It is rather a controversial issue on how the grading should be implemented when it comes to group projects. While some might argue that each member of the group should be given the same grade, I disagree with such opinion. Grading should be done on an individual basis as students show different abilities and participation rates.
First, it is only fair to grade students based on their differing abilities. Sometimes a group can produce an outstanding result due to certain members of the group who excel in the subject. These students, who contributed more than other students have the justifiable reasoning to receive better grades than others. For instance, my major is math and I once took an elective course related to economics. We had to form groups and work on team assignments which were mostly related to calculative problem solving. Unfortunately, I was assigned to a group in which no one had any mathematical basics at all. Eventually I ended up solving most of the problems on my own as no one could get even anywhere near them. We got a fairly good grade in the end but I felt that it was unfair as the grade was given the same to everyone, while I was the one who mostly worked on it.
Moreover, lots of people do not participate to their full extent in group projects. There are often free riders who do not contribute at all in completing the assignments thinking that others will be enough to do it for them. Such irresponsible behaviors should be fairly evaluated. People who showed more passion and contributed more to the project deserve to receive better grades. To illustrate, the worse case of the free riding problem in my experience was when a 50 page long group thesis had to be written in my major class. We had assigned parts to everyone, but one of the group members nearly cut his contact just before the deadline. He was avoiding most of our calls in order to be discharged of his responsibility, so in the end, we had to go through the big trouble of doing the research on his part and writing it at the very last minute. The grade was given the same to all group members and we thought that it was very unfair to think about how much troubles the rest of the members had to go through because of him.
In sum, I strongly disagree with the opinion that same grades should be given to all members in a group project. This is because some students contribute to the result more because they have more abilities or passion. Grading should be done fairly according to these differing standards.
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