How Is Group Assessments Done In Your University & How Rubrics Are Created?
There is always a doubt in mind, whether your work will be recognized when working in a group. Read on, by the end of the blog you will be assured that your efforts won’t be overlooked.
Assessment in a group work pertains to higher challenges as compared to individual assessment. As the task to be done is one, and is completed by a group, assessing contribution of each, from the overall outcome is difficult. Especially, as in a group the members complement each other’s weakness, so assessing against overall outcome is difficult. To manage such an issue, the use of marking rubrics is made by universities. Rubrics is an assessment tool that has component and mark allocation to distributed task, making it easy to assess group tasks.
Importance of rubric in grading individuals in case of group assessments
Different aspects on which group assessment is done?
As mentioned above the challenges of assessing individuals in a group assessment is higher. Considering the same, it turns important to understand the different aspects of group assessment to ease the process of grading and assessing individuals.
Look into the process not just the final outcome
In an individual task, the final outcomes clearly prompt grades for the student, but that cannot be a process to assess students when work is done in a group. To overcome the problem, concentration is not on the final product, that is final outcome, rather on the processes involved in attaining the final product. The segregated processes and work divisions are identified in the marking rubrics, which is communicated to the students. And based on independent parameters marks are allocated to individual student on performance.
Self-authority
In an Australian context, students are given authority to take a call on their own performance. In case of group assessments, individual students are asked for their contribution. It is expected students would not lie and honestly mention their contributions, to help the tutor allocate them scores based on independent parameters.
Accountability
Student’s accountability highly matters when grading a group assessment in Australia. Also, other than the group task, students can demonstrate their performance based on independent class activities. Online assignments contribute highly as an assessment tool in all Australian universities.
Evaluation
Evaluation forms are prepared, that are made to be filled by individual members. The form has contribution measurement dimensions namely effort, communication, responsiveness and similar other factors, that are marked by members independently. Based on cumulative analysis of all the forms and evaluation is done by tutor, that acts as assessment of individual member. This also gives the team members opportunity to grade their co-members. Such a process though has some shortcomings like that of groupism, but can bring out aspects quite clearly.
How rubrics is created and used?
Rubric is an important assessment tool, as mentioned earlier in the blogs. Also, there are various types of rubrics that are used for different types of assignments. The differences majorly come among the types based on the associated advantages and disadvantages, with them.
Creating a rubric is a difficult and time taking task.
A few pointers to be considered in creation of a rubric would include-
- Correctly identifying the criteria’s to be marked.
- Take a decision on the number of grades or achievement levels that you wish to allocate.
- Describing the criteria’s is very important to maintain transparency.
- The rubric should have an option to add subjective comments.
The basis of division is often based on the number of judgements being taken.
Under such criteria the types include-
Analytic- Under the rubric every criteria/dimension/ trait is evaluated independently.
Importance of rubric in grading individuals in case of group assessments
Advantages-
- Decisive information can be processed easily with such a rubric.
- Formative assessment turns easy, but also can manage subjective assessment. Hence to get an overall score both the assessments can be combined.
- Information linking is easier.
- Helps to give formative feedback.
Disadvantages-
- Scoring is difficult with the rubric. Also the time consumed for the same is higher.
- Reliability, when rating among cross components is a doubtful aspect in the rubric.
Holistic: Under the rubric, dimensions are evaluated simultaneously.
Advantages-
- Easy scoring process is utilized. Hence time consumption in process is low.
- Better to be used in cases of summative assessments.
Disadvantages-
- Breakdown of scores are not available. Hence clear feedback on measures of improvement cannot be provided based on such scores.
- Formative assessments cannot be done under this rubric.
Another segregation of rubric is done based on the task graded. Usually the categorization are as-
- General task based- The criteria’s are general for the whole assignment, with more than one task.
- Specific Task based- The criteria’s in the case is specific to task and may differ with specific tasks across an assignment.
The blog clearly prompts the importance of rubric in grading individuals in case of group assessments. It has succinctly described that tutor student relationship has developed with such inclusions as tools in the grading process, bringing in transparency.
With all ideas deciphered, be careful to read through all details of rubrics provided to you for your next group assessment. Good Luck
