How Fair are Group Assignments? A Survey of Students and Faculty and a Modest Proposal

Executive Summary Group assignments are becoming increasingly popular in education. While some academics would admit that they lessen their workload, many would say group assignments give students the “real world” group experience needed for later employment. Problems with group assignments have been noted in the literature, but the extent to which staff are aware of problems is not clear, nor is it clear whether students think group assignments could be valuable. The present study set out to obtain staff and student views on the problems with, and the worth of, group assignments and, given the comments, to consider a better strategy for implementing group work.