Is group assessments a desirable option in higher education? And experience self-assessment a promising way to go in higher education? If the learning task is a group task, then they can be assessed as a group. I would be cautious having a full curriculum with only group assessments. But where the group assignment is to work as a group, then I think you can actually assess them as a group. What's the challenge then in assessing group? Well, the challenge is that the learners will say, "But she worked a lot less than I did," usually he, and that's unfair. But I guess dealing with that unfairness within the group is exactly what you should do. So, I don't see a big problem with group assessments, provided that you limit them as well. I mean, not everything is in group assessment. Yes, they certainly can be assessed as a group. And, yes, it is a very desirable situation because in their professional lives, they have to constantly work with others. So, in the educational environment, it's very nice to know yourself and your talents as a team member. It's definitely desirable when courses have collaboration as part of their goals, and some courses have for a good reason because there are hardly any jobs that people can do their work individually. I think the only fortunate people are people working at a university. But in almost all other jobs, you're totally linked to your colleagues, and students must be trained very early on in collaboration. Not in all courses, definitely not, because we want them to develop their individual intellectual capacities, as well as their practical performances as well. But in some courses, and that's the way I judge, for example, in the quality assessment, the learning outcomes of courses, that I want some courses to have those collaboration goals. And when you have it in your ILOs, it should also be part of your assessment. That's a kind of simple rule. That's difficult because it needs, again, a lot of preparation. So, there are a few prerequisites when you want to do group work assessment. You need to engage the students or even make using a diary compulsory, a certain type of diary that shows you as a lecturer where they are. To visualize the process. To visualize the process, exactly. You need the kind of portfolio, for example, but I am a bit reluctant to do that especially in the bachelor's phase. You can also say, "Well, the group assessment is actually a self-assessment." But I'm of that generation in psychology where, especially into training to become a therapist, and I got lots of courses in that respect, and I think my complete idea about that kind of group assessment as a group is so much tainted by that experience. And that was a very bad experience. It's not a good idea because it's about power. It's about group dynamics. You can only do that when our people are trained to give feedback in a proper way. That's, by the way, very interesting. These trainings are available but very difficult to apply in our ordinary teaching because they have to train the students first before, and then I'm really talking as a director of education because then I see the euro signs coming up. It's pretty expensive to do so. Do I think students are able to assist themselves? Yes and no. Always. Always. I think that students are well-capable, say for example, in design projects, in helping one another. But then it's on a level of finding new creative solutions to problems. It's very helpful. But if you say, "Well, I want to assist my colleague students, say, for a research project or something." I think it's a very different situation because the student that is being assessed is very much dependent, say it's a summative assessment in which to get a grade for. On the particular students, they have in their peer assessment group. It is very difficult for projects in which you have to make a big learning jump actually because each, even like master thesis and bachelor thesis programs, sometimes teachers think, "Well, they know how to do research because we taught them," let's say for two and a half years now. They just have to do the research in their bachelor program, but they forget that this half year of bachelor thesis program was the biggest learning step they ever will make. And so, students within the bachelor program say or in a bachelor thesis phase, they have very different levels of knowledge and skill and expertise and actually doing research in that area. So, it's very hard for them to know when is research good at this level, when is a research bad, or when it is bad, how could you improve this actually. So, I think it's very hard for students to actually give very worthwhile, valid, timely feedback to peer students in such kind of situation. So it's depending very heavily on the sort of project or task you have to do and the sort of learning jump you have to make while doing this kind of assessment, say, a bachelor thesis or so. So I have some doubts about this, and people underestimate it. Actually, you should also learn students on how to do feedback, actually. We know from a lot of reasons that students need to be learned how to provide feedback, and the same is true for teachers. How to provide feedback is a very difficult subject actually. How do you put your tone of voice? Where do you focus on? How to bring it to students? And then giving also time to improve on the feedback. Again, they should plan very carefully in which case it will be fit for you. So, yes, there is opportunities, but you should consider it very carefully where it is applicable and what you could expect of it. I read once an article about assessing the other one, and it appears that when I'm a student, and I assess you as a student, I am more strictly than the teacher should be. I found it weird. The literature is quite clear on self-assessment and on how poor we are in terms of self-assessment. We're very poor self-assessors. That's why self-assessment, I think it's important. But it should always be considered in relation to other external data. It's an add-on. It's an add-on, but nevertheless, self-directed learning is one big exercise in self-assessment, and programmatic assessment is a big exercise in learning how to learn. And my somewhat paradoxical experience with so many years in problem-based learning and self-directed learning, that self-directed learning requires quite a bit of directing. Which seems a paradox. That seems a paradox. That seems a paradox, but if you look at problem-based learning, then it's a very structured approach. You can't really escape. And you have to constantly work. In the traditional hurdle approach, you postpone, postpone until you have the big bang exam. So it's a lot more structured process. In programmatic assessment, you can't escape because it may be low-stake, but if you do not perform well, we'll spot on. We immediately see that. And your coach will see that, and you can't escape. No. There are no data points. No. So, actually, I think that self-assessment is important in programmatic assessment, with mentoring, learners have to analyze their progress. Towards reflection, implicit assessment. Yes, that's right. And then a dialogue with your coach, and that is part of self-assessment. So if you consider a self-assessment, there's a broader issue that I think it's very important. Learners should engage with that, but be careful, you can't always trust it.
