeting place for the group
Cultural differences.

Why Staff Set Group-Based Assignments

There are sound educational reasons for staff setting group-based assessment in the fields of information systems (IS) and information management (IM).

Through the dynamic interplay and exchange of ideas, an effective team can generate better solutions than can an individual working alone.

Much IS and IM work is project-based. It is vital that students intending to pursue careers in these fields have the opportunity to experience, develop and demonstrate skills in effective teamwork and in managing the complex interpersonal dynamics and conflicts that inevitably emerge in a project team.

Communication Competencies: Employers have identified interpersonal communication competencies and the ability to work effectively in a team environment as two of the most important graduate attributes. In a global business environment, it is particularly important that students are given the opportunity to work together in teams from culturally diverse backgrounds.

More specifically, staff want to give students opportunities to develop project and team skills in the following areas:

Team development
Effective communication
Meeting skills and procedures
Effective time management
Negotiation, conflict resolution and the achievement of consensus
Managing and balancing project task and group process issues
Managing expertise within the group—developing mechanisms for ensuring that all members contribute appropriately and equally
Producing a cohesive, well integrated and effectively synthesised team product/ team report.

Guidelines to Enhance Team Effectiveness with Group Assessment Tasks

Aim

Teams should endeavour to be self-regulating, able to address any emerging issues that threaten task progress. Appealing to tutors and academic staff to solve internal team problems should be regarded as a last resort.

Developing Team Identity and Cohesion

Teams do not instantly become productive, so it is important to spend time initially getting to know each other. Focusing on developing effective relationships amongst group members and attending to group process issues is an essential prerequisite to effective team task performance. As a team identity and sense of cohesion starts to emerge, team productivity will rise.

Ways to Facilitate Effective Team Processes

1. Initially when the group forms:

(a) All members should provide others in their group with their personal contact details, including:

email address

mobile and/ or home phone number

an indication of suitable contact hours.

(b) Teams should make a schedule of meeting dates and times that suit all members, and identify a suitable meeting venue. Where scheduling of a common meeting time and venue is difficult for team members, use of some class/ tutorial time may be required for team meetings.

2. View the group as a ‘Project Team' with delegated responsibilities. Identify needed roles and appoint team members to those roles—the project team leader role is particularly important.

3. Adopt standard meeting procedures, including:

(a) Preparing an agenda that outlines clearly the goals to be achieved.

(b) Following a fairly structured approach in meetings.

(c) Taking minutes of the meeting that record meeting date, time and venue, meeting attendance, and summarise decisions and associated actions, responsibilities and deadlines. Minutes provide necessary documentary evidence of what happened at each meeting and can aid in supporting peer assessments (where these form part of the assessment process). A useful outline format is given below.

Project Team Name: ___________

Meeting time, date, venue: ___________

Attendance: ___________

Meeting Decision Action to be Taken Responsibility Deadline

4. The project team leader has the responsibility of overseeing the implementation of ‘actions' and ensuring that deadlines are met. It is expected that team members will attend all meetings and will have their allocated tasks completed by the specified deadline.

5. Have in place a strategy such as the following for handling group problems if and when they arise:

(a) The team will discuss openly any problems or difficulties within the team that could affect its task progress and achievement (eg individual non-performance).

(b) Insofar as possible, the team will be self-regulating and will deal with any problems it encounters (eg confronting the non-performer), and will devise an appropriate solution for addressing the problem.

(c) Where a problem proves to be irreconcilable, the tutor should be consulted first. In cases where no resolution is found, the lecturer should be consulted. In the extreme case, a final course of action may involve expelling the non-performing member from the team.

6. On completion of the project, celebrate!