Content area
Full text
Introduction
Over the past few decades, there has been growing emphasis on the appropriateness of group-based activities in student learning (Freeman and Hancock, 2011; Sykes et al., 2014. This emphasis has been due to the requirements of national and international accreditation agencies who have mandated group work in unit assessments and stressed the need for students to actively participate and experience group-based learning (Aggarwal and O'Brien, 2008; Freeman and Hancock, 2011; Sykes et al., 2014). One of the most widely used justifications for using group work in the curriculum is that it prepares students for the “real world”, that is, it enhances employability after graduation (Sridharan et al., 2018). Group assignments in universities have been seen as a way to develop team skills (Kalfa and Taksa, 2015). However, there are several issues associated with developing and administering appropriate group-based assessments (Sykes et al., 2014). Working in groups often tempts some individuals to put forth less effort. This is called “social loafing” (Latane et al., 1979; Jassawalla et al., 2009). The issue of social loafing arises when certain team members reduce their physical, perceptual, or cognitive effort in group-based activities for one reason or another (see Latane et al., 1979; Jassawalla et al., 2009).
Social loafing is a key inhibitor of group work effectiveness in university assessment (Murphy et al., 2003). Prior research has investigated the effect of social loafing on team performance and work quality in group-based assessments; however, there is a lacuna in research investigating the effect of social loafing on various types of the group environment. It has not been clear how social loafing influences group-based assessments of student-created and instructor-created groups. A few studies support the benefits of instructor-created groups (Lam, 2015). Instructor-created groups appear to be fair (Bacon et al., 2001) and a true reflection of the real world and workplace (Blowers, 2003), where employees are asked to work in cross-functional teams, quality circles, or groups to meet the project and client demands (Chapman et al., 2006). Others favour student-created teams (Bacon et al., 2001; Strong and Anderson, 1990), which allow students to choose friends or a person seated in proximity as group members. In both student-created and instructor-created...