The use of group activities in developing personal transferable skills

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to explore how students and staff view the use of group activities aimed at developing personal transferable skills (PTS) of undergraduate accounting students. The study also sheds some light on the role of formative vs. summative assessment in the undergraduate accounting education. Contrary to the expectations, students did not seem to enjoy working in groups nor enjoy participation in the oral presentations. The findings in the study suggest that both staff and students recognise the importance of group work and group presentation in developing PTS. As long as a more robust and transparent system of evaluating students’ performance is in place, both students and staff prefer group work to be a summatively assessed part of the curriculum. Finally, while staff favours the use of peer assessment, students feel uncomfortable in peer assessing their colleagues.

Keywords:

• transferable skills
• group work
• formative assessment
• summative assessment