Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation

Peer assessment using a digital tool

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  2. Teaching guidance
  3. Assessment
  4. Assessing teams and groups

Peer assessments are a valuable tool to use with student groupwork to encourage students to reflect on and critically evaluate not just their own learning and skill development, but those of their team members as well in preparation for their professional careers. 

  1. Introduction
  2. Process and product
  3. Peer questions
  4. Group questions
  1. Open-ended questions
  2. Formative and summative assessments
  3. Dysfunction in groups
  4. References and further reading

7. Dysfunction in groups

Challenges in group work

Group work can present a whole range of challenges, any of which can cause disharmony and dysfunction within a group. Review this breif article (PDF, 36.1 KB) to explore challenges that group work can present so that you can prepare yourself beforehand. 

Minimising the risk of dysfunction

UQ assessment policy requires that your students must have the opportunity to learn how to work effectively in teams or groups before commencing, and they must have the resources and support available to enable them to manage instances when groups are not functioning effectively. 

While it is not possible to plan for every eventuality, research indicates the best way of averting dysfunction in groups is in sound preparation of task and students. Some issues may be avoided by explaining the importance of the task to your students. For a positive beginning you could: 

  • communicate the groupwork process and the purpose of the task 
  • explain why you have developed the task as an exercise in groupwork 
  • stress the importance of the groupwork process for the learners to reach the desired learning outcome.

Using group work for assessment – an academic’s perspective is an excellent guide to support you in establishing the task, the forming of groups and strategies to get your students off to a productive start, which all can help to minimise the risk of dysfunction. Assessing teams and groups supplies links to resources to support the group work process for both you and your students. The PETS manual linked there is a valuable resource to help in preventing and dealing with dysfunction, and the Teams101x MOOC is a great way to engage your students to learn about working effectively in groups. 

Another preparative step you may find valuable and choose to include is to help your students finesse their conflict resolution skills. One approach is to create case studies describing group dysfunction situations and have your students identify strategies they could implement to solve the problem. This can help your students develop the skills needed to mediate many of their conflicts on their own without needing your intervention. 

A follow up to this activity may be to repeat the exercise once your student groups have been established as one of the first tasks required of them to do.

Ensuring participation

Given that the groupwork element is so significant, it is very important that you consider how you will make sure all students participate in the peer evaluation process. Some ideas for you to consider include: 

  • make your expectation clear because you value the process 
  • run a practice run of the procedure in class before group work begins 
  • ascribe a percentage of marks to any the peer assessments you run
  • allot class time for completion of the peer assessment
  • communicate a dummy due-by date so that those who haven’t completed it have another chance before the release date
  • advise students that there will be no recourse for any individual who has not completed a peer assessments if group issues eventuate
Identify dysfunction early

It is best to get an early indication of any groups that are dysfunctional. A strategy to receive timely feedback is to set a group or team question, for example, "I am pleased with the way my teammates and I work together" early in the project as a barometer of how well your groups are functioning. It takes little time for your students to answer and the responses should be available to you immediately. Early and often may be a strategy you decide to adopt.

The peer assessment tool you use may have group or team questions available within its library, or you could select or adapt from this list. Results from this early assessment can help you to identify issues and make appropriate interventions such as meeting with the group, providing guidance and mediation, or even changing group members around.

Managing dysfunctional groups

Much of the material published about dysfunction in student work groups focusses on its prevention through careful task development and the preparation of students to undertake it, but evidence does suggest that conflict within student workgroups is best resolved by the students themselves when possible. 

Conflict within groups of people working collaboratively is not unusual, and so an important part of groupwork is learning to collaborate, developing the capacity to resolve conflict and being able to move on constructively. Having the opportunity to do that as a student working in a group situation is an essential learning experience in itself, and a critical part of the process, so student groups should be encouraged to first try and solve issues within the group.

UQ’s Resolving group work issues is a valuable resource you can direct your students to help them with the resolution of any problems they are experiencing within the group.

However, there will be times when dysfunctional groups will need assistance in resolving issues and require the input of a third party. Your Peer assessment results will let you know which groups appear to be progressing effectively and which are not, alerting you to where you need to devote your energies to get the more dysfunctional groups back on track with the strategies you have devised for resolving issues within the groups. 

Approaches to dealing with dysfunctional groups

Hitchcock and Anderson’s 1997 study of dysfunctional medical students learning via PBL in groups resulted in a four stage intervention model which you may find to be useful in its present guise, or adapt to help in your own interventions of conflict. This model for strategic intervention required the tutor to move through these steps:

  1. when an issue is first identified the tutor should try to help resolve it by asking questions, trying to involve all of the group members. If that doesn’t work, then…
  2. have the group acknowledge there is an issue and have them brainstorm possible solutions. If that doesn’t work, then...
  3. impose non-negotiable rules for working within the group to allow the groupwork to proceed. If that doesn’t work, then…
  4. seek outside assistance for mediation or counselling.

A different approach outlined in the PETS manual recommends the scheduling of Mentor meetings, strategies and provides resources as a means to make sure groups are on track and for the Mentor to help the groups deal with issues when they start to go off-track. This model was developed for managing group work in a large (up to 1200) class.

Other resources you may find useful to support you in dealing with dysfunctional groups and to foster positive progress include: