Improving attainment gaps through randomised group membership allocation in team-based assessments among diverse students
Context
My position as Course Leader of the MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion (London College of Fashion), primarily involves three roles: the teaching of research methods (including statistics) and dissertation units, the management of current students for successful course completion, and the shaping of the course’s direction for prospective students.
In this report, I will be focusing on adopting random group membership allocation in team-based assessments to reduce the attainment gap in a diverse student body. This decision is founded on two assumptions. Firstly, it is assumed that there will be a substantial presence of team-based student assessment opportunities to allow for the relevance of the intervention. Indeed, the course currently has four summative assessments that are based on teamwork, which constitutes 40% of the total number of summative assessments in the course.
The second assumption is that there is an attainment (i.e., percentage of students achieving 1st or 2:1) gap that can be at least partially explained by the diversity of the student body. Across the BA/BSc/Integrated Masters courses at UAL, for example, there is a clear indication that attainment may be linked to certain student profiles (see visualisation below). For example, students profiled as Home White have an attainment rate of 85% whereas students profiled as Home B.A.M.E. have an attainment rate of 71%. Similarly, there are attainment gaps appearing for Home (81%) vs. International (73%) and Female (80%) vs. Male (74%) students. This means that despite UAL’s diverse student body, certain student characteristics are strongly associated with one’s academic achievements.
While the course in question is an MSc course and so the available data is less granular, a similar narrative (of student characteristics being associated with academic achievement) is detectable, as can be seen below in the dashboard table.
At the minimum, the course represents a very diverse student body, and so should consider the impact of student characteristics on academic achievement. For example, the dashboard data for the 2023/2024 academic year indicates that 17% of the students have declared disability. Furthermore, 81% of the students are International students, which indicates the representation of a large number of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds within the classroom (see dashboard data visualisation below).
Intervention design and supporting evidence
The section above demonstrates that despite UAL’s diversity, there are reasons to believe that certain student characteristics (as is present in the present course I am course-leading) may be an indicator of a student’s academic achievement measured via attainment rates. In line with the evidence, I propose an intervention that aims to improve student academic achievement while concurrently fostering student interactions. Specifically, I propose the introduction of a random group membership allocation in team-based assessments. In that, the intervention not only aims to resolve student profile-based academic outcomes but also potentially reduces student profile-based exclusivity (e.g., racism and discrimination based on certain characteristics), the intervention can be seen to kill two birds with a stone. These two aspects will be discussed below.
There are reasons to believe in the validity, effectiveness, and utility of the intervention. Firstly, there is a growing body of empirical evidence – based on both interview techniques and, to help generalise the findings, inferential statistics – that evinces how random group membership allocation can be used to enhance an individual’s task capabilities, teamwork capabilities, and reflective capabilities (McClelland, 2019). The evidence can be explained by the fact that learning can be improved with the involvement of multiple people and multiple types of intelligence (e.g., cognitive, social, emotional). Specifically, random group membership allocation, when done continuously across classes, is understood to improve skills beyond academic achievements per se, such as team-work skills and rapport-building skills – see visualisation below (Malekigorji, 2019). This fits in with the Quality Assurance Agency Subject Benchmark Statement: Psychology (Quality Assurance Agency, 2023), in which a psychology course (such as the present course) should support skills such as communication and teamwork.
Note. Visualisation taken from Malekigorji (2019). * Denotes significant improvement.
Beyond the potential areas of positive impact, randomised group membership allocation can also reduce barriers to learning and barriers to inclusivity. For example, in my experience of non-random group membership allocation, two patterns of behaviours are evident: students forming groups based on cultural similarity (see empirical evidence from social psychology that supports people’s tendency to seek culturally homogeneous group membership in Tajfel [1982]) and/or students with low academic achievement forming their own group due to being left behind by others. While the forming of friendships based on one’s comfort zone is nothing to criticise per se, the forming of randomised groups in an academic setting may be at least partially preventative of the aforementioned student characteristics-driven attainment gaps, given that students from various facets of students characteristics will be encouraged to communicate and learn from each other.
