Assignments Assessing Group Assignments Engaging students in learning through group projects has become a more common practice in recent years, often because they are seen to assist students in developing generic skills such as teamwork and interpersonal skills in addition to acquiring the skills and knowledge of the discipline. However, assessing group work is often problematic, as it is sometimes the case that certain students do not 'pull their weight'. This is often seen as unfair by the students doing more than their share of the work, and it also means that some students may be assessed as having acquired skills and knowledge that they have not. Below are some strategies for marking group assignments that might deal with these issues.
Students divide up the mark themselves according to the amount of work each has done.
The teacher assesses the group project and assigns an overall mark. Students then assess the contribution of each other using criteria established at the beginning of the assignment. A limiting factor in the peer assessment is that the average of the peer-assessed individual marks cannot exceed the group mark given by the teacher. The group assignment is divided by the teacher into separate components of equal weight, or students are asked to do this themselves. Responsibilities for particular tasks are then allocated by the teacher or negotiated by students.