Understanding students’ perceptions of fairness in group work assessment: key conditions and implications

Supporting fairness in the assessment of group work remains an ongoing challenge for instructors, particularly that students feel their individual contributions need to be evaluated equitably. This study draws on social psychology and critical theories to examine the conditions that shape students’ perceptions of fairness and associated tensions in group work assessments across three large UK universities. The results highlight that the majority of students were concerned with individual recognition in their evaluation of fairness in group work assessments. Students also suggested procedural and relational solutions to address their fairness concerns with respect to recognizing individual contributions, workload distribution, accountability, and conflict resolution. However, these solutions were mostly instructor-focused, devolving their agency in the process. While there were students that valued group work for developing communal learning and collaborative skills, perceptions of fairness were conditioned by the current state of affairs in individual rewarding and recognition within contemporary societies. The findings demonstrate that to address the tensions between individual learning and communal learning, values underpinning the assessment of group work needs rethinking.