Assessing Group Work and Providing Feedback

Lesson Delivery, Assessment & Feedback

Enhancing Transparency and Fairness in Group Assessment

1. Communicating Assessment Criteria and Grading

   Clearly communicate assessment criteria and grading schemes so students understand the expected standards. This helps minimise misunderstandings and reduces common frustrations in group work.

2. Evaluating Group Processes

   Use reflection reports and peer/self-evaluations to assess group processes such as idea generation, task distribution, and collaboration. This allows instructors to evaluate both group performance and individual contributions.

Utilising Peer Learning and Grading Tools

To support peer and self-assessment of group contributions, SMU offers two tools: Peer and Self Feedback System (PSFS) and Peer Evaluation Tool (PET). These tools facilitate monitoring and feedback, while encouraging self-reflection and continuous improvement.

Peer and Self Feedback System (PSFS) vs Peer Evaluation Tool (PET)

The table below provides a breakdown of the key differences between the PSFS and PET tools.

	PSFS	PET
Evaluation Questions	Standardised evaluation questions in three categories: (1) Responsibility and commitment; (2) Contribution to team effectiveness; (3) Contribution towards team deliverables (quality and quantity of work) Uses fixed rating scale of “Yet to meet expectations”, “Meet expectations” and “Exceeds expectations” with a set of selectable descriptors based on the given rating	No fixed questions as instructors have full flexibility to set any number of evaluation questions, scales, and scoring calculation methods (i.e., average, sum, weighted, or normalised) Instructors can also allow for evaluators to give targets qualitative comments for each evaluation question
Customisation	Uses a set of 14 standardised yes/no questions aligned with SMU GLOs of Collaboration and Leadership No customisation of questions by instructors	Flexible question creation, possibly aligned with SMU GLOs Instructors can create custom questions based on specific peer evaluation needs
Setup and configuration	Evaluation limited to self and own group members only Single evaluation point per module	Students can evaluate themselves, their own group members, other groups, and Teaching Assistants. Instructors can evaluate students and student groups. Supports multiple evaluation points (e.g., mid-term and final evaluations)
Instructor View	Instructors can download results in an excel file organised by target student. One can see the students' completion status as evaluators but other than the qualitative comments (organised by target), there is no visibility of ratings at the single-evaluator-single-target level.	Instructors can view and download results by target and by evaluator and have full visibility of single-evaluator-single-target ratings and comments.
Student input	Students can only evaluate themselves and their own group members	Students can evaluate themselves, group members, other groups and/or their Teaching Assistants
Student view	Students can view their self-feedback via a student dashboard, which provides an overview of their contributions towards group projects	Instructor has control over which questions’ ratings and/or comments are released to students when for each evaluation point (labelled “session”)

Grading Resources 

Here are some resources (e.g., grading Class Participation, Assignment, Presentation, Project, Peer Evaluation) that instructors may use for assessments:

Group Evaluation

Individual Evaluation 

• Northwestern University - Self and Peer Evaluations of Group Project MSED 467