Students’ perception on group work: One size does not fit all

Context: UoB Dubai campus, year two quantitative module, small cohort of around 10 students, diverse and multicultural backgrounds, intensive block-teaching framework. This year, we introduced a new formative coursework to provide extra opportunity for students to exercise and apply the learned technical, analytical and problem-solving skills.

Although the summative assignment requires individual submissions, students were given the option to work either individually or in peer-groups on the formative coursework to foster further transferable skills (teamwork, communication and leadership). Afterwards, Padlet was utilised for self-reflection and evaluation and to provide feedback on the coursework.

We ran a focus group to assess students’ experience and to discuss their choice between, as well as their perceived benefits and drawback of, working individually vs in peer groups. Reported responses were quite varied, mixed, and, at best, unexpected. Finally, students suggested a third alternative, which obtained unanimous agreement: individual work followed by peer-review, support session.