Authentic Design and Administration of Group-Based Assessments to Improve the Job-Readiness of Project Management Graduates

Abstract

Group-based assessments have been recognized as one of the ways of developing work-ready attributes in project management graduates. This paper is aimed at exploring the best practices for improving the administration process of group-based assessments to make it fit for purpose. The study adopted a systematic literature review and 22 semi-structured interviews with project management academics in higher education. The study found that teams should be small in size and formed by the faculty. Tasks should be based on a real-world context and be sufficiently challenging for students. The group should create a team charter to establish expectations and ground rules for group members. Group assessments should include team member peer evaluations and oral presentations to curb social loafing. Academics should be actively involved in giving regular feedback, training students about teamwork, and communicating their expectations to students. The study findings are useful to inform project management academics about the design and administration characteristics that need to be considered to achieve the ultimate purpose of group-based assessments in polishing the job-readiness attributes of project management graduates.

1. Introduction

The Project Management Institute (PMI) reported that there will be a need for approximately 87.7 million people working on projects by 2027 [1]. The PMI also predicted a significant talent gap that could result in a potential worldwide loss in GDP of USD $207.9 billion through to 2027 [1], which means that education providers are likely to see an increase in the demand for project management courses [2].

Projects require the engagement of teams across geographical regions, commitment, and participation to deliver the projects within budget and quality and on time [3]. Effective teamwork is essential for meeting the cost, time, and quality requirements of projects [4]. Muzio et al. [5] evidenced that 90–95% project performance related issues can be attributed to the difficulties related to the communication, leadership, management, and teamwork of project professionals. Furthermore, project management comprises a wide range of roles and responsibilities. Therefore, efforts to make students well-equipped with the required skillset should be reflected in educational programs. Recently, the Project Management Institution (PMI) also updated the PMI triangle to reflect the appropriate skillset for project professionals. The sides of the PMI triangle now include ways of working (technical project management skills), power of skills (leadership), and business acumen (strategic and business management skills) [6]. However, the focus of most project management training, in the context of universities, has been on the technical skills deemed essential to achieve project success, that being primarily the iron triangle of time, cost and quality [7]. More and more organizations, however, are realizing that understanding, managing, and being able to work with the people who undertake project work are vital for project success [8]. University educators need to take these views on board and increase their efforts in improving the skills of students in all areas pertinent to project management practice, which includes soft skills, hard skills, and tacit and explicit knowledge [9].

In order to respond to project management employers’ demands, universities have adopted many approaches to developing graduates’ skills to improve their work-ready skills [10,11]. Group-based assessments are one of the ways of developing demanded skills (soft and hard skills) in graduates, if designed appropriately [12,13]. The inclusion of team-based approaches with real-life components embedded in the design has the potential to engage and motivate students [3]. To deal with the challenges which have emerged from project complexity, project management graduates require do not only technical skills, but they also should possess group and management skills. To develop people skills, universities around the world have incorporated the component of group assessments in the assessment design [14,15]. Recent research has also shown the significance of group-based assessment in project management education [2,3,16]. While group-based assessments have been the prominent focus of educators and researchers due to their ability to develop employability skills and lifelong learning, they are often introduced in a hurry and become not fit for the intended purpose [17].

Group-based assessments are comprised of the following two elements: product(s) and process. Effective group-based assessment should consider both the product and process of student learning [17]. Good practices of designing the product(s) and the process of group-based assessments have been researched in many disciplines including business, economics, medicine, and social work [12,13,18,19]. However, there is a dearth of research that explores the best practices in the context of project management discipline where working in a team is considered a must for project management graduates. Therefore, this research focuses on exploring the best practices to make the group-based assessment fit for purpose by focusing on both product(s) and process.

2. Theoretical Framework

This research is grounded on the socio-constructivist theory of collaborative learning developed by Lev Vygotsky (1978) [20]. The conceptual underpinnings of socio-constructivism as a learning theory in connection with group-based assessments are the foundation of this study. In the learning process based on a constructivist approach, students construct knowledge by interacting with other students [21]. Based on this theory, students are the center of the learning process, and they engage in the interactive discussion to construct the knowledge in comparison to lecturers and tutors transmitting information to them [22]. Student-centered learning design facilitates a constructivist learning environment [23]. This constructivist view of learning considers the learner as an active agent in the process of knowledge acquisition. It allows the co-construction of learning between learners [24]. Higher education institutions need to shift from instructivist to constructivist learning environments [23]. The rationale for adopting social constructivist teaching methods in higher education is to assist students to be actively engaged in the construction of their learning in practical experiences, alongside providing opportunities for students to develop their soft skills required to tackle complex circumstances with other actively engaged peers [25].

Vygotsky (1978) argues that knowledge acquisition takes place in a socio-cultural environment. He posits that students learn skills in collaboration with their peers through discussion and modelling of skills and knowledge. The interaction between the students at various stages of their learning journey creates a dynamic zone of knowledge creation and acquisition. This zone is called the zone of proximal development (ZPD) [20]. To provide a collaborative learning environment where students can acquire and share knowledge with their peers/instructors and construct learning collaboratively, the higher education institutions (HEIs) have adopted group-based assessments into their curriculum and assessment. During group work, students engage in deep learning through collaboration, discussion, dialogues, problem-solving, and interaction [26]. Vygotsky’s socio-constructivism theory is based on a learner-centered philosophy, and it emphasizes that learning takes place in a social and cultural context [20]. Group-based assessments can facilitate the social learning environment through engagement with teachers and peers and, thus, contributes to the development of knowledge. According to Vygotsky, peer interaction and collaboration are critical elements for cognitive development, problem-solving, and knowledge acquisition [27]. Well-designed group-based assessments improve students’ cognitive abilities, critical evaluation of the given task, the ability to work with others, mutual respect, and tolerance of others [28]. Hence, students develop problem-solving skills, improve their engagement in the discussion and enhance social skills if the group assessments are well designed and executed. In the 21st century, graduates must be equipped with these attributes to be able to perform in the ever-changing work environment. However, the effective design of such assessments requires academics’ attention to various aspects, such as group formation process, group size, task type, the inclusion of a team charter, and the opportunity to evaluate and reflect on their own and their peers’ contribution [29,30,31].

