How to deal with social loafing?
I do like assigning group work as it exposes students to differing personalities, work styles, etc. Most of the time it works well. From time to time, there would be individuals who do the bare minimum or nothing at all. They obtain a social loafing mentality where they sit back and rely on others to do all the work. How do I deal with that?
I usually have each student rate others in their group on a 1-10 scale. If the number is below or above "average" I ask them to elaborate on their evaluation.
I agree. Building self-esteem and self-confidence are two separate ideas; self-confidence (or self-efficacy) is a great psychology concept pioneered by Albert Bandura; people with high self-efficacy are more likely to view a difficult task as a challenge. "Self-esteem" has moved, it seems, from a buzz-word to a taboo. We should work, as instructors, to raise self-efficacy in the classroom.
Thank you for this reply! I agree that the outcome will be their own loss. I ask them to answer this question, "Do you go to school for the grade, or to learn what you'll have to do on the job?"
I wish I had time to operate groups, but new information is given, and the course is only 15 days long.
Some of my students I have only known for 15 days by the end of the course. I would love to spend part of the 90 hours on getting-to-know-each-other and team-building activities, (which I have done a lot of in other courses) but I truly have many, many things to directly teach, practice, test. I need to get out midterms during the second week of class, so every day is jam-packed.
I am not complaining. I love what I do, and we get a lot accomplished in a short time span. I'm just glad to hear someone else that sees things as I do.
The way I deal with 'social loafing' is by informing my students from day one that all lab work will be done in groups, but that at the end of the course there is a lab final that is done on an individual basis and accounts for 30% of their lab grade. I tell them that if they just stand around and watch others work and copy information, when it comes time for them to perform the tasks on their own, if they haven’t participated they probably will not pass the lab final.
I make it the student’s responsibility to make sure they understand how to do the tasks. If they need help I will definitely help, but if they just want to be a spectator and don't do well on the lab final, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Being teachers (or to be politically correct, instructors) we need to make sure our students understand that there are consequences to any action. If you have a job and don't perform as expected, you loose that job. Your boss doesn't pull you aside and hand hold you through completing the task. At a job you aren't rewarded just for showing up every day; this isn't little league baseball, its life. You have to perform up to someone else's expectations.
Social loafing has been encouraged by giving every kid a trophy, a snow cone after the game, what ever the case and now we are seeing it filter into classrooms. By not correcting this behavior I feel we are doing a disservice to our students.
It can be very frustrating for group members if they get stuck with a 'loafer' but it can be managed by breaking down the final individual grade something like this:
50% - grade for group's final product
25% - instructor's evaluation of individual's participation
25% - peer evaluation of individual's participation
Students will tend to work harder if they know their group mates' evaluations will be part of their grade, and if a lack of participation negatively impacts the overall project, their indicidual participation points will improve their final grade for the project.
Great idea. I like the group grading each other. Nothing will work every time but that is a great idea.
This is a brilliant idea, and I love the "input" suggestion. I will implement this in my classrooms. Thank you Kim Silverman for raising this important question.
I make sure the students know that they are being graded individually on their participation in the project. Sometimes, I have them grade themselves on what would be fair for the amount of participation they had in the group. Of course, I also have my own input into it as well.
As far as students rating other students, I have had success with this most of the time, but on one particular occasion, I did not. I had a group project that was to be presented. It was to create a review game for the other classmates outside of the group. Seeing as how the point of the project is to help everyone else study for the final, I decided to let the students have input into the groups grade. The mistake I made, however, was to not let them know ahead of time, and so the first group to present was very upset that they didn't know everyone else would have input into their grade. I still don't see why it would make a difference, because the project was done at that point and they wouldn't have been able to change it anyway, but still, they were upset. My only recommendation would be to just make sure they know when you assign the project, or at least before they present it, that the other students will have input into their grade.
I have also witnessed this as a negative side effect of group learning. I tell my students that there are generally two types of students: internally motivated and externally motivated. I encourage them to be honest with themselves about which type they are. It is generally, the externally motivated students who end up loafing and they're the ones who I end up personally directing/motivating to keep on task.
Hi Kelli!
This approach can also help students understand the 360 degree evaluation process. However, I think that we should be very careful when we have students evaluate each other particularly if it is for a grade.
I think that I perfer the word "input" over "evaluation" as it implies less authority over our classmates. What do you think?
Good job and keep up the good work!
Jane Davis
ED106 Facilitator
Have the group rate their own work and their team players. When students are rated by their co-students, they seem to be more willing to participate.
After our group learning exercises we have individual skills analyisis. This will show that the sutdent has learned all of the tasks that were presented in the group.
