ARTICLE #1 | 9
8 | JADE
JONATHAN PARKER
towards research and create tensions with policies directed at
improving teaching.
The questions Paul Trowler asks are as deeply relevant to Keele
University as they are towards higher education more generally.
The university has set itself the ambitious goal of moving up into
the more elite echelon of higher education institutions in the U.K.
This goal raises the question of how efforts aimed at enabling and
improving individual teachers will interact with these wider forces
and imperatives, particularly when league tables are dominated by
research reputation. While there are no clear answers at this stage,
the questions are the right ones, which we will continue trying to
resolve as these events play out.
ARTICLE | #1
Title
The pro and cons of group work
assessment in problem-based learning
environments
Author(s)
Sami Ullah
Aleksandar Radu
Contact
[email protected]
School
School of Physical and Geographical
Sciences
Faculty
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Abstract
Group work under problem-based
learning environments are pivotal in
promoting communication, cooperation,
and coordination among students
learning about and/or devising
solutions for practical issues. Such
learning and teaching practices are
sometimes evaluated through group
work assessments. While group work
assessments encourage experiential
learning and sharing of varied skills, views,
arguments, agreement and disagreements
among the students, it is also dubbed as
a technique favouring low performing
and dis-crediting top performing
students. We compared group work and
individual assessment performance of
students in distance learning and a face
to face delivery modules to elucidate
the pro and cons of group assessment
associated with problem-based learning
and teaching practices. The overall mean
score of group assessments were within
the range of individual scores; however,
the variance of the group assessment
was more constrained than the variance
of the individual performance. In this
paper we discuss the implications of this
constrained variance of group assessment
for the practice of problem-based learning
environments
Keywords
Group assessments, problem-based
learning, assessment diversity, student
performance
Introduction
Learning is part of an initiation into a community of practice
(Forman, 1994), therefore, group-based learning environments
and subsequent group assessment makes up an integral part
of the learning process. Problem-based learning helps in the
development of communication, leadership, negotiation,
problem-solving skills and prepares students for experience
in the ‘real world’ (Mellor, 2009; Barber et al. 2015). Many of
these skills are sought by the employers and thus it is critical to
ensure provision for the instilling these skills into learning and
teaching programs (Livingston, 2000; Flores et al. 2014; Ullah et
al. 2015). In addition to the employability skills, problem-based
learning and group assessments also enable critical evaluation
of student’s own work and that of their peers (Bourner, 2001)
enabling the effectiveness of individual actors in a group setting
(Boud et al. 1999; McLoughlin et al. 2015). Moreover, group work
and associated assessments helps in instilling skills that are
highly critical in accomplishing effective team work in future
(Jackson et al. 2014)
However, concerns have been raised about group assessments
based on problem-based learning in the literature (Table 1). The
pitfalls listed in Table 1 can have an impact on the overall value of
group assessments in disciplines where problem-based learning
is a core teaching activity and thus need critical assessment to
identify actions for rectifying it for a positive learning outcome.
Moreover, Maiden and Perry (2011) points to the difficulty of
identifying the contribution of individual students to the group
project assessment, thereby leading to a group mark assignment
to all the members where ‘free riders’ could benefit without
significant contribution. Nonattendance of group meeting by
students leading to time management conflicts and passing on
the burden of work to hardworking punctual students are some
of the pitfalls reported in the literature (Maident and Perry, 2011).
As the group assessment mark reflects a group activity applied
equally to all members of the group, therefore, a need exist
to evaluate if such an approach benefits the low-performing
students and discredit the contribution of top performing
students.
In this paper, we compared group and individual assessment
performance of students in two different modules-one delivered
through distance learning in China and another face to face at
Keele University. The distance learning module consisted of
three assessments including group work (based on a group
project activity), a class test and final examination. Similarly, the
face to face delivery module was also consisted of a group work
(based on problem-based laboratory group project) and a class