Group work is good for students

The over-riding theme for those with positive thoughts about group work for students is ‘opportunity’. It is seen as providing opportunity for students in three main domain areas, labelled as:

1. social (helping; sharing the load; and interacting with new people); 2. career (providing a preview of the ‘real world’ in accounting); and

3. product/outcome (improved quality of assignments through collaboration). Notably, there is little reference to the opportunity for knowledge transfer or content mastery within group work. Given the history of accounting education being criticised for its overly technical focus, this is a surprising result. It is feasible that content knowledge and deep learning outcomes are implicit in some of the responses, such as helping each other, and improving academic skills and outcomes, but nevertheless, this aspect is not as explicit as might be expected within a learning institution.

Those who initially conceptualised the social aspects of group work refer to socially oriented opportunities such as helping each other; sharing the workload; communicating with peers; being more engaged; interacting with new people; and coming together with familiar classmates. In fact, the social aspect is explicitly seen more as an opportunity to add an extra component to the learning environment, in addition to academic knowledge. For example:

It’s a good opportunity for students to work with each other. It’s a chance to work with people that you wouldn’t normally get a chance to work with…so it’s like expanding their knowledge in more ways than just academically and I think it’s a great opportunity for them (Mary - B5).

I love it in the way that it’s good to be able to see students interacting together… (Rose – W3).

For this group, the initial focus is centred on the positive aspects of socialisation, not necessarily in relation to any formal group work tasks or pedagogical strategies to teach and develop teamwork skills. Furthermore, the social aspect is distinct in the way that academics promote the informal nature of interactions in an ad hoc manner or as Martin describes below, accepting that students will naturally come together to help each other, even with individual assignments.

Apart from the use in actual assessed work, major assignments, I like students to work together. Apart from that I’ve used it very informally in tutorials for example you know, just you guys talk amongst yourselves for a little while, that sort of thing,

157 without building it in and having it as a regular routine in tutorial so students, you know, had expectations about exactly how to do that (Oscar – A3).

Even if it’s an individual assignment, I accept that students will work in a group and that’s positive. It’s very positive because if students help each other I think it will obviously help the one that needs help but it will also help the one that gives the help (Martin - A5).

Repeatedly, the social theme was linked to the transferability of skills beyond university, and the continuing benefits of improving interpersonal skills for the students’ future careers in accounting. The accounting academics within the social domain expressed strong beliefs that group work skills in accounting education provided invaluable insight to the future, and a preview of what students can expect in the ‘real’ world of accounting. As illustrated in Figure 7.1, the ‘real’ world career perspective forms the second key theme identified in relation to academics’ positive thoughts about group work for students. Group work is seen as the tool or context in which interpersonal workplace team skills can be developed. The following exemplars highlight the perceived interrelatedness of the social and career aspects of group work:

I think that it’s good in the way that as soon as they start to go into the work force it’s going to become a really, really important tool for them to have to be able to communicate and work with other people, even if they don’t want to (Rose - W3). Group work is important. Teamwork is important for accountants, particularly in tax… it’s a skill they have to develop because in the workplace they will have to work as a team. So basically to develop those teamwork skills, group work is an important part to develop those teamwork skills (Martin - A5).

I’m thinking about when students leave uni and they go out in the workforce they are going to be put into groups that may not be of their choosing or may not be with people who they would really prefer to work with but they have to anyway. I think it’s a great chance for them to learn these skills that can transfer beyond university to get a job done, sharing the load (Mary - B5).

There appears to be an expectation however, that students will learn teamwork skills by merely interacting with others or working together in a group. The following extract alludes to the conception that teamwork skills are transferred from this abstract mechanism called ‘group work’ to the students. The key phrases about group work are that ‘it makes them learn’ about others; ‘it gives them skills’; and ‘it teaches them’; although notably it does not teach them about discipline knowledge and content. Theoretically from this transmission perspective, the teacher would be the knowledge

158 expert who expounds the technical accounting content (Biggs, 2003; Martin, Prosser, Trigwell, Ramsden & Benjamin, 2000).

I think it makes them learn a lot more about how to deal with other people and how to negotiate and probably teaches them about themselves and their attitudes to other people and their own work ethic. So I think it gives them skills that are not necessarily knowledge attainment skills but other skills which are probably very important in the work place. I don’t think it’s so much that it teaches them about the unit they’re studying, it more so teaches them about how to get on with other people and how to negotiate and liaise with other people (Sheryl - A4).

The aforementioned quotation also implies an apparent disconnect with the third key theme area, the product outcome. The respondents appear to be making a clear distinction between the learning of teamwork skills that are relevant to future employment, and which occur through the experience of group work, and the learning of technical content knowledge and the academic skills required to submit a quality product to be assessed. The separation of these initial conceptions of group work in accounting is aptly described by one of the tutors, who is also a unit coordinator in other units (not under investigation). Having many years of teaching experience, Bill explains his positive impressions of the academic learning of content that occurs for a select few in group work, but notably focuses on a different type of learning that occurs through dealing with the process challenges of the social or group dynamic aspects.

Well I think there are two aspects. One is the academic learning, and I think if you take a normal group of 5 students on average, probably two or three achieve something academically because they are the ones that are doing the work and leading the academic stuff and preparing the literature reviews and the write ups. So for those two or three, it's a very good exercise because they're actually leading and doing the work.

[But] I think they all learn in terms of the group dynamic, so there’s that sort of non-academic side to groups as well where students become frustrated. There’s communication issues, there’s trying to organise meetings and they learn a lot about that. The difficulties in arranging a Saturday afternoon meeting or whether someone is going to bring the food and they don’t. Oh, all that sort of stuff I think is really important as well, because that just feeds into not only event management but also in the work place and how to deal with that is sort of interesting (Bill - CT1).

The opportunities afforded in group work activities related specifically to the product outcome are represented by six sub-themes: working better, collaborating, improving academic skills, building confidence, and improved quality of the end product (see Figure 7.1). Academic perceptions in this context refer not so much to student learning outcomes, but to a better-quality assignment. The focus is very clearly fixed on

159 tangible outputs, such as the group assignment. The common thread is that ‘two heads are better than one’ when it comes to producing a superior product. Building confidence in their content knowledge and ability to hone academic skills, such as referencing, was also identified as a by-product of students’ collaborating to complete an assessment task. Further evidence of this product/outcome focus is shown in the following excerpts:

You actually get a better product from a team or a group than from an individual, 95% of the time… where groups truly work together they do produce a much better product (Linda - G6).

If you have individual work for students and afterwards the same students are part of a group, it’s a different story, because they improve their skills. The other group members will direct them, if the referencing needs to be improved, style needs to be improved, they will check their grammar... I was surprised by the improvement and quality in the group assignment (Gwen - A2).

A couple of heads are better than one… I think that’s a nice way of getting a team together, getting a group together and having them thrash out ideas… Every time a group presents, something new comes out in an environment like that and there’s richness in it (Bert - B2).

It also allows other students to confirm in their own mind what they understand in the subject (Fred - W4).