This research investigated the authentic design of group-based assessments in higher education to understand how educators work to develop the best pedagogical approaches to the implementation of group-based assessments. Only when group-based assessments are designed and implemented effectively can students be provided with a platform to interact with peers and facilitators and construct knowledge appropriately. A systematic literature review (SLR) was employed to identify existing best practices, as the literature contains a wealth of information on group-based assessments. However, what is lacking is a consensus on the design features of group-based assessments that are most effective. Therefore, project management academics who are involved in designing and administering group-based assessments were interviewed in order to identify if there was consistency in their good practices in group assessments, and to gather their opinion about the best practices derived from the SLR.

3. Literature Review

3.1. Skills Requirements in Project Management

The job of the project manager is demanding, complex, and varied, requiring the juggling of several issues concurrently [32]. Managing projects successfully, therefore, requires a mixture of skills including interpersonal ability, technical competencies, and cognitive aptitude, along with the capability to understand the situation and people and then dynamically integrate appropriate leadership behaviors [33]. Mantel Jr et al. [34] categorized project managers’ skills into the following six areas: communication, organizational, team building, leadership, coping, and technological skills. El-Sabaa [35] adds that the human skills of project managers have the greatest influence on project management practices.

Employers expect project management graduates to possess a combination of soft and disciplinary technical skills [36,37]. The importance of the soft and disciplinary technical skills of project managers is highlighted in job advertisements [36,37]. Chipulu, Neoh, Ojiako, and Williams [37] investigated 2306 project management job advertisements in Asian countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Similarly, Ahsan, Ho, and Khan [36] investigated 762 job adverts in the Australian and New Zealand market. The results of both studies demonstrated that employers put more emphasis on soft and disciplinary technical skills than project management expertise.

Ahsan, Ho, and Khan [36] and Chipulu, Neoh, Ojiako, and Williams [37] stressed the requirement of soft skills of project managers along with disciplinary technical skills and project management hard skills in different industries. Greater weight was put on soft skills than industry-specific skills in the study of Chipulu, Neoh, Ojiako, and Williams [37]. Soft skills were more important than project management hard skills in the financial, business, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and the information and communications technology (ICT) sectors than in other industries, such as media and education [37]. The engineering, construction, and ICT industries stressed disciplinary technical skills and soft skills over project management hard skills [37], whereas disciplinary technical skills and soft skills along with project management hard skills were considered important in the construction, engineering, and health care sectors [36]. It is apparent from the literature that soft skills, disciplinary technical skills, and project management hard skills are paramount to different extents across different industries. Therefore, it shows that despite a difference in how important soft skills, disciplinary technical skills, and project management hard skills are, they are all important to some degree across all industries.

3.2. Group-Based Assessments in Higher Education

Group-based assessments have long been used in higher education across disciplines to respond to employers’ demand for the development of soft and technical skills in graduates [38,39,40]. In this study, a group-based assessment is defined as “a graded assessment requiring students to work collaboratively across multiple class periods and involving some time outside the normal class meeting” [41]. Group assessment allows students to work collaboratively in teams, a key skill for future employment [42]. Despite numerous benefits, educators and students experience challenges while working on a group-based assessment [43,44,45]. Free-riding and social loafing are the most frequently cited issues in the literature [30,43]. One challenge of group-based assessments is the difficulty in discerning the individual’s contribution to the group’s process during group work as well as discerning each individual’s knowledge within the group’s knowledge. In other words, academics are unsure about who in the group knows what, or contributed what [46]. Gammie and Matson [47] and Nordberg [48] argue that, in a group assessment, there is a chance that students will be awarded a higher grade at the expense of other students’ performance, or that students may receive a lower grade than what they are capable of because they worked with others who did not achieve. Van Aalst [49] also addresses this challenge and points out that when a group product is graded, it is difficult to address what an individual has learnt. This may be considered unfair by students.

3.3. Research Gap Analysis

Group-based assessments are a widely researched area in the literature. There is a plethora of research aiming to investigate various constructs of group-based assessments, such as group formation, group size, self and peer evaluations, task design, and weightage of team assessments [19,50,51,52,53]. There are some articles which attempted to provide recommendations on how to manage group-based assessment effectively [31,54,55,56,57]. In addition to these extensive reviews, some researchers empirically studied good practices of administering group-based assessments, taking students’ perceptions into consideration [16,18,58]. As per the authors’ findings, there is a lack of studies that took an integrated approach towards improving the entire process of group-based assessments to make it fit for purpose, particularly within the context of project management discipline considering academics’ perceptions [59]. Therefore, the aim of this study was to address the following research question:

Research Question.

How can project management academics’ perceptions of best practices of group-based assessments inform their design and administration to achieve the intended purpose of improving the job-readiness of project management graduates?

4. Materials and Methods

The study adopted a qualitative exploratory research approach via two phases. In phase 1, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to identify the general aspects that need to be considered for the process design and administration of group-based assessments in higher education. In phase 2, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 project management academics to explore their perceptions of best practices when team-based assessments are administered. The SLR findings were used to develop the interview questions. The collected data from interviews were transcribed and thematically analyzed using QSR NVivo 12 (version 1.4.1, Burlington, MA, USA) supplied by the authors’ university, as based on the work of Braun and Clarke [60]. The activities involved in each phase are detailed below.

