This is a system I often use, which begins with a simple team grade. Once the assignment is graded, each team member is asked to assess the other members of the team using a likert-type survey. Students are asked about each team member’s contributions, attendance at meetings and other teaming variables. This evaluation can be used to adjust invdividual team scores up or down, based on each individual’s ratings. For instance, if a team has 4 members and the evaluation is based on a 7-point likert scale, the average rating for the team might be a 5. Now, I can decide to look at each individual member’s average. I might decide on a range, such as a 4 to a 6, means that the team grade will not adjust for that individual. If a team member receives a perfect 7 average, I might determine to bump that individual’s grade up a specific amount. If a team member averages a 3, I might determine to bump that specific team member’s grade down a specific amount. Some instructors use standard deviations from the team average to determine the ‘bumps’.
Advantages:
- takes into account that some students might contribute more than others.
- Allows grades to fluctuate based on peer feedback.
Disadvantages:
- personal conflict might negatively impact a high performer (if peers rate the person low based on personal differences).
- Some teams will rate one another the highest across all evaluations. Sometimes teams purposefully plan this in advance, other times this happens when members do not want to adversely impact a peer’s grade, especially if they have other classes with the peer.
Occasionally students will simply default to scoring everyone on the team the same. For instance, on a 7-point scale, students might rate each team member a ‘6’. The students might simply be trying to ‘game’ the system, so each team member receives a good grade. Or, the student doing the evaluation might be in a hurry and simply takes the shortest path to completion. A simple method to alleviate this problem is to adjust the likert-type scale to an overall pool of points that must be distributed among the students. The key is to make sure the points CAN NOT be distributed evenly among team members. For example, if a student is required to rate 4 team members, provide a pool of 25 points to be allocated across the 4 students. This prompts a student to think critically about team members, because someone will mathematically end up with a lower rating (even if only by a single point). The tool below illustrates one way this system can be used.
One important point about this type of system: make sure the students understand exactly how you are going to assess their work. I typically find that, after explaining this system, students are more motivated to participate at a high level because this system does account for ‘slackers’. Also, I worked with instructors in the past that had very complex systems in place for adjusting a team grade. If you can’t explain your system succinctly to students so they understand how it works, you might want to revise your system to be more straight forward.