Group project can be one of the most annoying assignments
required to do because of the possibility of being stuck doing the majority of
work. Fortunately, the majority of group projects I have been part of haven’t turned
out like this; however, they had other smaller problems. Almost all of the
group projects I have been part of were for upper level econ classes. This has
the benefit that most students chose to take these classes, so they are generally
more knowledgeable and interested in the course content. This typically solves
the problem of one or two students doing the entire project, but solving this
problem uncovers a few smaller problems. My most recent group project is a
prime example of some of these smaller problems.
This group project was for Econ 460, Financial Economics,
and our team had to research and present on the financial health of a company.
We were given a few key points and questions to answer, but other than that we
had freedom to proceed however we wanted. Our team was me and four other
students. Katzenbach and Smith mention how successful teams are of manageable
size, and in most situations 5 people would be reasonably sized team, but for
our project it was not. As we divided up the key points among the team members,
it became obvious to me that individually we were not going to have much work
to do. It must have been obvious to everyone else too because the first content
on our shared powerpoint file didn’t appear till just a few days before the
deadline. We had no problem finishing the work, but I felt after our presentation
that we could have done a better job. I believe if our project was harder or we
had fewer team members, we would have been forced to actually work together and
ultimately deliver a better result. This fits the quote discussed one day in
class about having to struggle to truly learn (I couldn’t find the exact quote,
but I’m fairly certain it was from Ray Bradbury).
Another problem encountered during this project and another
reason for the procrastination was that it was difficult to divide the work up evenly
and in an efficient manner. Katzenbach and Smith talk about how successful groups
are comprised of team members with a variety of skills. Because we were all
students in the same class and the project wasn’t very difficult, our useful
skills were essentially all the same. This meant that there was no clear way to
divide up the work. We eventually divided up the work in the most even way
possible, rather than dividing it based on each team member’s knowledge and skills.
No one had a strong interest in doing one part or the other, so the simple even
distribution wasn’t opposed by anyone. Had we been able to apply our individual
skills to the project, we likely would have been more engaged and created a
better final product.
Most of the group projects I have been a part of have had
similar problems arise, and for that reason could have been better. If we had a
project that fit the size of the team and were able to apply our skills, the
final result would have been improved and more enjoyable.
The Ray Bradbury quote was about being bothered.
ReplyDeleteIn class tomorrow I will talk some about each member of the team owning the whole paper (or the whole project). This often doesn't happen in student groups. One reason that your team didn't have enough work is that people didn't consider editing the parts done by other group members. But then you didn't explain to my satisfaction why the initial drafts came in late, especially when there wasn't much to them. Why didn't people knock off their pieces early on? I didn't get that.
You are right that in student teams for a class comparative advantage among team members may not exist and, indeed, it may have been the case that one student could have done your entire project and then just as well as your team did it. I used to have group projects in this class, having students write a review paper of a journal article relevant to the class. But the only reason I had groups was to keep the total number of those projects down. I marked up first drafts pretty carefully and that was a lot of work for me. So I was trying to keep the workload manageable on my end. But doing that doesn't mean the groups make sense for the students.
I will also discuss in the team co-authoring on research papers and why that is often better than solo authoring. But there is an element of creativity in writing a research paper that might be absent from these student efforts. I wonder if students who wanted to go beyond what the instructor assigned might be driven to make the group perform better. There is an undergraduate research symposium on campus and an undergraduate research office. If class projects were a starting point for some research project to be presented at the symposium, that might drive the group much more than just trying to get a decent grade in the class.