The Group Project With One Worker
In her Industry Connections folio, Bella is part of a four-person team producing a market-entry recommendation for a local manufacturer. The folio is school-assessed and contributes 30% of her grade. The team's meeting minutes show Bella attended 9 of 12 meetings and completed the competitor analysis. Two teammates, Chen and Priya, produced almost nothing; the fourth, Tom, wrote the executive summary but then withdrew from school for medical reasons in Week 7. Bella now submits a folio that is substantially her own work but carries all four names. Her teacher must award individual grades. Bella argues that group work is 'meant to be collaborative' and that she should not be advantaged or disadvantaged by others' choices.
1. Explain why 'everyone gets the group mark' is not a defensible assessment decision here, and identify what the teacher must establish first.
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Why a shared mark fails. School assessment must report on each student's achievement of the performance standards. A shared mark would credit Chen and Priya for work they did not do, and would deny Bella recognition for work she did. It would also misreport Tom, who withdrew and whose contribution stopped in Week 7. The mark would be accurate for nobody.
What the teacher must establish first. Before any grade is decided, the teacher needs an evidence base:
- Contribution evidence: meeting minutes, version histories, communication records, and drafts showing who wrote what.
- The task design: was the folio designed so individual contribution could be identified, or was it structured so that only a group product exists? If the latter, the teacher must acknowledge a design weakness rather than invent certainty.
- Tom's status: a withdrawal changes what can fairly be assessed and may require the school's approved process for altered circumstances.
- Opportunity to respond: Chen and Priya should be told what the evidence suggests and given a chance to provide contrary evidence. Natural justice applies to them too.
The teacher's judgement is therefore evidentiary, not moral. The question is not who 'deserves' blame but what each student can be shown to have achieved against the standards.
2. Describe how the teacher should allocate grades and what should be documented, showing your reasoning.
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Allocation.
Bella should be graded on the folio she actually produced, with the individual components (competitor analysis, her share of the recommendation) assessed against the standards. Her 9-of-12 attendance and documented output support a grade based on her own work. She should not be penalised for others' non-contribution, nor rewarded for Tom's executive summary unless she can show she revised or integrated it.
Chen and Priya should be graded on whatever evidence shows they achieved. If the evidence shows minimal contribution, the grade should reflect that - but only after they have had the opportunity to supply contrary evidence (for example, undocumented work, or work done outside meetings).
Tom should be handled through the school's altered-circumstances process, not through a group penalty. His Week 7 withdrawal is a separate matter from the others' non-contribution.
Documentation. The teacher should record: the evidence reviewed, the contribution findings for each student, the opportunity-to-respond step, and the reason each grade was awarded. If the task design made individual attribution difficult, that should be noted as a limitation and addressed in future task design.
Reasoning. The guiding principle is that grades must be attributable to the student being graded. Where evidence is incomplete, the teacher should say so and resolve doubt through process (response opportunity, altered circumstances) rather than by defaulting to a group average that misreports everyone.
3. Bella later asks the teacher to 'mark the group down' so that the injustice is visible. Evaluate whether this is an appropriate use of assessment.
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No - using grades to express a judgement about behaviour is a misuse of assessment.
Assessment reports achievement, not conduct. A grade should answer 'what standard has this student demonstrated against the performance standards?' It is not a sanction, a message, or a moral verdict. Marking Chen and Priya down because the group behaved badly would produce a grade that does not correspond to their demonstrated achievement - the same error as giving them Bella's mark, in the opposite direction.
It would also be procedurally unfair. If the downgrade is a penalty, it requires the safeguards any penalty requires: notice, a chance to respond, and a defined rule. Bella's request bypasses all three.
It would harm Bella too. A grade awarded as a protest is vulnerable on review and could cast doubt on the legitimacy of her own result.
What the teacher can legitimately do. Record the contribution findings accurately; apply any documented school policy on non-participation if one exists; give feedback to Chen and Priya about their contribution; and, if the task design allowed free-riding, change the design for future cohorts (for example, requiring individual contribution logs).
The teacher should tell Bella plainly: her grade will reflect her work, the others' grades will reflect theirs, and the process - not the marks - is where the injustice is addressed.