Students' views of group-based work and the issue of peer assessment

This paper evaluates the introduction of a ‘new’ form of assessment in a final year psychology
undergraduate module. The assessment required students to work in groups (N = 3 or 4) to
produce a conference-style poster that presented personality data collated from the whole class.
The final grade for each student on this assessment reflected a group mark for the poster, a peer
assessment mark from their group and their individual performance on a question and answer
session on the poster. The evaluation focussed on (i) students perception of this piece of
assessment, (ii) the relationship between different elements of this assessment and the module
exam, and (iii) issues surrounding reciprocity in group work. The main findings suggested that
generally students found the poster comparable to other forms of assessment they had
experienced in terms of difficulty and effort required, and that on the whole they were positive
about the assessment despite misgivings about group organisation and dynamics. In addition,
the assessed elements of the poster did not correlate with performance on the exam, suggesting
that they may relate to different skills. Finally, the results suggested that the measurement of
reciprocity in peer assessment may be more complex where small groups are concerned.