4.1. Phase 1—The SLR

Before collecting empirical data from practicing project management academics, a systematic literature review was conducted to explore the good practices for improving group-based assessments in the literature. To find relevant literature, databases related to higher education and project management were selected, such as A+ Education, Education Research Complete, Emerald, ERIC, Taylor and Francis, SAGE, ScienceDirect, and Teacher Reference Center. The keywords used for searching relevant articles were “Group OR Team (AND) Assessment OR Assignment OR Project”. Other phrases used for the search included “Group project”; “Group assessment”; “Group assignment”; “Team project”; “Team assessment”; “Team assignment”. The following limitations were used to exclude irrelevant articles. Only articles that were (a) peer-reviewed, (b) written in English, (c) published in scientific journals, (d) empirical studies, and (e) reported on findings of assessed group work in a higher education setting were included. The search process was inspired by the guidelines and principles of the PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) statement [61] for conducting systematic reviews. The initial search resulted in 2392 documents. After removing duplicates and screening through titles, abstracts, and full-texts, 71 peer-reviewed empirical articles were reviewed.

Table A1. List of selected articles for the SLR.

Reference Number	Article with Author(s) and Year
1	Eliot et al. [98]
2	Bong and Park [99]
3	Paterson and Prideaux [64]
4	Lockeman et al. [100]
5	Sridharan and Boud [101]
6	Ko [102]
7	Wu et al. [103]
8	Friess and Goupee [104]
9	Sridharan et al. [105]
10	Caple and Bogle [106]
11	Fete et al. [107]
12	Handayani and Genisa [108]
13	Jin [109]
14	Melville [110]
15	Harding [111]
16	Anson and Goodman [112]
17	Cen et al. [113]
18	Kooloos et al. [114]
19	Monson [115]
20	Moore and Hampton [116]
21	Spatar et al. [117]
22	Takeda and Homberg [118]
23	Lavy and Yadin [119]
24	Monson [120]
25	Swaray [121]
26	Strasser et al. [122]
27	Plastow, Spiliotopoulou, and Prior [19]
28	Postlethwait [18]
29	Lam [86]
30	Gransberg [123]
31	Dommeyer [124]
32	Sprague et al. [125]
33	Moraes et al. [126]
34	Nepal [127]
35	Mi and Gould [128]
36	Maiden and Perry [44]
37	Román-Calderón et al. [129]
38	Shiu, Chan, Lam, Lee, and Kwong [65]
39	Parratt et al. [130]
40	Skelley et al. [131]
41	Sahin [52]
42	Adwan [50]
43	Lee et al. [132]
44	Ohaja et al. [133]
45	Smith and Rogers [92]
46	Biesma et al. [134]
47	Augar, Woodley, Whitefield, and Winchester [59]
48	Wagar and Carroll [135]
49	Aaron, McDowell, and Herdman [29]
50	Planas Lladó et al. [136]
51	Wagar and Carroll [135]
52	Bailey, Barber, and Ferguson [51]
53	Ding, Bosker, Xu, Rugers, and Heugten [82]
54	Delaney et al. [137]
55	Dingel and Wei [138]
56	McClure et al. [139]
57	Adachi et al. [140]
58	Demir [141]
59	Lubbers [142]
60	Orr [143]
61	Agrawal and Rajapakse [144]
62	Thondhlana and Belluigi [145]
63	ONeill, Boyce, and McLarnon [91]
64	Mostert and Snowball [146]
65	Vaughan et al. [147]
66	D’Eon and Trinder [148]
67	Weaver and Esposto [149]
68	Guzmán [89]
69	Warhuus, Günzel-Jensen, Robinson, and Neergaard [53]
70	Rienties et al. [150]
71	Volkov and Volkov [58]

(see Appendix A) lists the reviewed articles for this SLR.

The SLR identified many aspects that contribute to the effective design and administration of team-based assessments, as shown in

Table 1. The themes and sub-themes as emerged from the SLR.

Themes and Sub-Themes	Articles (Serial Number in Appendix A Table A1)
Group formation
Teacher selected group formation	15, 24, 28, 40, 41
Student selected group formation	20, 26, 43, 69
Random group formation	25, 47, 69, 70
Group diversity—Heterogenous	17, 19, 22, 24, 41, 53, 70, 71
Group Size
Avoiding three members	19, 24
Depends on tasks	28
Four members	24
Five members	18
Four to five members	19
Small group size	29
No impact of group size	53
Group charter	28, 29, 47, 49
Group members’ self/peer evaluations
Benefits and challenges of self and peer assessments	1, 8, 12, 28, 30, 31, 37, 39, 44, 45, 50, 51, 55, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64
Self/peer assessment tools	10, 13, 16, 21, 68, 33, 58, 42, 46, 10, 11, 6, 4, 34, 7
Training on self/peer assessments	38, 8, 46, 50, 32, 5, 12
Qualitative and quantitative peer feedback	38, 42, 46, 48, 16, 8, 32, 33
Formative and summative peer assessments	8, 11, 27, 30, 39, 42, 28, 37
Peer marks adjusted by academics	5, 9, 32, 66, 56, 67
Confidentiality of peer assessments	2, 4, 5, 11, 16, 27, 32
Reliability and validity of self/peer assessments	38, 32, 9
Peer assessment evaluation criteria	2, 38, 59, 65
Weightage of peer assessments	27, 47
Faculty involvement and supervision	1, 3, 14, 19, 23, 28, 29, 33, 39, 52
Student training
Working in a group	14, 29, 39, 46, 47, 49, 54
Training on self/peer assessments	5, 8, 12, 32, 38, 46, 50
Deterring free-riding	19, 22, 25, 33, 36
Technology in facilitating group work	28, 35
Task type	3, 71

.

