Grading group work

The terms “group work” and “teamwork” are often used interchangeably. They do have different connotations as several students can form a group and contribute independently to it without necessarily collaborating. Teamwork, meanwhile, implies students working together as a team. In fact, one of the keys to successful group work is putting into place the conditions for a group to work as a team. As Oakley et al. (2004) note, “[w]ith a group, the whole is often equal to or less than the sum of its parts; with a team, the whole is always greater” (p. 13). Read on to learn about strategies for supporting students with group work. For ease of reference, we will only use the term “group work.”

Group work is increasingly common in large enrolment classes. But having students collaborate in groups has been shown to be beneficial for student learning regardless of the context. Among the benefits are increased student achievement, motivation and long-term retention, as well as the acquisition of communication and relational skills necessary for many professional roles and environments (Johnson et al., 2000; Oakley et al., 2004).  

Group work can be an assessment option in many different contexts and can play a role in both formative and summative assessments. There are instances where using group work is particularly relevant. These instances include: 

• Complex tasks: When the task mirrors workplace projects that require diverse skill sets.  
• Interdisciplinary work: When multiple perspectives enhance the learning experience. 
• Resource management: When tasks involve sharing or managing limited resources or data. 

Mostly, group work is best served by assignments that are sufficiently complex to benefit from multiple minds and require a range of knowledge and skills (Western, n.d.). For this reason, group work is best suited to the skills at the higher end of Bloom’s taxonomy, such as problem-solving, research and questioning, application of learning, reflective judgement and critical thinking. Find ideas for assessment tasks in our resources Explore alternatives to exams and Develop authentic assessments.

• Define clear roles: Assign specific roles to ensure equitable participation, accountability and to stress the importance of students working together. For example, roles can include researcher, analyst, coordinator, and writer. Assigning roles can also work to encourage each member to bring their expertise to the collective task and to clarify which elements of the assignment fall to individual students as their unique responsibility and which should be done collectively. 
• Design collaboration into the assessment: When tasks involve collaboration, it’s best to design it directly into the assignment so that each member can contribute meaningfully. This not only fuels cooperation but also helps get buy in from students who will be more inclined to collaborate with their peers.  
• Determine the assessment criteria and weighting based on learning outcomes:  Assessing both the group’s output and individual contributions help ensure fairness and accountability but is not the only way to assess group work. The assignment’s learning outcomes should steer your decisions about what to mark with the according weight.  
• Diversify groups: When possible, create groups with a mix of abilities and backgrounds to mimic real-world teams or randomly assign groups. 
• Encourage reflection: Have each group member reflect on their role and contributions. 
• Set common goals: Establish objectives that require collaboration, such as complex or interdisciplinary tasks.

Common challenges and potential solutions

There are some determinations that are key when designing and assessing group work: 

Product or process (or both)?

As with individual assignments, it’s important to determine if you will assess only the final product or if you’ll also evaluate the process of group work.  

If both product and process are important to you, then both should be reflected in students’ grades. How you decide the weight you accord to each will depend on the learning outcomes for the course and for the assignment. Ensure also that students know what the assessment criteria are when the task is assigned, underlining especially grading criteria that they are likely less familiar with, e.g., collaboration or cooperation. 

Individual or group grades (or both)?

Will the group get one grade for what they have done together? Or will there be an individual and a group grade assigned? Group processes and individual contributions are not visible in the final product, so you’ll need ways to determine what these were (Eberly Center, 2025). 

Used independently or together, there are distinct assessment methods that work well for assessing group work: 

• Combined assessment
  • Evaluate the group’s product and the individual’s process. Opportunities for students to demonstrate their individual learning include assigning independent write-ups, weekly journal entries, reflections or quizzes. 
• Peer assessment 
  • Include peer feedback as part of the assessment to gauge teamwork dynamics and encourage peer learning. Find more details below.  
• Self-assessment
• Encourage self-reflection as well as reflections on each member’s role and learning within the group.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center has grading methods that includes detailed instructor and student options for grading group work, as well as an example of a group and self-assessment tool. 

Peer assessment is a form of co-evaluation where, guided by criteria set by the instructor, students evaluate the work of their peers and offer feedback. Assessing other students’ work gives students a better idea of what “good work” looks like and encourages more active engagement in learning and assessments. Peer assessment can help students apply what they’ve learned in reviewing others’ work to their own, increase motivation and practice the important skills of giving and receiving feedback (Hernández Cordona & Banda Martínez, 2021; Li & Grion, 2019; Tseng & Tsai, 2010). Other advantages include encouraging peer learning, providing opportunities for human-centred learning, dialogue, interaction, effective communication, and giving students a role in the assessment process (Hernández Cordona & Banda Martínez, 2021). 

Peer evaluations can be formative assessments where students provide feedback to one another’s work at an early stage, such as on a draft before final submission, or it can be a summative assessment where students grade each other’s work as part of the final mark for the assignment (Wilfrid Laurier, 2025).  

Peer assessment can prove especially useful in a high enrolment course where scaffolded drafts or parts of a larger assignment can be reviewed by peers with low stakes, students then apply the feedback and, finally, instructors mark the higher-stakes final submission. 

Peer assessment of group work allows students to carry out this form of assessment within their designated groups. It generally includes designing opportunities for peer feedback among group members and can be useful for gauging group dynamics.

How to carry out peer assessment

• Identify assignments that will be well served by peer assessment in that students will benefit from feedback from their peers.  
• Determine the assessment criteria. These will guide the students and help ensure consistency in the evaluations. The criteria should clearly outline what will be assessed and at what level. For example, will students be evaluating other members’ contributions to group work done collaboratively or will they be giving feedback on their individual efforts? Building a rubric can help with sharing the assessment criteria and working to ensure consistency in its application.  
• Draft instructions to guide students with the peer assessment process, including any information on a peer assessment tool you ask them to use. For example, students can provide feedback by inserting comments directly into a Word document, contributing to an online whiteboard, or posting in a Moodle Forum activity configured with separate groups. 
• When designing the peer assessment process, consider whether it will take place synchronously or asynchronously, and whether students will review work in pairs or evaluate all members of their group. These decisions will influence the level of accountability, depth of feedback, and time required to complete the activity. 
  • You can also use the Moodle Workshop activity, which automates the peer review process. Students receive a grade based on the feedback of their peers. They also receive a grade on how well they peer review others.
• Review suggested practices for giving feedback so that it is not only meaningful but helps encourage learning. For example: 
  • Keep feedback constructive rather than critical. 
  • Avoid discriminatory, hurtful or inflammatory language. 
  • A good rule of thumb is to share something you liked about the work you reviewed, something that might be improved on and something they might not have thought of. University California Merced has a rubric with criteria and examples for providing constructive feedback. 
• Alert students to the weighting of the peer assessment activity in the course’s assessment plan. 

Tips

• Review the peer assessment instructions and criteria/rubric with students ahead of the peer evaluation exercise to ensure they have a clear understanding of what to do. 
• Ask for students’ feedback on the peer assessment process to work out kinks and make improvement for next time.