Toward Fairness in Assessing Student Groupwork: A Protocol for Peer Evaluation of Individual Contributions

Abstract

A key challenge for management instructors using graded groupwork with students is to find ways to maximize student learning from group projects while ensuring fair and accurate assessment methods. This article presents the Groupwork Peer-Evaluation Protocol (GPEP) that enables the assessment of individual contributions to graded student groupwork. The GPEP is designed to achieve the three objectives of providing accurate and fair assessment, supporting student learning, and enabling group self-management. This article discusses instructor experiences with and student reactions to the protocol, opportunities for customization, and potential limitations of the protocol.Teamwork and group projects are ubiquitous in management education because they enhance the development of skills and knowledge particularly relevant to the real world, provide an excellent forum for experiential learning, promote collaborative learning, and help to more efficiently instruct large student numbers. Beyond the pragmatic advantages to instructors of large classes, the learning benefits include the provision of opportunities to apply conceptual skills and theoretical knowledge; to experience and learn about

Student Perceptions on the Impact of Formative Peer Team Member Effectiveness Evaluation in an Introductory Design Course

“…This finding is congruent with literature suggesting team skills can be learned. [7][8][9][10] This improvement may represent actual improvement of contribution, although it was not measured in this study. Alternatively, it may represent an increase in student self-confidence as students may be humble initially and discover through the feedback mechanism that they are a valued member of the group.…”

“…20 Team members may have different expectations for success on the project leaving those with higher goals to carry the weight of the project and make up for the poor contribution of those with lower goals. Free riding is more likely to occur as team size increases 21 and when individual contributions are subsumed by the overall group grade 10 .…”

“…7,9,22,33 Some studies have used repeated measures of peer evaluation, however these spanned multiple projects or years rather than being embedded within the same course and project. 10,29,30,32,34,35 These have also been quantitative in nature and have not triangulated data with student reflections, which might clarify the underlying causes of the documented benefits. The present study utilized repeated measures within a single project allowing peer evaluation ratings to be formative in nature, informing team interactions for the duration of the project.…”

“…9 Prior work has identified several elements of collaborative learning that lead to the development of skills needed for success in the workplace. By its nature, collaborative work requires and builds interpersonal and communication skills; 7,10 provides exposure to different views, ideas, and perspectives; 10 leads to opportunities for negotiation; 11 and supports questioning among team members; 7,12 among other benefits. Through social interactions with other learners, students have an opportunity to learn through reflection on their own experience and benefit from hearing the experiences of others.…”

“…Students with strong tendencies toward individual work may show a decrease in enjoyment, enthusiasm, and perceived learning when placed in a group. 18 Aside from overcoming the challenges of group dynamics, Fellenz 10 summarized "accurately and fairly assessing individual performance, conflict within groups, and free riding of individual members" (p. 571) as several main concerns of group work. These are regularly raised as impediments for including group activities in the classroom.…”