Using peer evaluation in assessed group work

The use of assessed group work continues to raise significant challenges. Although the pedagogic benefits have been widely discussed in the literature, students often express reservations about its use on their courses. Where assessed group work is used, many students argue that it should be designed so that the individual marks awarded closely reflect any variations in the contributions of different team members.

Therefore, tutors need to find an effective way of measuring individual contributions to group work and then use this measure to adjust the group work mark into individual grades. This creates a couple of challenges. Firstly, a method needs to be found to deal with the issues created by asymmetric information as it is impossible for tutors to perfectly observe the contributions of different group members. Secondly, an adjustment mechanism needs to be implemented that is both transparent and objective. One approach is for tutors to use peer evaluation where students make evaluative judgements about the contributions of their team members and provide numerical scores. Students are clearly in a much better position than tutors to observe the study behaviour and contribution of different team members. The numerical scores can also be used to design an adjustment mechanism that is both clear and easy to understand.