Evaluating group work
Since 2004 students at Concordia's John Molson School of Business (JMSB) have had access to a unique online tool called the Peer Assessment Program to give and receive valuable feedback on their performance in group work.
As of this fall session, any student who has ever participated in the program can order a Peer Assessment Certificate from JMSB Career Management Services (CMS) attesting to the strength of his or her group-related skills.
“This is a new opportunity for students to have another tool, when meeting with employers, to support their claims of having skills in teamwork,” says Nancy Clarke, career advisor at JMSB CMS.
Stéphane Brutus, associate professor and Chair of the Department of Management at JMSB, developed the program in 2004 with the assistance of the school’s Centre for Instructional Technology. Brutus applied his expertise in feedback processes and performance appraisal within organizations to create a practical tool for students and teachers. The tool consolidated existing efforts by different teachers trying to address some form of peer evaluation in their courses.
Originally designed to restore equity in the evaluation of group work by assessing cooperation, creativity and group-related competencies, the program goes far beyond that in added value.
For students and teachers, it’s a more efficient and easier- to-use tool than paper-and-pencil evaluation forms, and it provides high-level quantitative and qualitative feedback in an anonymous format.
Individual professors have access to the program and are free to integrate it into their courses as they see fit. Some offer it to students on a voluntary basis, others make regular use of the program’s tools a requirement. Brutus says professors often use it to nuance marks already determined by a number of other factors.
The program provides what Brutus calls “a hard metric” for JMSB when evaluating the teaching of group-related skills, one of the eight learning goals JMSB has set up for itself as part of its accreditation with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
His research shows that repeated use of such a program improves performance over time. The ability to evaluate the performance of others is a management skill that employers value, but it’s a task that makes many managers uncomfortable. Brutus says that last year, 6 000 students used the system, 2 500 in three different classes, and 1 000 for four. “That’s significant experience,” says Brutus. “Our students are ahead of others in terms of comfort in evaluating others.”
Brutus doesn’t know of any other university using such a system. “We’re really a leader on this,” he says. He’s had enquiries from other schools already.
Brutus hopes the program will be integrated with the class-management system made available by Instructional and Information Technology Services through the MyConcordia Portal within the next year.
Related links:
• Peer Assessment Certificate
• JMSB Career Management Services
• Stéphane Brutus’ JMSB webpage
• Soon-to-be-published paper on the Peer Assessment Program by Stéphane Brutus and Magda Donia
• Concordia Centre for Instructional Technology
• Related Concordia Journal story