The Group Contribution Grading feature calculates a student’s grade based on their individual contribution to the group project in a Group Member Evaluation assignment.
With this feature, teachers gain a better insight into the group dynamics during a project. This sheds light on potential imbalances between students' cooperation, or spotting non-contributing students. Teachers can configure grading thresholds to determine the final grades based on Group Skill Factor.
There are two possible options for Group Contribution Grading:
Group Contribution Factor: a grade adjustment suggestion relative to the rest of the group members, so students who were rated higher than the rest of the group get a higher grade and students who were rated lower receive a lower grade.
Group Skill Factor: an absolute factor based on each peer’s received ratings compared to the maximum ratings they could have received. This can be used to lower the grade of students who got rated relatively low by their group mates.
In this article we elaborate further on the calculations behind the Group Skill Factor. Please read this other article for more detailed information on the Group Contribution Factor.
It’s important to note that Group Skill Factor should be applied after a group project deliverable is finished and has been graded.
Example:
Group 1 obtained a 75/100 grade on their written project. Then, they carried out a Group Member Evaluation activity to assess how well they performed individually and cooperated with the rest of the team.
The Group Contribution Grading feature is meant to change the group grade and individualize the grades based on contributions.
Grading
First, you must add grading to your assignment by clicking on the purple plus button on the bottom of the activity. Although here you can configure the amount of points for each facet of the assignment, for the Group Contribution Factor, all the points will be calculated based on the facet ‘Ratings received on work in total’. For that, set ‘Ratings received on work in total’ to 100 points.
Fig. 1: Grading module.
Group Skill Factor - How to set it up?
To enable the Group Skill Factor, you must have a Group Member Evaluation assignment with the collaboration option: ‘Review within groups’. This feature only works with that setting.
Then, in the Grading module at the end of the activity, you can click on ‘Grading Options’ and enable Group Contribution Grading. This will open up a screen where you can choose ‘Group Contribution Factor’, or ‘Group Skill Factor.’ Select the latter. (To read more information on the ‘Group Contribution Factor’, please check this article).
Fig. 2: Grading module with ‘Grading options’ settings opened.
Fig. 3: The two factor methods within Group Contribution Grading.
In the Group Skill Factor, the factors are calculated using the ratings received compared to the maximum points possible for the criteria to come up with a factor between 0 and 1.
An important difference between Group Skill Factor and Group Contribution Factor is that a student’s factor does not change depending on the scores the other students receive.
One out of three things will happen to the individual student’s final grade in this case:
For students who barely contributed: the project grade for this student will be reduced to zero (0).
For students who contributed below average: the project grade gets multiplied by the contribution factor the student receives.
For students who properly contributed: it will stay the same, nothing gets deducted or added.
The teacher may edit the threshold values to what is desired for the assignment. In case these thresholds are customized by the teacher, the multipliable values will affect in greater or smaller amounts to the student’s final grade. The thresholds ensure that only meaningful adjustments are made, i.e. for those students who did contribute below average, or nearly nothing at all. By default these values are set to provide students:
A zero (0) if their contribution factor is between 0 and 0.55
The project grade is multiplied by the average score if they score between 0.56 and 0.8
An unaltered project grade if they score anywhere between 0.81 and 1
Fig. 4: Customizable factor threshold. The values in this figure are the default.
Finally, click Save in the top-right corner of the screen. When you have finished setting up the assignment, it is time for the students to get started!
Group Skill Factor - How to apply to final grades?
Once the deliverable project is submitted and graded, and all the student reviews have been given, the teacher can start applying the Group Skill Factor’ values. This will determine the result of each student’s particular project grade.
It’s important to note here that a student’s contribution factor will change when new ratings for other students come in later. Thus, it will go up or down depending on the scores the other students received. Teachers must wait until the entire assignment is finished to make any final adjustments to the student's final grades.
Once the assignment is done, the system will calculate the Group Skill Factor for each student. It will provide some suggested adjustments to the grades. Please see the image below.
Fig. 5: Suggested adjustments.
To apply these suggestions the following options are available:
For all students: By clicking on the arrow icon at the top of the table header, the suggestions can be applied for all students within the assignment. Note: a confirmation dialog will appear explaining what is to happen and that this cannot be undone (see below).
For all students in a group: By clicking on the arrow icon that is connected to the subgroup-row.
For just one student: By clicking on the arrow icon on the student row.
If downloading the student analytics export, a column called Peer Contribution Grade will appear. This number indicates the normalised average peer-rating, in other words, the average rating received from the other group members. This could be considered as the ‘raw’ score that the student receives from the peer ratings. Find more information about the calculations below.
Group Skill Factor - How is it calculated?
Although the Group Skill Factor is automatically generated by FeedbackFruits within your grading module in a Group Member Evaluation, you can also calculate it manually if desired. Here we have explained all the steps behind the Group Skill Factor formulas. To calculate it yourself, please follow these steps:
1. Normalize Ratings: For each student, add up all their ratings and then divide them by the maximum amount of points of the assignment (usually, 100).
Example:
| Criterion 1 | Criterion 2 | Criterion 3 | Criterion 4 |
Student 1 | 22.50 | 21.00 | 17.00 | 16.00 |
Student 2 | 19.50 | 19.50 | 14.00 | 14.00 |
Student 3 | 28.50 | 30.00 | 19.00 | 19.00 |
Student 1 (22.50+21.00+17.00+16.00)/100=0.765
Student 2 (19.50+19.50+14.00+14.00)/100=0.670
Student 3 (28.50+30.00+19.00+19.00)/100=0.965
2. Calculate the Group Skill Factor: take the square root of the result of the previous step. The square root means that the grade adjustment, especially for students scoring more in the middle, is going to be less harsh than if it would be just the raw scores (just student score/team average).
Example:
Group Contribution Factor Student 1 √0.765= 0.874
Group Contribution Factor Student 2 √0.670= 0.818
Group Contribution Factor Student 3 √0.965= 0.982
3. Apply Thresholds: compare the calculated Group Skill Factor to the minimum and maximum thresholds configured by the teacher. If the Group Skill Factor is:
below the minimum threshold, the student’s project grade is set to zero (0)
above the maximum threshold, the student’s project grade remains unaltered
between the minimum and maximum thresholds, proceed to the next step below
Example:
Thresholds:
Project grade x factor between 0.56 and 0.8
Unaltered project grade between 0.81 and 1
Zero between 0 and 0.55
Group Contribution Factor Student 1 0.874
Group Contribution Factor Student 2 0.818
Group Contribution Factor Student 3 0.982
4. Calculate the final grade: In the case the student's Group Skill Factor is between the minimum and maximum thresholds, you can multiply the student’s project grade by their Group Skill Factor to determine the final grade.
5. Group Skill Factor suggestions: once you obtain the factor per student, the FeedbackFruits system will suggest some potential adjustments to apply to the final grade. If wanted, teachers can use these suggestions or make the final grade modifications as desired. See the screenshot below with the example we used in these steps.
Group Skill Factor - How do students see it?
From the student perspective, the students will see their final grade, and the points obtained per criteria.
Therefore, students will not see their individual Contribution Factor, the rest of the group final grades, nor the adjustments made by the teacher. That data is private for teachers only, and up to them to decide if they want share it with students and their groups outside of FeedbackFruits, or not.
Fig. 7: Student view of the final grades with Group Skill Factor.
This concludes the Group Contribution Grading - Group Skill Factor article.
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