Student Experience of Group Work and Group Assessment in Higher Education

Collaborative learning continues to be an area that is increasingly receiving attention in academic fields. This is because group-based or cooperative learning has many benefits to individual student learning (Slavin, 1996). In addition, group work and group assessment, have, over the past few years, become integral components of many undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the UK and all over the world (Houldsworth & Mathews, 2000). The primary focus of this study is to explore the feelings and experience of students regarding group work and group assessment in Higher Education (HE). The study is exploratory and descriptive based on both quantitative and qualitative approach. Accordingly, the findings reported here are based on a survey and a focus group with some final year tourism and hospitality students (n = 72) at the University of Wolverhampton. Interestingly, students felt that group work is a method that significantly fosters the development of a wider breadth of knowledge through discussion, clarification of ideas, and evaluation of others' ideas. On the other hand, students consider "poor communication" and "poor attendance at group meetings" as the main challenges they face when working within a group. Also, students identified "dedicated assignment seminars" as the most effective tool, which could be used to improve the effectiveness of group work. In conclusion, this study reinforces the findings of previous research into group work suggesting that the experience is generally positive for students. Results are discussed in the context of current theoretical and empirical work on group-based learning. Education implications and areas for further research are also discussed. (C) 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.