Commentary:
Collaborative working is an important skill for students to develop as preparation for many graduate employment routes, and increasingly to help prepare students for recruitment processes. However, some students with anxiety may find this a more challenging assessment type, and students with significant commitments outside university may also have difficulties in collaborating with others. Therefore, in planning a group project and allocating roles and responsibilities, there should be scope to consider the specific contribution that each group member can best make. A member of staff may need to facilitate this process with students where there are particular sensitivities about the position of an individual student. The preparation of the task should involve clear written statements about the work and the allocation of specific responsibilities. Training should consider the factor of group working in its own right, and may help some students to overcome anxiety, as well as any disciplinary skills or requirements of the planned task.

Supporting students:
The format of the project's outputs can be varied to reflect the needs of the members of the group – just as in authentic tasks, not every member of a group will necessarily contribute in the same way to the successful delivery of the whole. It may be appropriate to extend the time available for a task for the entire group, or to amend the scope of a project, in order to accommodate all members - while ensuring that such changes do not disadvantage other members. The 'equity share' approach to allocating marks to individual students can also be used to adjust for different contributions between members of the group.

Formative approaches:
Taking a programme view can help to scaffold a student’s journey to summative group work. It could be valuable to include a formative group work assignment at an early point in the programme to prepare the way for students to undertake higher stakes summative group assessments later on. Regular opportunities for collaboration and discussion in seminar groups or reading groups (and similar) will also help to familiarise students with the dynamics of collaborative working.

References and further advice:

• The OU has good advice in this area at: https://weblab.open.ac.uk/incstem/incstem-data/uploads/2019/11/designing-group-work-guidance.pdf
• See also the Bristol resource by Kai Harper, School of Biological Sciences: ‘Inclusive Group Work Guidance’