Development of a Web-Based Groupwork Assessment Tool Groupwork and Assessment Methods Demonstration of Software Discussion Hannah Whaley David Walker Learning Enhancement Unit University of Dundee

Overview  Use of group working in Higher Education  Assessment of group working skills  Development of tool  Demo  Pilots and potential applications  Further work  Discussion

Groupwork – Increasing Use  Team Skills (employer/industry pressure)  Communication  Division of tasks  Collaboration  Evaluation of other people’s work  Increasing student class sizes (not increasing staff numbers)  Group working eases marking  Makes multiple hand-ins feasible  Easier to see groups of students  Collaborative learning principles  Larger projects can be tackled  Engaging with others  Learning to divide and manage work

Groupwork – Changes in Use  More online working  Harder for lecturers to see the group dynamics in action  More frequent use of groupwork within modules  Can students use this to develop their skills within a particular group? Can they transfer these skills to other groups?  More complex tasks and division of work  Harder than ever to provide individual marks for collaborative work

Groupwork – Issues  Team Skills (employer/industry pressure)  Team skills need to be taught, learnt and practised  Are they being marked on these skills?  Increasing student class sizes (not increasing staff numbers)  Difficult for staff to be involved and know exactly what is happening in the group  Collaborative learning principles  Danger of ‘free loaders’ or ‘take overs’  Difficult to assess who actually did the work

Groupwork Assessment  Few changes or adaptations in assessment methods  Most common is the division of 100 marks between the team and the assessment mark is weighted accordingly  Often paper based, causing administrative burden if anything more than basic information is gathered  Often completed in class, or has to be agreed upon by team members

Issues to Solve  Provide staff with more information without increasing the administrative burden  Give students a chance to provide clearer feedback about their group  Provide the lecturer with the means to issue fairer grades  Empower the lecturer to provide better feedback and teaching based on group performance  Introduce an element of privacy for the students

Development  Iterative design process  Feasibility study  Focus groups  Design evaluations  Pilots  User centred design process  Hix and Hartson ‘Star Model’ (1992) User Implementation Task analysis Functional analysis Prototyping Requirements specification Conceptual design Formal design

Technology  Web based  PHP  Server side scripting language allowing manipulation of scores and data  SQL database  Allows flexible and fast storage and retrieval of results  Secure and private  Compatability  No additional download needed  Cross browser and platform compatability

Groupwork Assessment Tool  Group task still completed independently of the tool  Tool provides a method for scoring team members on group performance  Lecturer maintains flexibility of assessment creation and feedback to students  Students – complete task as normal  Lecturer – creates groupwork assessment online  Students – mark themselves and each other using the tool  Lecturer – can see the collated results online

Criteria for Assessment  Harmony  Did the group member show flexibility and willingness to work for consensus?  Support  Did the group member support others who show leadership?  Management  Did the group member offer leadership when the team needs it?  Completion  Did the group member fulfill the tasks set to the group?  Participation  Did the group member offer constructive feedback on others' ideas?  Contribution  Did the group member contribute to the group by sharing ideas and views?  Communication  Did the group member know when to speak and when to listen to help the team?

Marking Scales Available  0-N Scale  3 - the group member always showed this  2 - the group member often showed this  1 - the group member occasionally showed this  0 - the group member never showed this  N - the group member had a negative effect  1-5 Scale  1 - the student's skills in this area were not evident  2 - the student's skills in this area were beginning to show  3 - the student's skills in this area were developing throughout  4 - the student's skills in this area were accomplished throughout  5 - the student's skills in this area were exemplary throughout  Percentage  >70 - the student's skills in this area were excellent  60-69% - the student's skills in this area were very good  50-59% - the student's skills in this area were good  40-49% - the student's skills in this area were satisfactory  20-39% - the student's skills in this area were marginal  0-20% - the student's skills in this area were unsatisfactory

Groupwork Assessment Tool  Demo  Setup of an assessment  Viewing results  Student completion of exercise

Groupwork Assessment Tool

Pilots of the system  Various pilots of the system conducted at the University of Dundee  All have been formative assessment or low stakes summative (5%)  Welcomed by the students – one class requested to peer assess their groups  Welcomed by the staff – much easier than paper based and assessment software based attempts in previous years  Staff keen to use it for teaching purposes – so far only used for assessment purposes  Provided ‘back up’ for observations “ I realise I didn’t do well in my group ” “We would like to peer assess each other” “I wish I could have used it with my students at the start of the year as well”

Potential Uses  Learning and teaching tool for groupwork skills  E.g. Can be completed at start and end of project  Grading of formative/summative group assignments  Feedback on group progress for staff in advance of meetings  Research purposes  Others?

Further work on the tool….  More flexibility in the criteria  Requests for up to 30 criteria (!)  Ability to change criteria to make it fit more specific purposes  More statistics  Highlight unusual scoring patterns  Provide class wide statistics to allow more feedback  Downloadable statistics  Possibly more for research than teaching  Blackboard integration  Access to class lists  Makes it easier for staff and students that use blackboard currently

Discussion…  Criteria – would you want to change them? How many is too many?  Other potential uses? Would you use it?  Is it useful as a stand-alone tool?

Discussion  Hannah Whaley  University of Dundee   David Walker  University of Dundee   Thanks!