4.2. Phase 2—Semi-Structured Interviews

Project management academics were selected through a purposive sampling technique [62]. The criteria for academics’ inclusion in the study were as follows: (1) they were teaching project management at a university level, (2) they were full-time academics at the time of the interview, and (3) their academic position in the university hierarchy was Senior Lecturer and above. An invitation to participate in the research was sent to 109 project management academics that met the inclusion criteria from universities all over the world. Thirty academics agreed to participate in the study. Of the 30 participants, 8 participants contributed to the pilot testing of the interview questions and estimated time required to complete the interview. The interview data collected from the remaining 22 participants were included in the data analysis. Using Zoom (version 5.11.4, San Jose, CA, UAS) supplied by the author’s university, the interviews were video recorded and transcribed using the Zoom setting within 24 h. The researcher then listened to all recordings to check the auto-transcription developed by Zoom. Saturation of data was achieved after 22 semi-structured interviews. To protect the identity of the participants, numbers were assigned to represent each interview. The 22 participants were identified as P1, P2, P3, P4, up to and including P22.

The corrected scripts were inputted into NVivo to organize the data. A deductive thematic approach was implemented to analyze the interview data according to the identified aspects from the SLR or the priori themes. A six-stage process was implemented in the thematic analysis including familiarization, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and presenting the results [60].

5. Results

5.1. Group Task Types

Several participants indicated that a suitable task should be considered when designing and administering a group-based assessment. Academics should design group tasks authentically so that students are able to apply their learning in the practice of project management. The participants stressed that the learning through group-based assessments must be applicable to the real-life practice of project management. As project management is practice-based work, students should be prepared accordingly for working life.

“The major criteria and the final one is that it’s got to align with some sort of authentic work or project management application environment, and they have to know that if you put this on your CV that you worked in a team environment like this and describe it as an appendix that people will say this person knows project management they’ve actually already done.”

(P1)

A few participants mentioned that the group assessments have to be challenging and innovative in nature. The design of group-based assessments should encourage the team to cross-collaborate and be innovative at the same time.

“It shouldn’t be something that everybody in the entire group will come up with the same solution. […] It opens up for too much cross-team collaboration.”

(P1)

Many participants mentioned that, when designing and administering group-based assessments, academics need to ascertain that a group task is not easy for students to divide among team members. The group tasks should be such that all team members contribute equally to all sections of the task without compartmentalizing the whole task. The participants indicated the importance of collaboration among team members. If students divide the work either vertically or horizontally, that completely defeats the whole purpose of the group work, as students need to learn how to interact and collaborate in the process of group-based assessments.

“I have seen examples in the past, not in the current plan, but previous universities, where the group divides out the task vertically or horizontally and says you do this part, I’ll do this part and you do that part and then we’ll come back together and join them and then we’re done which I think that defeats the whole purpose. You want them all to talk to each other and agree and collaborate on everything, so I learn all aspects.”

(P2)

5.2. Teaching Teamwork and Training on Working in a Group

Several participants reported that academics are required to teach some components of teamwork to students before they ask them to participate in group-based assessments. All of the participants who identified the need to teach teamwork to students shed light on teaching various aspects including team roles, working in a team, communication skill courses, different learning styles, and team-building exercises.

“We start with teaching about team roles and effective teams and how to be a good team member so as a part of the subject material. We are teaching about what is the team and how the team works and that is about two hours, not a long lecture but if we started with these things.”

(P5)

A minority of the participants also recommended that academics need to communicate their expectations of how the team should function to the students properly. Students should be educated on various aspects that may arise in the teamwork, such as disagreement among team members, challenges faced during the process, and working with strangers.

“We need to instill this in students that disagreeing is actually good for the outcome. So, you don’t have to all agree, because then, if four people all agree on everything. Why do you need four? People should ask for opinions. They should just enrich the outcome, I think that’s very, very important point to get across the students when you issue team assignments.”

(P4)

While teaching, different elements of teamwork were identified as important in group-based assessments. A small minority of the participants shared that, in their experience, students are often not given proper training on working in a group.

“I do think that sometimes we are to blame for that you making that clear to students as well.”

(P4)

5.3. Group Formation Process

When forming groups, the interviewees considered the group formation approach and group size. Groups can be formed in three different ways, namely structured teacher-selected formation, random selection of members by teachers, and student-selected formation. The interviewees’ perception of best practices of group formation approach and group size are discussed according to these forms.

5.3.1. Structured Teacher-Selected Group Formation Process

A vast majority of the participants recommended a teacher-selected approach to formation be used for group-based assessments in project management. Several participants indicated that teams should be formed to replicate the way group work is going to be structured in real-life projects. These participants stated that when graduates join the workforce, they rarely get to choose who they work with, and that they will be required to work with who they are assigned to. Therefore, students should not be permitted to form groups with their friends.

“If you’re going to work in the modern world of projects, you will always be working with others on projects always. And, most of the time they’ll be people that you don’t know, they’ll often be people that you don’t like but there’ll be people that you have no choice about. You just got to work with them.”

