Group work in college is related to Johnathan Haidts article about marble sharing. Haidt states that that the "share the spoils" button in humans brains is not pressed by the mere existence of inequality, but when 2 or more people collaborated to produce a gain. In the scenarios where the children would either find the marbles in the cups or be pulling on different ropes to get the marbles out of the machine- they would not end up sharing their wealth between them as they viewed it as 'finders keepers'. Michael Tomasello, a psychologist who created this experiment, believes that the 'share the spoils' response emerged at some point in the last half-million years as humans began to hunt cooperatively. The main key is that if the humans could develop stable, ongoing partnerships they would be able to accomplish much more as a team than if they were alone. So essentially these early humans were responding to the incentive that if they were willing to do work for someone else (and other persons reciprocate) that they will all be better off for it. This can be applied to group work in college if you can put an expectation/ incentivize them to have to work together or else it will negatively impact their own personal grade.
I think this is best accomplished by having two separate grading scales when it comes to group work: an individual grade and a group grade that both go in to calculating the final assignment grade. Group work that only assess participation points or just has a singular completion grade and doesn't assess who did what are much less effective, especially if the professor assigns the groups themselves. Half of the group members are probably incentivized by not wanting to have their grade suffer at the expense of two lazy students and are willing just to do the whole assignment. The two lazy members in this scenario are more than willing to allow these other two students to do the whole assignment in discussion section especially since the hard working students are stuck with the lazy ones because the teacher randomly assigned them. Since there is only one grade that applies to all members regardless of who contributed what, it is more likely than people will be doing uneven amounts of work to receive the same grade.
To remedy this, or to achieve a 'share the spoils' scenario and incentivize members to share wealth (work) evenly, like I stated earlier making two separate grading scales is a good move in my experience. An example of this that I have personally experienced was when I was in a political science course and my group and I had to present on Obamacare. The professor split us into groups but said we are welcome to divvy up responsibility for each part of the project between ourselves as we saw fit. Also he said that 60% of the assignment grade was determined by your own contribution and how well you individually presented and 40% of it was determined by the groups overall presentation. This made it so that if you were with even two sub par group members, that your overall grade could still be high if you did your part well. However, this system incentivized all members to actually want to contribute as the expectation of your grade riding on other peoples work and vice versa makes it so everyone wants to do well by everyone else. We split the project up into 4 parts: background of the bill (what it is trying to do), conservative stance, liberal stance, and actual implementation/ cost it will have. Luckily I was in a rational group and they all worked very hard on their individual parts as did I, and we all just dropped our own individual contributions into a google powerpoint doc without ever meeting up. We all just practiced our parts and expected the other members to show up having done the same since a good proportion of our grades was in eachothers hands. We all received very good grades on the project because we were incentivized to want to share the work as equally as possible and that everyone tried very hard on their part because there was an expectation that others would do the same for your benefit just as much as theirs.
So let's question some of your assumptions and see where it leads us. You said first that group work is pretty common so students are apt to see it in many of their classes. That assumption seems fair. You then talked about potential problems in a group because there might be a lazy member or two. This is the assumption I want to look into further.
ReplyDeleteDo you think the person is lazy in each group project they are in? Or might it be that the person is energetic in some projects and lazy in others? If the latter, then it would seem to be some interaction between the project and the person that causes the laziness, correct? Let's hold that thought and move to the next assumption.
If there is some interaction effect and the person is not inherently lazy in all things, might the person have some blockage that makes the person lazy on that project but if the blockage were removed then the person would be energetic on the project?
Now I wish you had made reference to the other articles apart from the sharing the marbles, because then I'd like you to ask whether the teammates who are working on the project have some obligation to help the teammate with the blockage get through that. Is it fair to expect that or not? Either way, I'd like you to explain why you responded as you did.
The last bit, which is on the third piece, is whether if teammates act in an empathetic way, does that in itself encourage the blockages to melt away? So a so-called lazy team member might not act lazy at all, if in a group with the right teammates.
