Student Group Projects: Perspectives of Higher Education Students

Abstract

Group projects form a component of the work undertaken to assess undergraduate students for the award of degrees. This study sheds light on students’ experiences on group projects. Based on a self-reported survey of a convenience sample of 350 undergraduate students drawn from 926 final year students of the college of education of one  public university in Ghana, this paper explores students’ engagement practices during group projects. The findings suggest that although students work collaboratively on their projects and are able to handle conflicts and communication problems that arise during group work processes ‘free riding’ is not non-existent, albeit minimal. Students noted the scheduling of group meetings and assessment of group work as challenges encountered in group projects. The study recommends that students need support on group dynamics, and the assessment of group project needs to be reconsidered to reward individual members in groups at the formative stages of the task in order to optimise students’ experience of this form of assessment.

Keywords: Group projects, student engagement practices, assessment