(P17)

Some participants suggested that teachers should form groups to ensure that teams are balanced in terms of nationalities when the class has a mixture of domestic (local) and international students. The participants indicated that they were inclined to form a balanced team so that students of the same nationality did not cluster together. The participants argued that if students are given the discretion to form teams, they tend to do so with students of the same nationality. Students clustering with people of the same culture, nationality and language limit their opportunity to practice leadership skills. According to the participants, students need to learn how to deal with diverse cultures, nationalities, and languages. The participants discussed a number of benefits when the teams are diverse in this way, such as bringing different perspectives on board, experiencing better learning experiences, simulating a real-life project environment, and experiencing a better exchange of knowledge.

“If they self-select you know what will happen is that the Chinese students will always be mixing with Chinese students. Eastern Europeans will always be with East Europeans, and I think that they would get more out of it if they were mixed.”

(P9)

Teacher-selected formation considering the different ethnic backgrounds in the team requires international students to speak English instead of their main language. A few participants believed that international students should speak English, as they perceive this can only happen when not all students in a team are from the same country. A teacher-selected formation process was encouraged so that introverted students in the classroom were not disadvantaged. Those participants indicated that students need to appreciate the differences and need to work with different kinds of people, which will help them to exchange knowledge.

“There might be some shy and newest student who doesn’t know anyone and just feeling disadvantage because they couldn’t talk, or they couldn’t communicate, or they can’t make good relationship.”

(P5)

Furthermore, more than two-thirds of the participants strongly recommended having students with different educational backgrounds in a team when forming groups. The participants commonly identified that groups with different educational and industry backgrounds enrich the team performance and bring different viewpoints to the discussion.

“The groups that have different background knowledge do better. That’s for sure, so if they have somebody from finance, if they have somebody from psychology or operations or marketing and it’s quite mixed, they tend to do quite better because they’re working on their strength. If I compare that to students two groups of students who were all from IT.”

(P9)

In addition to nationality, culture and educational diversity, some participants believed that gender mixture in a team enriches the performance. In their experience, the groups which have gender mixture demonstrated good results.

“What I found out is if there is a gender mix, like males and females in the team, it makes the dynamics much, much nicer. I believe that under this gender-mix, it is just amazing results that you get you know different perspective different way, you have the tough ways and the softer ways.”

(P19)

5.3.2. Random Teacher-Selected Formation Process

While several participants suggested a structured team formation method based on a number of criteria to ‘balance’ the groups, some participants preferred a random formation. In the random formation process, teachers form groups randomly without considering any set criteria. The participants believed that in a real-life project scenario, project managers and team members are given a group of random people to work with. Therefore, the team allocation in group-based assessments should mirror the way it is going to be in practice.

“As a project manager you’re not at the end or always in the privileged position to choose your members, you are given members to do so. That is how the group is going to be formed and the way the practice is going to give it to you.”

(P10)

5.3.3. Student-Selected Group Formation Process

While the majority of the participants suggested a teacher-selected formation, a minority of the participants preferred student-selected formation methods. In the student-selected group formation, students form teams by themselves without any guidelines from the teachers. According to the participants, the student-selected formation allows students to distribute the workload evenly, maintain harmony, find their peers of similar discipline-specific skills, and experience less conflict.

“I prefer them to form their own groups. And typically, that will work better in terms of ensuring an even workload, the students will self-select based on the strength of peers that they’re aware of it, you get a more harmonious group rather than groups them up in conflict”.

(P8)

5.3.4. Group Size

Just over half of the participants reported that group size depends on the scope and nature of the work. These participants indicated that the complexity and the scope of the assessment determined the size of the groups. If the task is substantially simple, a small group is appropriate and vice versa. Indeed, P22 provided an example to demonstrate how the task types also determine the size of the group.

“So, it depends on the task as well. When we do a mediation class is usually three because we have a specific role for everybody, so there two people having a conflict and as a mediator, then sometimes the task itself will determine how many people are there.”

(P22)

A vast majority of the participants indicated a group size range between three and five students in a team to achieve the best learning outcomes. All these participants were unanimous in the view that the number of students in a team should not be more than five students for smoother communication and coordination purposes. The participants indicated that there will be too many communication and interaction transactions and channels if the group size is bigger than five.

“Preferably I don’t have more than five in a group. To keep it kind of manageable for them to work together, because, yeah, otherwise the kind of the effort of coordination and everything becomes quite big for them.”

(P7)

However, some participants indicated a group size between three and four for achieving the best learning outcomes, though they suggested that group size should be indicated by the scope and nature of assessments. According to these participants, having three to four members will ensure smoother communication and coordination among all team members. A few participants further argued that there may be possible free-riding in a team when it has more than four students. Therefore, the participants are against forming groups with more than four students.

“Three to four, this is the best because more than that, they have other kinds of issues to meet, time organization for them to talk, to meet at the same time and other kinds of things. The more efficient in the group assignment in an academic assignment that is three or four.”

(P12)

On the other hand, a minority of participants discouraged forming groups with four members because the teams could divide into two separate subgroups and create a cohort within the cohort. Therefore, the participants asserted forming teams with an odd number.

“It is an odd number because then you can’t have a split of two and two, three and three if people don’t agree.”

(P18)

Half of the participants discouraged forming groups with two members. Indeed, P1 and P21 stated that forming groups with two members involves risks, as there would be no group work in the event of team breakdown or if one student fell sick. The participants shed light on having more than two members for team development. In addition, the participants suggested that if two students are in a group, there is a possibility that students are likely to equally divide the assessment, which defeats the purpose of the assessment.

“Two is a nightmare because two is a double X. You know I’ll do the first half; you do the second half. It is not really a group. I mean it’s a duet.”

(P17)

5.4. Group Charter

In order to engage and motivate students in group-based assessments, several participants focused on maintaining a team charter. The participants asserted that an agreement between grouped students helps them stay focused and motivated. According to the participants, a team charter provides students with a number of benefits including planning ahead, managing expectations, developing ground rules, maintaining equal contribution, attending meetings, and understanding team strengths and weaknesses.

