UCL Engineering trains students to use engineering knowledge within extended group practical activities to prepare them for their careers after graduation. However, despite the substantial educational benefits of getting students to work in teams, providing individual assessment can be challenging. Students frequently express dissatisfaction if all members of a team are given the same mark regardless of the individual effort. Here, we aim to promote student engagement and improve student experience during group work by giving each student an individual mark. The individual mark results from multiplying the overall “group mark” by a personal contribution factor. This personal contribution is assessed directly by peers, who are aware of each team member’s contribution, encouraging self-reflection, and moderated by tutors when necessary. This practice has been well received by students in other universities. We are working with a student committee to identify and evaluate various methods and e-learning systems that would aid us to run this practice efficiently even for large numbers of students. This includes rules to flag cases requiring moderation. This project, partially funded by ELDG 2015, fits with our aim of increasing students’ satisfaction and engagement with assessment. We have combined it with our ‘360 degrees peer assessment method’, which we presented at last year’s conference, to provide a reliable and individual peer assessment of group work. We provide a novel approach to group assessment which encourages self-reflection and is intended to improve the learning experience and student satisfaction during group work, in line with UCL 2034