Having gotten this far, you might ask what cause these blockages. If you recall the first day of class when we talked about why students don't ask questions in the classroom, the ready explanation is that they don't want to look stupid. Being quiet, in that sense, is a safety play. Might being lazy in a group be the same sort of thing?
No I do not think that a person is lazy for every group project that they are in. I completely forgot to mention this in my original post but it is something I believe is very important when approaching group work: that is if the group members know eachother outside of the class. Knowing people in your group, especially if you are good friends, will absolutely reduce the loafing effect that I was trying to describe. Knowing the people in your group I think is one of the potential blockages I was trying to describe and this effect builds on the next one which is what type of group work is it.
DeleteIf a person is not inherently lazy, and they are assigned to finish a worksheet with 4 other people in a discussion section where they all receive the same grade regardless of contribution (also no one knows eachother), this is where the person may make the decision to be lazy because- 1) someone in the group (responsible) will not want to see their grade suffer at the expense of other people not helping so they will naturally take the lead on the worksheet and 2) once this person has taken the lead the potentially lazy person can now contribute as little as possible to this assignment and still receive full credit. Potentially lazy student is also is not incentivized to care to help more because they do not know any of these people outside of class and the threat of social disapproval does not apply as they do not care about these people specifically.
I do believe also that teammates have some obligation to help a group member through potential blockages. Group members (in my opinion) will only do this under certain circumstances: like I stated if it is an attendance based worksheet or something similar and does not take into account who did what then group members are not going to ostracize 1/5 lazy group members to help out. A discussion section worksheet that will take 30 minutes is just not worth the time or awkward interaction demanding a stranger help harder on some micro-level worksheet. Where the group members will want to help remove the blockages is when every group members contributions to the assignment directly affect eachother's grades. The example I described is exactly what I am talking about. Luckily my group was full of rational adults who understood this about the project: I am only responsible for 1/4 of this project I am going to do it as best as I can and know how to present my 1/4 without ever having to meet up with these people. We all got our separate work done and the first time we saw eachothers parts was on presentation day. This format worked for us but other groups were not as lucky as some had a member or two who obviously did not hold their weight as far as the expectations for everyone went and their group members grades suffered. I am not sure how they could have remedied this, maybe they did not oversee that group member well enough but at some point each individual has to be accountable for their part while assuming the others will do the same for you.
Ben,
ReplyDeleteGreat post as I used the example of group projects in my post as well. Having two different grading scales for group projects (individual and group) is almost necessary because too often we see a slacker in a group. A slacker could be seen for a multitude of reasons and I believe it is the other group members jobs to avoid the slacker from continuing to not work. Communication skills are essential to having a successful team and if group members are not communicating well within the group the output can fall. A slacker can arise because they do not agree with the work that is being done by the other members but if no one communicates that with them, nothing will be worked out and the slacking will continue. I believe that no one wants to be labeled a slacker in a group so outside motives are contributing to why a member is not doing their share of work. If someone begins to slack and the other team members take it upon themselves to pick up the extra work and do not hold the member accountable than that member is likely to continue to not work if none of their team members are holding them accountable but the work is still getting done. Unfortunately, this happens too often and that is why it is necessary to have the 2-part grading scale for group projects as your political science professor did.
Ben,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. Specifically I liked how you used the example of the group work we engage in here at school. From my experience, when the group is made up of individuals that can all work well together, that they usually perform better. On the other hand I have been a part of groups for classes where our performance wasn't the best because we didn't work well together. Theres the issue with different mindsets on whatever the topic as well as varying communication skills that can make group work difficult. I like to think as these group projects at school as an opportunity to work on our teamwork skills so that we may be able to work better with others in the professional world.
On the other hand it can be difficult to encourage group work at the University level. You suggested the addition of a two part grading scale where part of it is a result of individuals performance. This will help people stay accountable and hopefully boost overall team performance.