“We always encourage them and in some of our courses or units it’s part of the assessment tasks that they need to have a group charter… so, the first week or second week they sit together and they write down the group charter, you know if things go wrong, what we do, who is the lead, who is bringing things together, and you know coming up with the ground rules, so we actually give them hints on how to how to work in a group.”

(P6)

Not only does a team charter help to encourage students to actively engage in group-based assessments, but the participants argued that it also helps identify free-riders in groups. A small number of the participants highlighted that another benefit of a charter was that if a student in a group did not abide by the agreement developed in the team charter, the group held the discretion to remove the person or ask the academic to intervene and take appropriate measures.

“What I do it in the very beginning, as that the students have to create an agreement statement so, from week 2, this is what we agree as a team to do, these are the behaviors that we expect these are the consequences if you don’t engage. So those that have that agreement statement written and signed and dated by all the students… And this had said clearly if you fail to attend X number of meetings or to communicate with a group that the consequences will be that you will be removed from the group.”

(P9)

5.5. Group Members’ Peer Evaluation

A common view amongst all participants was that free-riding was not appreciated in the group-based assessments. However, the participants have different approaches to dealing with free-riding issues and encouraging student activity in group-based assessments. More than half of the participants found peer evaluations useful in order to encourage team members to actively participate in the group assessments. In peer evaluations, each member of the team evaluates the contribution of the other group members to the group-based assessments. These participants also believed that peer evaluations highlight any distorted participation or poor performance, and that they help understand the team dynamics in the group.

“It provides us with an insight into what the students are actually doing. Because, as an academic you can’t be inside the team meetings that they hold. You can’t be included in all of their discussions, so from the students’ perspective provides us with a more accurate reflection unless they’ve all colluded, and the students have all agreed that they’ll give each other a high grade based on all the criteria, but often we can actually see through that.”

(P18)

Communicating the incorporation of team members’ peer evaluations is considered critical. If peer evaluations are part of the group assessments, it is necessary to communicate these to the students at the beginning. A few participants explicitly mentioned that students should be aware of peer evaluations when the assessment is handed out.

“It is clearly communicated at the beginning when the assessment is handed out that there will be a peer assessment at the end.”

(P7)

While several participants indicated that peer reviews should be used in order to identify free-riders in group-based assessments, a few participants suggested that an oral presentation (as an assessment artefact) on the group assessment has the potential to recognize free-riders in groups, as all team members are required to present during the presentation. As a result, poor performance will surface, and potential free-riders can be identified.

“So I think having a good understanding for instance when they do a group presentation making sure that everybody takes part and that you can see that. I always have a question, it has to do with how they will answer the questions and you’re really looking to see that everybody answers the questions, etc.”

(P1)

Although none of the participants encouraged free-riding behavior in group-based assessments, almost half of the participants mentioned that marks of students should only be adjusted in extreme scenarios when a team member did not contribute in any way to the assessment. The marks should only be adjusted when there were significant deviations in contribution and participation among team members.

“We had a rating from 1 to 10 which students gave each other on different criteria. If it was, for example in the bracket of 789. You can’t really because some student might say that’s a seven another one might say that’s a nine, but it was still the same contribution. But if all the other students in the group got something between seven and nine. And one student got three or four from everyone, then there was an adjustment, and it was really always that clear.”

(P7)

Many participants stated that students also need to learn how to deal with non-contributors in a group. The participants stressed that there will be people in real-life projects who will not pull their weight, hence, students also need to have the ability to face this challenge. The participants believed that students need to learn how to take responsibility and negotiate with other team members, through which the students will ultimately develop leadership, negotiation, and conflict management skills.

“My initial stance is that it’s their problem right, so they have to deal with it, they have to negotiate, they have to encourage they have to because that’s what happens in your real life.”

(P9)

5.6. Faculty Involvement and Supervision

In order to engage students actively in group-based assessments, around half of the participants suggested academics should monitor students’ behavior in the class and organize a consultation with the team to ensure that everyone is engaged and contributing equally to the work. According to these participants, this approach helps them to understand the problems in the team and identify potential free-riders.

“What I’m doing in class when there is time for them to do group work, it’s usually happening during the subject and it was face-to-face, so I was running around, checking teams, talking with people, observing them and if there is someone who is not really participating much, I sometimes talk with that person, sometimes talk with the team, asking them to get that person more involved.”

(P5)

Very few participants argued that it is important that academics have a conversation with students to investigate the reasons for non-contribution and disengagement in group assessments. Students sometimes experience fundamental breakdowns, such as personal issues. The participants asserted that having a conversation with students helps to bring them back on track. The participants also highlighted that the conversation should occur earlier rather than later in the term so that the group assessment is not impacted.

“I have tutorials with the groups, I know who is not pulling their weight. I know, who is not engaging, and so I would call them and say that’s what’s going on what’s happening and usually something’s happening in their personal life they’re having lots of problems so on and so forth, so it’s sort of just putting them back into the right course.”

(P9)

A minority of participants indicated that reminding students of various activities, such as due dates, helps students stay motivated. If students are required to show their completed work, then the challenge is a way to assist them to stay engaged and involved in group-based assessments.

“I just have to get the students to do the work, to chase them, to stay on track, so I have a more of a project management approach… you have to chase them to do the work, and if they know that I’m following up they’re going to get an email I’m going to ask them to show me their work. You know that drives completion.”

(P3)

6. Discussion

The aim of this research was to investigate project management academics’ perceptions of best practices of group-based assessments to inform its design and administration to achieve the intended purpose of improving the job-readiness of project management graduates. This discussion section provides 10 recommendations for the practice of academics when designing and administering group-based assessments in higher education.

