ISSUES FROM THE LITERATURE
Review
issues from the Tendency of particular students to dominate the group and manipulate tasks to their own advantage (Kennedy, 2006)
Occasionally groups were not able to reach a consensus and a staff member was called in to break a stalemate in the mark negotiations (Raban & Litchfield, 2007)
Focus on remedying a situation where a group or team member isn't performing (p. 56) (Albon & Lindsay, 2005)
There was evidence of considerable tension within groups resulting
from the requirement that students assess one another" (Kennedy,
2006)
Little research in the area of identifying and promoting fairness
in groups (Albon & Lindsay, 2005)
Non-performers were exposed early through the formative assessment
of their peers, and they had two options, either to improve or to accept
lower summative marks. (Raban & Litchfield, 2007)
Ensuring cohesiveness so that group time and effort is spent on the task, rather than on developing cohesiveness and dealing with unproductive conflict, is almost certainly staff time and effort well spent. (James, McInnis and Devlin, 2002)
Jaques, D. & Salmon, G. (2007) note that most of the research into group work in tertiary education has centered on discussion groups, especially variables such as:
- seating position
- talkativeness
- personality of the participants
- kind of leadership
Fowler, J., Gudmundsson, A. & Whicker, L. (2006) present an activity for resolving conflict in groups based on processes of defining the conflict, exchanging feelings and proposals, reversing perspectives, considering options for mutual benefit and reaching an agreement.