Assessing individual performance within group design and group problem-solving learning environments

This paper is focused on the educational context of students learning how to be effective members of design teams in subsequent professional life, and on the means of assessing the individual students' development of relevant abilities. Team design has become recognised as a dominant environment in which complex and innovative engineering designs are developed and resolved. Governments' progression from "knowledge society" policies to "Innovative Society" policies give added emphasis to the need for all graduate engineers to have well developed team-work abilities in order to contribute effectively to innovation through design teams. Group problem solving techniques, such as problem-based learning (PBL) and Project-Based learning methods, are increasingly adopted into engineering education to satisfy demands for relevance to this crucial aspect of professional design practice; however, customary assessment of group achievements by allocation of group marks (equally) to individual members fails to recognise each individual's abilities in a significant skill field, but also causes dissatisfaction among students who want their individual contributions recognised, and student satisfaction is increasingly important to accreditation and quality assurance reviews. A significant obstacle to individual assessment in group environments has been lack of definition of individual attributes that contribute to affective group/team performance, and consequent lack of verifiable criteria for measurement of those attributes in individuals. This paper draws on recent research into team design dynamics in industry, and provides criteria for verifiable assessment of individual performance in group work that is entirely transparent and meets both quality assurance and student satisfaction, as well as relevance.