The findings indicate that choosing a suitable task is one of the success factors of designing group-based assessments. Not all tasks are suitable for group-based assessments [63]. The findings indicate that group tasks need to be authentic and mirror real-life projects [64] so that students can apply their learning in the practice of project management. Group-based tasks should be complex and engaging [58,65]. It should not just be about making students recall the learned information and facts relevant to certain subjects or courses, nor should they be of extreme complexity. Attendance to such factors when planning for group assignments helps students develop an interest in team work [66].

The findings indicate that group tasks should require students to interact with each other and collaborate. Instructors need to prepare tasks that call for collaborative and cooperative skills from the students to allow for sharing and constructing ideas and information among themselves [67]. Group tasks should be selected in a way that does not allow students to compartmentalize the tasks and work on their own without any communication and participation in a collaborative way with the other group members [55].

Recommendation #1.

Group tasks should be challenging, authentic and based on real-life projects.

Consistent with the literature [68,69], our findings indicate that students must be given training and support before engaging in group-based assessments. Johnson and Johnson [26] stated that “students who have never been taught how to work effectively with others cannot be expected to do so” (p. 146). To compound the issue, our findings also indicate that students are often not given proper training on how to work in a team before they are assigned to a team [70].

Our findings suggest that student training should include various aspects of teamwork, such as team roles, working in a team, communication skill courses, explanations about different learning styles, and team-building exercises, as well as how to respond to and resolve team conflicts [59]. In particular, our findings suggest that students should be educated on conflict management, as team conflict is a frequent occurrence; however, conflict is not inevitable and it is not necessarily a negative occurrence [18]. The findings suggest that teaching teamwork to students is a critical component that needs to be considered in the administration of group-based assessments. Therefore, we recommend the following:

Recommendation #2.

Formal training on how to work in a group should be provided to students to facilitate a smooth working process.

In line with some of the previous research [18,71], our findings indicate that most academics recommend forming groups by way of teacher selection. Teacher-selected teams are encouraged to emulate a real-life project environment where graduates are unlikely to be given a chance to choose their team members [72]. Consistent with the extant literature, the findings indicate that if students are given choice to form their groups, they will form homogenous groups, which are largely criticized [73]. It is also evident in the literature that student-selected groups are unlikely to include the breadth of skills and diversity needed to complete the assigned task [73], and may suffer from groupthink issues [56]. The findings also suggest that students will choose to work with friends—the ‘cronyism’ referred to by Chapman et al. [74]—in which case the team does not experience or learn from the group development process. Furthermore, teacher-selected formation was appreciated in this research so that introverted or weaker students do not become subjected to disadvantage [73,75]. Therefore, we recommend the following:

Recommendation #3.

Teachers should form groups in order to emulate a real-life project environment.

Our findings suggest a structured group formation process to develop a balanced team with fairly equivalent skill sets [18]. Although some academics in this research recommended a random formation process to replicate a real-life project environment, pedagogically, however, randomly assigned groups can lead to imbalances within the teams and discount important variables, such as gender and cultural differences [73]. The findings suggest that, when forming groups, teachers should incorporate cultural diversity as students learn about, and develop, cultural awareness due to the cultural diversity that exists in the modern workplace [76]. However, some students find it challenging to work in diverse and multicultural teams, which can result in a negative attitude toward teamwork [77]. Our findings reveal that students need to learn how to deal with diversity as people from different backgrounds work on projects.

In addition to cultural diversity, gender diversity in teams was also encouraged. Our findings indicate that gender diversity results in better learning experiences [78] and stimulates new ideas and perspectives [79]. The findings also reveal that diversity in education leads to a better learning experience [80] by contributing to students’ exposure to new ideas, and to the development of comprehensive and creative projects [81]. Therefore, we recommend the following:

Recommendation #4.

Teachers should aim to balance the group formation with diversity that represents a range of skillsets, cultures, genders, and academic backgrounds where possible.

Our findings indicate that group size is dependent on the nature, size and complexity of the task [18,82]. Ideally, a group should be small enough to allow all members to participate yet large enough that the total workload is not overwhelming [18]. When investigated further, an optimal group size range suggests that between three and five members is recommended for a typical group assessment [83]. In regard to specific group size, North et al. [84] and Lowry et al. [85] both reported positive outcomes for groups of three. The findings strongly suggest, in alignment with the literature, that larger group size increased the chance of social loafing and made it difficult to identify individuals’ participation and contribution [86].

In addition to group size, our findings also indicate that groups with an even number (four members) can create cohorts within the cohort. The findings also suggest that groups should not be formed with just two members, as it does not foster team development, as the two may break the task into sections, which results in no teamwork taking place. The same can also happen in cases of team breakdown. The existing literature did not offer any support for these findings. Therefore, we recommend the following:

Recommendation #5.

Where the nature and type of the group task does not specify larger teams, students should be placed in groups of either three or five (avoid forming group with even numbers).

The findings in this research highlighted the importance of maintaining a team charter in order to improve the process of group-based assessments [29,59]. Team charters help to develop guidelines about the roles and expected contributions of team members [87], team functioning [29], and outline the goals and expectations of a team [88]. Hence, we recommend the following:

Recommendation #6.

Groups should maintain a team charter with established ground rules, the expectation of team members, and guidelines.

