Best practices for group assessment tasks

The development of teamwork skills for future employability has been noted as a critical skill that graduates require. This paper reports on best practices for the assessment of group work and the development of teamwork skills. We explore distinctions between ‘in-class versus take-home’, ‘multiple choice versus essay style’ and ‘online versus paper-based’ group assessments. Interviews were conducted with 21 key stakeholders involved with two final-year financial accounting units at an Australian university. Overall, we find that students perceive value from a variety of group assessment types throughout their degree for the development of teamwork skills. Benefits and challenges relating to various group assessment types are presented. We tabulate our best practices for group assessment tasks and offer techniques to improve the effectiveness of group assessments in developing teamwork skills.