[XxSophie01xX]

This semester I am involved in 2 pieces of group work, but I'm getting really frustrated by the other people in my group.

In both of the groups the other 2 people are very good friends of mine, but I just feel they're not pulling their weight. I feel so exasperated because for my part of the work I am taking my time to do the very best I possibly can and ensure that we all get a good grade, but they have a very blase attitude towards the work and just do not seem to be trying. I think this is unfair seeing as all of our grades are dependent on how we ALL do on the group assignment.

In other assignments I have been averaging 2:1s whereas my two friends have been averaging 2:2s and 3rds. The most frustrating part is I know they're intelligent, but they are just not putting their full potential into the work and I do not want my grade to suffer because this. I know I'm going to end up editing their work and it angers me that I'm putting more into this than them. We are still in our first year, but they view the first year as not really needing to try and only needing to pass, whereas I view it as practise for the 2nd year, therefore I try my hardest to garner how well I will do in the 2nd year. Anyone else experience anything like this?

Sorry if this sounds all over the place, i'm very tired

[heyimbored]

Group work is an important part of degrees, as well as work afterwards, but the assessed stuff can be very unfair. The easiest example to use is when lecturers say that "all students will receive the same mark" and so a poor student who does no work can get a first, and a great student who does loads of work can barely pass, and it all depends on the other members of their group.

There is clearly a difficulty in marking each person individually though, it's hard or impossible to say which student has done what work while still setting something which requires whole group involvement. The only real work around I can think of is that each student also does an individual report on a certain area of the work done (ie the work that they did or contributed to), but that will probably have complications, and will create a lot of marking and work for the students. It may also be unfair on those who have very strong presentation skills and so want to take up a big part of that, and don't do so much of the actual body of work, or aren't as good at writing reports.

It can be harsh, all you can really do is talk to your lecturer/tutor and see if there's anything they can do, there often is depending on the severity of the ****ness of other people in your group.

EDIT: Also, I suppose this happens to people in the workplace as well, with a lazy employee who wont help on a presentation to a potential client/company that will give them business. The client/business in that case wont accept your 'he was rubbish' excuse and will go elsewhere, and your 'results' so to speak will depend on each person as a group, not individually...you'd hope that people doing that kind of thing wouldn't be arsey students though.

[Jenny_G]

At least you in first year! Do you have any more group work projects coming up in the next two years? I'm in my third year now and I have completed 3 peices of group work, and in the first two we were allowed to choose are own groups, and I got a 1st class mark in each. This year (my 3rd year) We were put into threes, I was put with someone who can only do a degree without honours because of failing a second year module and the other one didn't talk because he doesn't like group work at all. The lecturer also brought the assignment forward by two weeks!

We had done some work before christmas and then when we came back in January after we had an exam we were going to meet up so we can see what work everyone had done (this was the 11th Jan and it was due in on 26th Jan), both left early from the exam hall, and never replied to me trying to get in touch with them. We hardly met up as a three, and I really struggled with the work which we had to do. I tried so hard to understand it, but I just couldn't get my head around it. Needless to say our group got the lowest in the class at 45 - so we only just passed!

I hope that makes you feel better? There is usually some kind of problem when lecturers decide to do with group work with at least one group, so hopefully this'll be the only time you will have a problem And maybe when it is a year which grades do count, if they're your friends tell them about your concerns and if they genuinely care about you then they will put in more effort

[Pawsies]

I always do the group work by myself if I'm working with someone who doesn't pull the weight, no point in expecting them to do it. At least I can maintain my grades and not suffer as a result by their poor contribution.
I do split it if the person is willing to contribute though

[Dorito]

Absolutely hate group work.

On every module assessment form I slate group work. They bull**** about how it helps further each other knowledge and how it is such an important skill to possess in the real world... HA! In the real world, 3 members of your team aren't going to sit back and be passengers or just not turn up to group meetings and do no work. It is clear to see this is a problem at all universities. They need to stop living in this pathetic dream world where they think everyone is going to contribute equally. I'm one more bad group away from writing a letter to the head of my course!

Group work is not and never will be a test of knowledge, it is simply a question of how lucky you are when the groups are decided, making the whole group work excercise completely pointless, me and a couple of my friends have been scoring high 2:1 marks in the individual work yet in almost every group work submission, grades have slipped into the 2:2 category, absolutely pointless. It is completely possible to be individually assessed on every piece of work and still have the social skills to work as part of a team in a work environment after graduation.

[theronkinator]

In ours we are told to let them know of anything like this any our mark will be adjusted accordingly, obviously a bit of proof is needed, but if you've done most of what you submit then that should be easy.

[Mad Vlad]

Our lecturer asked us to provide her with a log of what parts we were responsible for, as well as an agreed weighting of the mark for all the members of the team. If we all agreed on the weighting, then she'd just apply that weighting. If we didn't agree, she'd assess each part of the project work and then assign a grade to each person according to the work they individually did.

It worked quite well, actually. I wish more pieces of group work were assessed in this way.

[HpFreak_Amy7192]

I had this this year for a moot in my Criminal law module. (like a mock court case)

The rule is that you have to send your arguments to your opposing team 3 working days before the moot - ours was on a Wednesday so we sent the other group our arguments on the Friday night.

They sent theirs Saturday night, ok there. But then on Sunday they told us that they had sent the wrong arguments and they threatened to report us to our tutors if we didn't let them change their arguments. They then sent us their new arguments and tried to make out that a member of our group had agreed to let them do it when we actually hadn't agreed at all. We went to see our tutors but they weren't much help and on the day after about 10 minutes of explaining to our tutors what was going on, they were allowed to use their new arguments.

My group got a 50 overall, and when we got the feedback - it was meant to be divided into legal research and mooting skills, but ours was all on mooting skills and the tutors really ripped into the speakers for our group. We're now starting to wonder if the other group did actually report us after all.

Last year was sort of the same, only the main speaker for our group told us the day before the moot that he couldn't be there as he was too ill - completely leaving us in the brown stuff.

[Oorlog]

Well, you said they're your friends.

Doesn't that give you the option of telling them you think grades are important, thereby asking them to put in their effort not just for themselves, but for you?

[Shelly_x]

Yes, thankfully I only have one group project for my entire degree and half of the assessment relies on MY work.