This research’s findings indicated that a single mark should not be allocated to all students in a group if free-riding issues are present [65,89]. Giving the same mark for each individual is perceived as unfair, making hardworking students unhappy and resentful, while it also sends the wrong message to slackers [90]. The findings indicate that the majority of the academics implemented group members’ peer assessments in order to identify individual contributions and deter free-riding in group-based assessments [50,59]. The findings suggest that peer evaluation acts as a motivational factor to encourage students to engage in teamwork behaviors [91] and to provide information in order to adjust the individual marks accordingly [92]. Peer evaluations can increase a students’ sense of responsibility and promote team dynamics and learning within group work [65].

Recommendation #7.

Peer assessments should be incorporated into the group assessment process to deter free-riding and the perception of unfair marking.

Our findings also indicated that in addition to group members’ peer evaluation, oral presentation (one of the products) on the given task has the potential to identify any non-contributor(s). During the presentation, students are required to outline their aspect of the task in front of the academic to facilitate the identification of student’s contribution during that process. However, the existing literature does not provide evidence to support this finding.

Recommendation #8.

Students’ oral presentations on a given task(s) can be one of the ways of identifying potential free-riders in teams.

While group members’ peer assessments are used to moderate individual marks in group assessments, our findings indicate that marks of students should only be adjusted in extreme case scenarios when a team member did not contribute at all [93]. The aim should not be to introduce radical changes to marks but to moderate them within preset limits around the tutor-given mark [93].

Recommendation #9.

Adjust the marks of an individual only in an extreme case when there was no contribution at all.

Our findings suggest that academics should be involved in the process of group-based assessments. Academics can help students in many ways, such as arranging consultation [59,94], improving intra-group dynamics [51,92], motivating the students to achieve the goals of the project [17], and promoting a fair distribution of work and fairness in grading [95]. Academics’ involvement helps to distinguish between actual loafers and strugglers and, therefore, allows individuals to take preventive measures to avoid destructive impacts on the team [96]. To compound this problem, Forsell et al. [97] found that, in the main, teachers are absent from the group work assessment process, thus, leaving the problem in the hands of the students to solve. Therefore, we recommend the following:

Recommendation #10.

Academics’ involvement throughout the process of group-based assessments must be maintained.

7. Limitations and Future Directions

While the study makes important contributions, there are a few limitations that may be addressed in future efforts. Firstly, the findings of the research were based on project management academics’ perceptions of the best practices in a face-to-face class environment. Therefore, these findings may not be applicable for group-based assessments conducted in an online class setting. Future research can explore how COVID-19 influences the design and execution of team-based assessments in an online education mode. Secondly, the selected project management academics shared their opinions based on their experiences of dealing with students who have little or minimum working experience. Therefore, the findings may not be applicable to students who have a great deal of working experience in real world projects. Thirdly, the findings were suitable for groups with a mixture of domestic and international students. All findings may not be relevant to groups made up of one nationality. Finally, the perceptions and viewpoints of students, one of the critical stakeholders of group-based assessments, were not taken into consideration when forming the recommendations on the best practices. Students’ motivation and their intention to engage in group assessments may have an influence on how academics design group assessments. Moreover, the authentic and successful execution of the recommendations will be influenced by a range of success factors. Furthermore, this study is based on exploratory research which limits the generalization of the findings. Future research may explore these areas to identify any potential changes to the findings. In addition, future research may investigate how the class size and academics’ teaching styles influence the process of designing and administering group-based assessments. However, this research can be considered as a reference point for future studies.

8. Conclusions

Group-based assessments are highly prevalent in higher education because they provide practical opportunities for students to develop necessary teamwork and other interpersonal skills. Through interviews with project management academics, the current article took an integrated approach towards improving the entire design and administration of group-based assessments to make them fit for purpose, particularly within the context of the project management discipline, so that project management graduates develop the demanded skills in their skillsets and are prepared for the world of projects.

The study identified that the group-based assessments can be improved by choosing an appropriate group task, providing careful attention to group formation, developing team charters, identifying free-riders, ensuring academics’ involvement, providing training to students about teamwork, and communicating academics’ expectations to students. The findings provided strong evidence that teachers should form groups in order to balance the team with varying degrees of diversity, such as languages, gender, nationalities, and educational backgrounds. With regard to group size, academics should consider the nature, size, and complexity of the set tasks. However, a group size of either three or five students tends to work well in most scenarios. Group members’ peer evaluations and oral presentations on group tasks seem to have the potential to deter free-riding and social loafing in group-based assessments. Maintaining a team charter, ensuring an active role of academics in the group process, integrating training into group work, and conveying academics’ expectations to students are considered vital for improving the execution of group-based assessments.

The presented research offers an understanding of the improvement of design and administration of group-based assessments in the context of project management. The findings of the research project could inform guidelines, policies, or support resources for designing group-based assessments. The findings highlight options for project management academics to consider when developing policies and procedures to manage group-based assessments.

9. Practical and Theoretical Implications

The outcomes of this research have a significant contribution to the authentic design and administration of group-based assessments in higher education. The recommendations on the design features of group assessments have considerable influences on enhancing graduates’ job-readiness and improving their engagement in group work environments. The guidelines provided are useful for all stakeholders involved in higher education institutions to provide graduates with the skills identified by employers to improve work-readiness for the labor market. In addition, academics can utilize the set of suggestions as a toolbox when it comes to embedding group-based assessments into the curriculum. Furthermore, the research offers the potential to improve the guidelines, policies, and procedures for group-based assessments across higher education institutions. This exploratory study contributed to the growing body of the research on group-based assessments by addressing a critical gap in the extant literature. Grounded in the socio-constructivist theory of collaborative learning developed by Lev Vygotsky, this research facilitated the knowledge acquisition of students by setting an authentic group assessment in a socio-cultural environment. By setting a collaborative learning environment through the utilization of the offered recommendations of the best practices, academics can play a vital role in the knowledge construction of students.