A systematic approach to group-based assessment in project management education: CQUniversity case study

Group-based assessments have long been adopted as a means to develop interpersonal and leadership skills of project management students and reduce marking workload. The authentic design of group based assessments plays a vital role to embrace cooperative learning and polish student’s teamwork abilities. However, the traditional means of crafting group assessments do not only increase the vulnerability of students to academic misconduct but also jeopardise the development of teamwork and communication skills which are key attributes of project management graduates. The paper aims to examine the effectiveness of an appropriately designed group-based assessment on the learning of project management students. The paper starts by reviewing the good practices in designing effective group-based assessments. The paper then selects a case study of a postgraduate project management unit at CQUniversity to examine how the assessment design was implemented and its impact on students’ learning. Multiple sources of information were used in this case including publicly available information, the unstructured observation of the unit developer and anonymous students’ feedback. The paper concludes that implementing the group-based assessment, as informed by scholarly work, requires more time and efforts from the teaching team in terms of close faculty coordination, providing timely information, forming groups, providing personalised feedback to each group, marking the staged submissions and responding to students’ enquiries in class and via emails. However, that is considered a little price to pay compared to the benefits and positive effects on student’s experience and attainment of learning outcomes. The demonstrated assessment design may stand as a useful and reliable framework for educators who use or develop authentic group-based assessments in any discipline.