As mentioned above, the implications of this design go beyond the purely academic aspects (as it were), and touch upon important issues of social justice. As observed by Noel and Paiva (2021), exclusivity often goes unnoticed and practised unconsciously in our day-to-day lives. When students are asked to form groups of their own liking, it is often observable that each group has a lack of diversity; as can be seen in the visualization below, there are multiple dimensions of diversity that may not be included. As Noel and Paiva (2021) note, there are three principles of inclusivity in a setting of teamwork: (1) recognise exclusion; (2) solve for one, extend to many; (3) learn from diversity. In randomising group membership allocation, the first and third principles can be simultaneously executed. In other words, randomised teams can be used to not just potentially reduce student characteristics-based attainment gaps but also be used as a springboard for conversation across a diverse range of students.
Reflection from peers and expected barriers
The discussion of my intervention concept with my peers provided an opportunity for reflection, especially concerning expected barriers. In the peer conversation, we mainly discussed how much students would perceive the randomised group membership allocation. Reflecting some empirical literature (e.g., McClelland, 2012), a main potential area of contention was students feeling pressured to go outside their comfort zone. Since students are likely forced to work with people they hadn’t built up a rapport with, it is likely that student stress (and/or conflict) levels may rise during the teamwork assessments. If this is indeed the case, the intervention idea may stand in contrast with Gibbs (2014) who argued that students learn best when they have a sense that things are within their control. The barrier to the intervention may especially be palpable if the students feel that the forced group allocation may impinge on their sense of freedom and individuality.
Yet there are also reasons to believe that such worry may be an exaggeration. For example, when I trialled the method of random group allocation last year, there was little resistance against the method. I have also anecdotally heard of other courses that take on this practice without much trouble. Although entirely conjectural, it may also be the case that students may prefer this method given the short duration of the course – students may prefer to start their work as soon as possible rather than to use the time to form groups.
However, this is not to say that I should be any less cautious of potential barriers and criticisms. It may be worthwhile to set up expectations with students early on, communicating to them the effectiveness of random group allocation in terms of learning efficacy and social justice. It may also be worth noting the QAA Subject Benchmark Statement: Psychology to the students on the expected coverage of a psychology course. Importantly, in conjunction with the last point, it may be worth emphasising the team-based nature of workplaces and how the proposed group allocation practice may assist in the transition into such work environments. Last but not least, it is crucial that I am informed of the latest developments in academic practices. For instance, the intervention concept may take on aspects of Team-Based Learning (Burgess et al., 2020), where, to minimise disruptions based on student stress and in-team conflict, the teamwork environment involves a facilitator. To further promote diversity within a team, there may also be an implementation of non-random group assignments to ensure maximum diversity of student characteristics (Michaelsen & Richards, 2005).
Conclusion
All in all, the present intervention proposed the implementation of randomised group allocation in team-based assessments among diverse students. It is hoped that this practice, by encouraging students to get out of their comfort zones and learn from each other, will reduce attainment gaps associated with certain student characteristics (e.g., race). The intervention simultaneously promotes conversation across diverse student backgrounds, advocating for inclusive practices within the university environment.
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References
Burgess, A., van Diggele, C., Roberts, C. and Mellis, C., 2020. Team-based learning: design, facilitation and participation. BMC Medical education, 20, pp.1-7.
Gibbs, G., 2014. Maximising student learning gain. In A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (pp. 215-230). Routledge.
Michaelsen, L. and Richards, B., 2005. Commentary: drawing conclusions from the team-learning literature in health-sciences education: a commentary. Teaching and learning in medicine, 17(1), pp. 85-88.
Malekigorji, M., 2019. The effect of continued team randomization on student’s perception and performance in a blended team-based teaching approach. Education Sciences, 9(2), 102.
McClelland, G.P., 2012. The influence of randomly allocated group membership when developing student task work and team work capabilities. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 36(3), pp. 351-369.
Tajfel, H. 1982. Social psychology of intergroup relations. Annual Review of Psychology (33). pp. 1–39.
Quality Assurance Agency. 2023. “Psychology.” https://www.qaa.ac.uk/the-quality-code/subject-benchmark-statements/subject-benchmark-statement-psychology