The efficiency assessment of group work at the university

Abstract

Group work at a university can lead to a noticeable growth of students' progress in studies, the ability to reason and motivate for further language mastering. The achievement of such results is directly dependent on each student contribution. Group support strategies such as role assignments, group contracts, anonymous grades and ratings are designed to encourage active student participation. The study objective is to reveal the students' perception of group work in general and the effectiveness of support strategies in particular. In-depth interviews were carried out in groups using support strategies. Students complained unequal contributions paying tribute to the social support provided by group members in both high- and low-performing groups. The students who scored high on the test results recognized the group work benefits regardless the overall performance of their groups, while students with lower scores perceived the group work as time-consuming «hard work»with little cognitive benefit. Anonymous comments from fellow students differed slightly between the high and low scoring groups. The numerical scores did indeed correlate with the group's overall performance. However, students in groups with the lower academic performance evaluated their classmates more rigorously, while students in higher performing groups were more generous in their ratings for less successful students. Scientific novelty lies in the approach to research group work at the university from the view point of students involving foreign experience and based on ideas, methods and technologies of Russian and foreign scientists. As a study result, it was determined that students of different levels of the subject training perceive group work as a valuable experience that has a positive effect on the learning process. The selected support strategies have shown the effectiveness varying degrees.