Inclusive Assessment and Group Work

Barbara Kempf - Academic Practice Team - Organisational Development and Professional Learning (OD&PL)

Project overview

Why are we doing group work and group assessments?
Is group work an assessment method or is it the skill we are assessing?
How are competence standards relevant to group work in different subjects?
How might we ensure that groups of students provide an inclusive learning environment?
How do we assess group work and the contribution of the individual fairly?
How do we teach students the skills involved in working in groups before we assess these?

In its first year, this fellowship will explore firstly, if these are indeed the key issues for students, by reviewing complaints the university received about group work in a given period. The research will then investigate how staff have approached some of these questions in their course or module design here at Leeds and elsewhere. The next step will be to triangulate staff views with student experiences. Towards the end of the first year, we will bring staff and students together in a design event to create a good practice guide prototype that addresses some of these questions. In the second year of the fellowship, the prototype will be tested by staff and students and feedback data on its effectiveness gathered, before the good practice guide is finalised.

The research approach

We will recruit staff from existing networks and approach the university student cases secretariat to obtain access to complaints. We hope to engage staff in recruiting their students to the project, as well as the LITE student interns. Both staff and students will be surveyed either electronically on in snap interviews to develop some initial themes. Both students and staff will be invited to take part in an in-depth conversation via focus groups. Staff focus groups will be led by staff, student focus groups will be led by students. The data will be analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. There may be scope to share focus groups with other projects to make best use of student participant time.

To find out more about the project please contact Barbara Kempf

Each fellowship has a project sponsor that helps the fellows achieve impact across the institution. The sponsor for this fellowship is Pam Birtill.

Project start date: September 2023