Running group projects: dealing with the free-rider problem

Abstract

The use of group projects for academic work carries with it the risk of ‘freeriding’, one or more members of the group limiting the work that they contribute, in the knowledge that they will nevertheless benefit from the efforts of the other members. This paper describes factors that may lie behind intentional or unintentional free-riding, and suggest steps that academics can take (1) to minimise the incentive to students to take a free ride and maximise the incentive to work as a team; (2) to help to prevent the situation from arising where when a student is perceived by others to be free-riding but is in fact not deliberately taking advantage of them; and (3) to deal with genuine freeriding when it occurs. This article will hopefully be of interest to all GEES academics who set group-work as part of their module assignments.

Introduction

Many university courses today incorporate a ‘group project’. Students are formed into groups and assigned a task designed to generate a ‘product’ of some kind. This article addresses the situation in which the product is given a mark, and the members of the group are themselves given that mark, which will count towards their individual score for the course as a whole. This situation provides an opportunity for one or more members of the group to refrain from ‘pulling their weight’, limiting the work that they invest, in the knowledge that they will nevertheless benefit from the efforts of the other members. They gain a ‘free ride’ - or, as social psychologists put it, they engage in ‘social loafing’ (West, 1994).

For teachers, there are - I think - three issues. First, what can they do to minimize the incentive to students to take a free ride and maximize the incentive to work as a team? Second, how can they recognise when a student is perceived by others to be free-riding but is in fact not deliberately taking advantage of them, and how can they help to prevent this situation from arising? Third, if genuine free-riding is observed, what can and should they do to deal with it? I shall consider these three questions in turn.

(1) Minimising the incentive to free ride, maximising the incentive to work as a team

It is manifestly the case that students, both before and during their university careers, are strongly socialised into a culture and an ethos, of individual achievement. Teams don’t compete to get into university or gain good degrees: individuals do. To students who have always taken it for granted that their effort brings a reward for them alone, telling them that on this project they are to work and be rewarded as a team may amount to exposing them to a considerable ‘culture shock’, and academics - who have themselves got where they are through individual achievement - should be aware of this. What should you do? Here are some suggestions:

• Tell the students that they are being exposed to a culture shock. Prompt them all to be aware of the habits and ‘taken-for-granted’ that the individual achievement culture has inculcated in them, and ask them to reflect on how these are likely to affect their suitability for working in a team.

• As a preliminary to the project proper, get them to compose and agree a set of ‘ground rules’ to govern how they will work together. These should cover matters such as communication, the conduct of meetings, and taking decisions (including decisions about the allocation of the various tasks which together comprise the project work.) This will go some way towards synchronising their expectations of one another. It may also bring to light differences of opinion about how much time and effort it is reasonable to put in to the project, and stimulate students to seek a way of reconciling these differences.

• Review each set of ground rules with the group that produced them. If reviews are carried out with several groups at a time, circulate the rules so they can see what the other groups have produced: this is a good way of promoting reflection and second thoughts. In particular, although ground rules are on the face of it essentially to do with the mechanics of working together, some students are likely to come up with a mission statement, such as ‘We will do our best’. Use this as a peg to stress to them the importance of appreciating each other’s contributions. As West points out (West, 1994), individuals have a stronger incentive to contribute to the work of the group if they feel that their contribution is valued.

• If the students are from a mixture of cultural backgrounds, prompt them to discuss among themselves how the cultures that they ‘carry’ with them affect their expectations and what they regard as proper behaviour. The scope for misunderstanding and upset between students from a ‘speak your mind’ culture and those from an ‘always be polite and try to reach consensus’ culture is huge.

• Adopt a marking scheme that unambiguously rewards working together. A marking scheme that is based partly on the collective mark and partly on a mark for individual contributions not only incorporates an incentive to concentrate on one’s own work and not to share but also gives a mixed message to students: this creates uncertainty, a frame of mind in which the deep-rooted individualachievement culture is likely to reassert itself.

• In the marking scheme, provide for a proportion of marks to come from self- and peer-assessment. Group members can be asked to evaluate the contributions of themselves and other members with regard to attendance at meetings, interaction (including facilitating contributions by others), planning the project, leadership and management, and any report and presentation. This will help to make students more aware of how they are regarded by other members of their group. A marking system can be adopted which disregards a self-assessment that is appreciably higher (or lower) than the aggregate assessment of that student supplied by the other members of the group.

(2) Preventing unintended free-riding

Group projects sometimes take over students’ lives, with the consequence that they neglect other parts of the curriculum. Some students may be more resistant to this than others. Thus, a group member may come under peer pressure to devote more time and effort to the project than they feel is appropriate and appear to back out of doing the work entailed. Thus he or she may seem to be free-riding despite having no intention whatever of taking unfair advantage of the work of others.

It may also happen that when tasks are being allocated, the noisier and more forceful members of the group are the first to bid for those that they prefer. The quietest, least forceful member may find himself or herself in a situation where there remains to be allocated only one task, and it is one for which they feel very ill-equipped: they may feel nonetheless that it is their duty to take it on, and so they volunteer to do so, while keeping their fingers crossed that they will be able to master it. Subsequently, they may flounder but be reluctant to ask for help, a situation that they deal with by withdrawing: absenting themselves, not replying to emails, etc. They will almost certainly be experiencing a great deal of discomfort and stress, but the other members of the group may well perceive their behaviour as free-riding.

How can teachers help?

Make known to students that you are aware of the propensity of group projects to drive out other academic work, and encourage them to look out for this happening. Make it clear what your expectations are - perhaps giving them some indication of what they need to produce in order to get a particular grade and emphasising that you don’t expect them to work through the night and neglect their other work. Ask them at regular intervals whether they feel the project is under control, and be on the lookout for different members of a group giving different answers to your question, which is likely to reveal the existence of an issue which needs to be discussed, possibly with yourself in the chair.

Also, encourage teams to adopt a procedure for allocating tasks that does not allow anyone to ‘get in first’ - a sealed-bid procedure, for example - and to check that everyone is positively happy with the outcome. Check for yourself, too. If anyone betrays unhappiness, it may be appropriate to suggest job-sharing or taking a fresh look at how they have broken the assignment down into tasks.

(3) Dealing with free-riding when it occurs

As their teacher, you may be the last person to know that there are students who consider that there is a free-rider in their group, taking advantage of them and their hard work. They are likely to feel that the issue is one that they should deal with themselves, and to be reluctant to ‘tell-tales’ on a fellow student. Underneath, though, they may feel very angry, and they may find the uncertainty very frustrating and difficult to handle. It is in the nature of group project work in an academic context that members take away their individual tasks and then come back to the group with the work they have done. Typically, free-riders will take away their task but not produce the work, absenting themselves or making excuses and promising to deliver ‘soon’, so other group members don’t know whether to do the work themselves or to trust the other member and hold the project in abeyance until he or she produces; and to hope that what is produced will be what they need. The problem may be not so much that one member is unreliable and unproductive - aggravating though that is - but that the conscientious members are crippled by their feelings of anger towards the free-rider and of frustration resulting from their inability to influence events and their uncertainty as to what course of action they should take.

Again, what can teachers do to help?

• You can require each group to submit, soon after starting work, a schedule showing the task or tasks that each member is to undertake. Groups can also be required to notify you of any subsequent amendments to the schedule. This notification will be a factual matter, so giving it will not carry any connotation of telling tales, and it will allow you to see if work is being reallocated away from one member, and to enquire - if you think it appropriate - into the reasons behind such reallocation. Informing students at the outset of this requirement will itself be a disincentive to free-riding.

• You can point out to the conscientious students that dealing with ‘free-riders’ can actually be a worthwhile learning experience for them, if they can develop strategies to channel their anger and frustration into positive action. Such strategies might include: discussing their feelings with a neutral person, a facilitator; asking the free-rider if he or she is encountering difficulties that they haven’t made known to the other group members; explaining to the free-rider their difficulty with the situation that they find themselves in; giving the free-rider a deadline for the producing of work; and agreeing among themselves how they will do the work if it is not forthcoming.

Conclusion

The above suggestions will all help to minimise the extent of free-riding and to assist conscientious students to deal with it if it does arise. The demands that they make on teachers are not onerous. They do, however, require teachers to do more than merely form students into groups, give them their assignment, and send them away to get on with it.

Acknowledgments

This paper is a product of the Higher Education Innovations Fund project, Marketing Graduates’ Skills, undertaken and managed jointly by myself and Ivan Kent (Oxford Brookes University) between August 2000 and October 2002. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Department for Education and Skills, which financed the project; of the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the National Coordination Team, which administered it; of staff and students at the London School of Economics, with whom it has been a pleasure and privilege to work; of the Teaching and Learning Development Office at LSE, headed by Dr Liz Barnett, which gave the project a home; and of the project’s advisory group, chaired by Ms Serena Mackesy, which took an active interest and encouraged us throughout.

Check out the indexed references to ‘social loafing’.

See also various materials on http://www.teamwork.ac.uk