Abstract
Introduction: The use of group work assessment in medical education is becoming increasingly important to assess the competency of collaborator. However, debate continues on whether this does justice to individual development and assessment. This paper focuses on assessing the individual component within group work.Method: An integrative literature review was conducted and complemented with a survey among representatives of all medical schools in the Netherlands to investigate current practices.Results: The 14 studies included in our review show that an individual component is mainly assessed by peer assessment of individual contributions. Process and product of group work were seldom used separately as criteria. The individual grade is most often based on a group grade and an algorithm to incorporate peer grades. The survey provides an overview of best practices and recommendations for implementing group work assessment.Discussion: The main pitfall when using peer assessment for group work assessment lies in differentiating between the group work process and the resulting product of the group work. Hence, clear criteria are needed to avoid measuring only effort. Decisions about how to weigh assessment of the product and peer assessment of individual contribution should be carefully made and based on predetermined learning goals.
Highlights
The use of group work assessment in medical education is becoming increasingly important to assess the competency of collaborator
The question is as follows: can we identify the individual component in group work and include this in the assessment criteria? Worries about accountability arise when dealing with group assignments, mainly because it is often unclear how individual contributions are assessed
Our initial search resulted in 845 hits [Medline (155), PsycINFO (378), and Educational Resources Information Centre (ERIC) (312)—number of articles found in brackets]
Summary
The use of group work assessment in medical education is becoming increasingly important to assess the competency of collaborator. This paper focuses on assessing the individual component within group work. Decisions about how to weigh assessment of the product and peer assessment of individual contribution should be carefully made and based on predetermined learning goals. It is important to address the competency role of ‘‘collaborator’’ in medical education (Frank et al 2015), for example by introducing group work or team-based learning (Davies 2009; Parmelee & Michaelsen 2010). Group work assessment is the most common way of assessing this competency (Epstein & Hundert 2002) and is becoming increasingly important in medical education (Frenk et al 2010). It leads to deep and active learning (Davies 2009), increased knowledge outcomes, teamwork skills and interactivity (McMullen et al 2014) and staff and student satisfaction (Zgheib et al 2010)
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