{"id":79747,"date":"2026-03-02T00:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T05:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=79747"},"modified":"2026-03-02T00:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T05:25:14","slug":"should-unis-ditch-group-assignments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/should-unis-ditch-group-assignments\/","title":{"rendered":"Should unis ditch group assignments?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nIs it time to get rid of group assignments at university? Federal Opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser thinks so. On Thursday, he called for universities to drop group assessments entirely, arguing they are fundamentally \u201cunfair\u201d and \u201ccheapen\u201d degrees.<\/p>\n

In a speech to the Universities Australia conference in Canberra, Leeser said:<\/p>\n

Students feel, instinctively, that in many cases it is deeply unfair to assess them individually based on others\u2019 work.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His logic is one many students will find familiar: one person inevitably ends up doing all the heavy lifting, while others coast along to a shared grade. Leeser added collaboration is merely a \u201csoft skill\u201d that should be taught in the classroom, but not formally assessed.<\/p>\n

I understand the need for employers to have graduates who can collaborate in the workplace, but these are soft skills which should not be the subject of a university assessment system.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a seductive argument. But it ignores the realities of life inside our universities, as well as the skills we need in today\u2019s workplaces.<\/p>\n

Group assignments make sense for unis<\/strong><\/h4>\n

There is a pragmatic reason why group assignments persist. They lessen the marking and feedback load, particularly in courses with high numbers of students. For cash-strapped universities, the efficiency is hard to ignore.<\/p>\n

But universities do not use group assignments simply to save time. In many disciplines, they are part of a core requirement to graduate.<\/p>\n

In the health professions, for example, accreditation standards require students to demonstrate\u00a0interprofessional practice<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 or working with other professions.<\/p>\n

You cannot be an effective nurse, physiotherapist, or doctor in a vacuum. You must be able to function within a multidisciplinary team, where the stakes are literally a matter of life and death.<\/p>\n

Group assignments also teach important communication and collaboration skills. Research\u00a0in my lab<\/a>, led by Suijing Yang, suggests students often spend as much, and frequently more, time negotiating how a group assignment will be done as they do actually doing the work. This negotiation is an important part of the learning process.<\/p>\n

This negotiation is often referred to as \u201cco-regulated learning\u201d. There is an\u00a0extensive body<\/a>\u00a0of evidence supporting how crucial skills involved in co-regulated learning are for life. These include emotional regulation, problem solving and planning. They are so significant, these skills should be, and are, taught and assessed in many disciplines.<\/p>\n

Are these really optional skills?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Just because collaborative abilities are not as easy to assess as other skills, such as factual recall, that doesn\u2019t make them any less important.<\/p>\n

In fact, they are seen as\u00a0crucial<\/a>\u00a0for the modern workplace and, more broadly, for a functioning society.<\/p>\n

As high-profile\u00a0US researcher Sherry Turkle<\/a>\u00a0and others have warned, our constant interaction with digital devices could see these essential human skills atrophy.<\/p>\n

Generative AI is poised to accelerate this decline. Some adolescents already report using AI chatbots as their\u00a0primary source of companionship<\/a>, opting for the \u201cfrictionless\u201d interaction of an algorithm over the messy reality of human peers.<\/p>\n

If universities stop mandating collaboration through group assignments, they will no longer be valuing the very \u201cempathic muscles\u201d that make us human and provide a foundation for harmonious workplaces.<\/p>\n

How to stop \u2018social loafing\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

At one level, the dynamics of group assignments can feel deeply unfair. The vast majority of the cognitive and social labour involved in negotiating the assignment is never directly assessed. Often it is only the final, polished product that receives a mark.<\/p>\n

Leeser is right there is always a risk of \u201csocial loafing\u201d \u2013 where students contribute nothing while reaping the rewards.<\/p>\n

But simple fixes, such as outlawing specific forms of assessment, are a crude response to a multifaceted set of problems. These include\u00a0academic integrity<\/a>\u00a0concerns,\u00a0workload<\/a>\u00a0issues, and the difficulty of designing effective assessment tasks, which are only exacerbated by the\u00a0rise of AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the AI framework published by Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency notes, universities need now\u00a0more sophisticated ways<\/a>\u00a0of assuring learning. This means more of an emphasis on things only humans can do \u2013 not less.<\/p>\n

The interpersonal communication and negotiation skills honed through university group tasks are precisely the kind of capabilities needed in the age of AI.<\/p>\n

So perhaps the debate needs to be about how we improve and enhance group assignments \u2013 not how we get rid of them.<\/p>\n

Then we could focus on recognising the work students do in those negotiation phases. This means effort would be recognised fairly and more emphasis is placed on students learning how to work with other humans.<\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong> Jason M. Lodge is Director of the Learning, Instruction & Technology Lab and Professor of Educational Psychology, School of Education at The University of Queensland<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is it time to get rid of group assignments at university? Federal Opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser thinks so. On Thursday, he called for universities to drop group assessments entirely, arguing they are fundamentally \u201cunfair\u201d and \u201ccheapen\u201d degrees. In a speech to the Universities Australia conference in Canberra, Leeser said: Students feel, instinctively, that in […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[435642],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-79747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-assignments"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nShould unis ditch group assignments? - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/should-unis-ditch-group-assignments\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should unis ditch group assignments? - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is it time to get rid of group assignments at university? Federal Opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser thinks so. On Thursday, he called for universities to drop group assessments entirely, arguing they are fundamentally \u201cunfair\u201d and \u201ccheapen\u201d degrees. 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