By Amanda Brown
As a previous class valedictorian (yes, that noise in the background is the sound of my own horn being tooted) I have long considered myself a ‘good student.’ I never miss an assignment; I’m attentive during lectures, on time, and generally vigilant about actually learning what is being taught. At least, that was me pre-pandemic. Since the shift from in-person to online learning has taken place, and the near total obliteration of any normal collegiate experience, I am almost completely unrecognizable to myself as a student. I’m unmotivated, I feel unable to absorb and learn information, and I feel cheated by the system. In one semester, I went from having never made anything less than an A in a class, to making one B and one D. If you’re interested, I wrote a piece last semester about the potential adverse effects of total online learning, and how it might be negatively effecting student engagement. You can read it over at The Chase by clicking here.
While I could create a long list of reasons based on personal and anecdotal evidence for this behavioral shift, that is not what this article is about. Instead of only harping on the negative effects brought on by this semester, I want to point out one silver lining that I’ve found.
The shift to full online learning has resulted in no more group projects. Can I get a hallelujah?
Maybe you’re in the portion of students who does not mind group work. In that case, you won’t find much to relate with in this article. If you’re one of the many attentive college students who absolutely despises group work, I will vent for the both of us. Also, I’ll provide some evidence for why forced group projects are so especially abhorrent to the ‘good’ student.
John S. Seiter and Robert H. Gass in their book titled, Persuasion: Social Inflence and Compliance Gaining, explain some of the psychological and societal reasons behind what makes group work…not work. It’s called social loafing. This concept is described as a reduction in motivation and effort level when people work collectively instead of individually. There are several models that explain this behavior: the collective effort model, the free ride effect, and the sucker effect.
The collective effort model contends that people tend to get lazy if they don’t feel their efforts will lead to outcomes they personally value. If people don’t think their effort within a group will be instrumental or credited, they tend to not try at all.
The free ride effect suggests that if people believe that they can get away with not working within a group, while still benefiting from the efforts of others – they will. These authors contend that studies show that social loafers slack off when others are doing the work, when they are anonymous, and/or when they think their efforts will not be evaluated. Working in groups allows these free loaders to hide without getting blamed for slacking off, while also enabling them to take an equal share in the rewards of the work completed by others.
Finally, the sucker effect is the phenomenon which occurs when people suspect that others may be taking a free ride, so rather than being the “sucker” that carries the group by doing all of the work themselves. They reduce their effort level to match that of the slackers in the group.
I’ve observed every single one of these models during my experience with college group work and my guess is, you probably have too.
While these authors don’t exactly compliment social loafers in their book, I tend to think their descriptions and reasoning’s are a bit too lenient. The causations for behavior like social loafing are more than just a product of a “because I can get away with it” mentality. People also, and perhaps more so, slack off due to laziness and an overall lack of character. Anyone who is fine to let someone else do all the work, while feeling entitled to reap the benefits of that work equally, has very little self esteem along with little to no moral fiber.
Additionally, these models build on one another like a ripple effect; the free ride model directly leads to the sucker effect, and the sucker effect often circles back to the collective effort model. None of this is any surprise to people who recognize and contend with the reality of human nature. Group projects tend to manifest like socialism: when there is no reward for effort, and no punishment for a lack of effort, there is no motivation. It harms the people who would typically show enthusiasm and lead the group because they lose motivation to try when they see that their work won’t get the credit it deserves, and the free loader will receive the same reward they do – only without putting in any work…and who can blame them?
Forced college group projects are a cancer to learning and an assassin to motivation. If you think I sound bitter, it’s because…well…I am. Nothing kills motivation, creativity, the will to learn, and the abilityto learn, like forced group work. As one of my dear friends, Rebecca Darrup, often says, “I hope my group members will be my pallbearers – so they can let me down one last time.”
So, the silver lining of this long-winded rant is that group projects have all but disappeared during this period of online learning, and it has been, at least for me personally, one of the only highlights of my last year of college education.
Although this may read like nothing more than a lengthy vent from a disgruntled customer, the truth is, I hope that this can spark a broader conversation about the effectiveness and necessity of group projects in college. As we slowly make the transition back to the normal collegiate experience and face the likelihood of a return to group work, I hope students will be more socially conscious of their roles within student groups as well as the temptations that lead to social loafing. Through this consciousness, I hope that we can all be a little better about pulling our own weight in the future. If group projects must exist, let’s make them fulfill their full potential: advanced learning that comes with combined brain power, quick completion that comes from that of many hands working together, healthy peer interaction, and more fun than working alone.
