Baby, I'm Worth It: Group Test

In the attempts to prepare students for the real workplace atmosphere schools started to implement group projects and tests. As a high school student with extensive experience in honors classes, I know the good and bad side of the group work. While group testing can help students gain a deeper understanding of the material, it presents skewed scores due to the influence of the external factors; thus, it’s debatable whether higher scores are worth being traded for a collaborative environment.

Cooperation can encourage students to provide deeper responses, yet it can also provide an unrepresentative portrayal of individual knowledge. In multiple instances, collaboration can be very beneficial to develop meaningful ideas by combining the perspectives of multiple students. In AP English classroom where students collaborate on their work and the teacher abstains from posting grades frequently, scholars are more concerned with the quality of their work and try to search for a greater purpose in every assignment. This method is fairly effective and outputs profound responses since students can build stronger points by the way of teamwork.  However, confounding factors influence the outcome of the group assignments tremendously. For instance, more outspoken people are more likely to share their ideas and persuade others that they are correct; on the other hand, shy people might have good ideas but not be willing to share them. While some might argue that a small group setting will encourage students to speak up, for many the pressure of getting through the material in a speedy manner can be too intimidating. These factors can cause lower scores to appear as students aren’t able to embrace their full potential in a certain setting. Consequently, for subjects like math, where speed and precision are essential, group testing is not necessarily representative of the individual knowledge; while in social studies, where results are more debatable, group tests can promote critical thinking.

While in many cases, students strive to acquire the highest score, social development could be worth a lower grade in the long term. Companies like Google aren’t looking for employees who just follow guidelines and get done just enough to be considered “good.” The best candidates have a variety of leadership skills, excellent interpersonal relations, out-of-the-box thinking, grit and diversity of thoughts. However, the grades don’t measure these skills, they simply measure a single representation of knowledge. While general experience in a certain area is needed, regular testing doesn’t develop the skills used for innovation. Group tests if implemented properly could help students gain more social skills, deeper thinking, persistence, as well as resilience, which are useful in the workplace. Accordingly, group work can have an impact that will outshine grades in the long run. Group tests are unrepresentative in the terms of the grade but develop essential life skills, so it comes down to the priorities of an individual.