Why do students resist assessment by group-work? Hearing critique in the complaint
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21725741 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kathryn Telling (0000-0001-8000-0710, University of Manchester, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Publication date | 2024-04-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of Educational Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1474-9041 • E-ISSN: 2165-8714 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/14749041241249223 |
| OpenAlex | W4395081492 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 38 |
The cry that today’s higher education students are particularly individualist is a commonly-heard one. In England, the considerable personal cost of tuition is often blamed for creating a series of negative student traits, including consumerism (an idea that one has bought the right to a degree) and individualism (a sense of the individual as the beneficiary of the bought product, as against any sense of collectivism, or education as public good). This paper explores one element of students’ purported individualism: their resistance to group-work as an aspect of assessment. Presenting interview data with university students in England, it argues that such student disquiet does not stem from a resistance to collectivism in general. Using pragmatic sociology, the paper considers students’ often gentle and humorous comments about group-work as critique, not complaint. Rather than understanding students’ resistance to group-work as individualist grievance about doing something they would simply rather not do, this way of conceptualising their comments understands students as making critical points about what should be assessed for at university. It argues that this way of thinking about resistance to group-work leads us to take that resistance seriously, and in turn to take students seriously as interlocuters on educational matters
Complaint · Group work · Pedagogy · Political science · Resist · Sociology · Educational and Psychological Assessments · Engineering · Evaluation of Teaching Practices · Law · Psychology · Student Assessment and Feedback
Transforming University Education
Class Strategies and the Education Market
Beyond Education
Global Education Inc.
Having, being and higher education
Rethinking authentic assessment
Higher Education, Social Class and Social Mobility
Why Things Matter to People
Dealing with free‐riders in assessed group work
The Self, Relational Sociology, and Morality in Practice
Beyond performative talk
Student Engagement, ‘Learnification’ and the Sociomaterial
It's a struggle’
The complexity of educational elitism
Student perceptions of themselves as ‘consumers’ of higher education
Credentials, talent and cultural capital
The new spirit of capitalism in European Liberal Arts programs
The history of the future and the shifting forms of education
A cry, a clash and a parting
Spheres of Justice
Her majesty the student
The iron law of hierarchy? Institutional differentiation in UK higher education
On Critique
Love and Justice as Competences
Luc Boltanski's pragmatic sociology
Individual Choice and Risk
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |