Cooperative Learning

Assessing Cooperative Learning Groups

Concerns about working as a member of a team often revolve around issues of assessment. Students fear they will receive a lower evaluation as a member of a team than they would if they worked alone. There is the fear that other team members will not carry their share of the work, yet receive the same amount of credit as the harder-working members of the team. Teachers may be concerned that members of a team will not complete their work unless there is some amount of credit directly attached to a given task, or may have other questions about the who, what, when, where, and how of evaluating teams.

Who Should Evaluate Teams?

One question for the teacher to address is who will be responsible for providing evaluations of learning teams. The options are the instructor, other individuals who are not members of the team, the team members themselves (peer evaluation), or some combination of these groups. In most cases, it is expected that the instructor will have the primary role in the evaluation of teams. If persons external to a team are used for evaluation purposes, the instructor should plan to train the evaluators in assessment. Using peer evaluation can be beneficial as a means of assuring individual accountability in a team project, since members of a team may participate more if other team members have some influence over their final evaluation credit. A combination of instructor and peer evaluation, each influencing different proportions of the overall individual and team scores, is probably the most commons means of building evaluation into group work.

Should We Have Group, Individual, or Combined Assessments?

Here the question is whether credit for work in a team project is based on a single evaluation provided to the group, evaluations of individual team members, or a combination of group and individual credit. In the first instance, where a single evaluation is provided to the team, all individuals would receive the same amount of credit for the work in a team regardless of their actual contributions. In the second case, each individual team member would receive an individual score, which may be the same or different than the credit given to their teammates. A combined assessment would use both group and individual assessment scores to determine the final credit given each team member. It’s been my experience that a combination of the two works best. Students know that they are accountable for themselves, to their peers and by their teacher. It creates an environment that facilitates increased student learning, cooperation, and mastery of desired outcomes.

Should We Assess Group Process, Outcomes, or Both?

An issue whether process, outcomes, or both process and outcomes will be emphasized in team evaluation is debated among most educators. Group process measures how well the team is working together as they proceed through a project. Outcomes are the tangible products of the team at a given point in time, and are typically matched to the objectives stated for a team project. The benefit of group process measures is a formal recognition of group process issues, which may ultimately help teams function. The final alternative is a combination of process and outcome measures, such as including peer evaluations of team member participation along with an evaluation score for the group product in the calculation of the final grade for the team project.

Another question along these lines is how much weight do you place on the process and outcome assessments? Are the outcomes weighed more than the process, less than the process or are they viewed as equally important? Will they be different depending on your objectives? Interesting questions that need answers by you before you assign the task to the group.

What Distribution of Credit?

Having made decisions about assessment of groups vs. individuals, and process vs. outcome, the teacher still needs to decide on the distribution of credit for each component of the evaluation strategy. For example, if both individual and group scores are being used, should the individual scores represent 40 percent of the final grade, and the group score the remaining 60 percent. Teachers should remember that if there is not a significant amount of credit attached to the purpose of the team, the reason for being in team is weakened for team members.

The following links include cooperative learning evaluation worksheets to help you with managing the evaluation and assessment of this instructional strategy:

Cooperative Learning Peer Evaluation Forms:

All documents are in pdf format

Use the links below to find out more information about cooperative learning and strategies to effectively use cooperative learning in the classroom.