Impact of Groups on Grades
Research project with Jennifer Campbell and Michelle Craig as part of my current teaching stream post-doc.
poster and slides from 14th Annual University of Toronto Teaching and Learning Symposium
Research Question
Are we helping or hurting students by giving them the option to work in groups on problem sets?
Overview of Data Collected during Winter 2021
- ~ 800 students in CSC165
- co-requisite grades in CSC148
- question-by-question grade breakdown on all assessments
- students worked in groups of 1-3 students on 4 problem sets
- after each problem set they completed a survey
- ~ 500 students in CSC263
- pre-requisite grades in CSC165
- question-by-question grade breakdown on all assessments
- students worked in groups of 1-2 students on 3 problem sets
- after each problem set they completed a survey
Survey Questions
- What is your gender? (asked on first survey only)
- What timezone do you currently live in? (asked on first survey only)
- Roughly how many hours did you personally spend on this problem set?
- Roughly when did you personally start working on this problem set?
- How much do you value the written feedback that you get on problem sets?
- In what settings did you discuss this problem set with anyone else?
- For each question in the problem set, how satisfied were you with the answer you handed in? (added after first survey)
- Did you work in a group on this problem set?
- If no, then asked:
- Do you think that working INDIVIDUALLY on this problem set improved your understanding of the course material MORE than if you had worked on it IN A GROUP? (added after first survey)
- If yes, then asked:
- Do you think that working IN A GROUP on this problem set improved your own understanding of the course material MORE than if you had worked on it INDIVIDUALLY?
- Do you think that working IN A GROUP on this problem set improved your partner’s understanding of the course material MORE than if they had worked on it INDIVIDUALLY?
- For each question in the problem set, how collaboratively did your group work on it?
- How much work did you do relative to your partner(s) on this assignment?
- How much do you agree with the statement: “On average, students working in groups on this problem set will have a higher grade on this problem set compared to students who worked individually”?
- How much do you agree with the statement: “On average, students working in groups on this problem set will have a higher grade at the end of the course compared to students who worked individually”?
- How much did each of the following factors impact your decision to work in a group on this problem set?
- Problem set mark
- Test mark
- Overall learning
- Social aspect
- Previous experiences with groups
- Timezone
- Physical Proximity to Others
- Overall workload
- Are there any other factors that influenced your decision to work in a group or individually on this problem set?
- Any other comments on your experience working on this problem set?
Some Select Preliminary Survey Results for CSC263
What is your gender? (asked on first survey only)
- approximately 70% Male, 30% Female
What timezone do you currently live in? (asked on first survey only)
- mostly East coast, West coast, and Asia
Did you work in a group on this problem set?
- roughly 80% of CSC263 students worked in pairs
- How much work did you do relative to your partner on this assignment?
- 6% “I did significantly more than my fair share”
- 13% “I did more than my fair share”
- 73% “I did my fair share of the work”
- 7% “I did less than my fair share”
- 1% “I did significantly less than my fair share”
How much do you agree with the statement: “On average, students working in groups on this problem set will have a higher grade on this problem set compared to students who worked individually”?
- 18% Strongly Agree
- 48% Agree
- 29% Neutral
- 4% Disagree
- 1% Strongly disagree
How much do you agree with the statement: “On average, students working in groups on this problem set will have a higher grade at the end of the course compared to students who worked individually”?
- 10% Strongly Agree
- 28% Agree
- 49% Neutral
- 11% Disagree
- 2% Strongly disagree
Are there any other factors that influenced your decision to work in a group or individually on this problem set?
- a common one was not knowing anyone in the class well enough to trust
- word cloud for students who worked with a partner:
- word cloud for students who worked individually:
Any other comments on your experience working on this problem set?
- “problem set too long” was common
- Xinyue Lin, James Connors, Chang Lim, and John R. Hott. 2021. How Do Students Collaborate? Analyzing Group Choice in a Collaborative Learning Environment. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 212–218. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3432389