Improving Group Satisfaction: making groups work in a first‐year undergraduate course

Abstract

Abstract The value of working in groups as a strategy for learning, and the development of communication and interpersonal skills is acknowledged in most tertiary institutions. Academic staff tend to avoid introducing groupwork into crowded first‐year undergraduate curriculum, because of large numbers and, in many cases, staffing constraints. This paper outlines the establishment of a groupwork component in a first‐year undergraduate accounting tutorial programme. Although this component did not work well in the first year for about half the students involved, it proved a valuable support socially, as well as academically for the rest of the cohort, so was continued into a second year. To increase group satisfaction, structural and managerial changes were introduced, with positive results. Establishing groupwork early in an undergraduate course allows group skills to develop over time, encourages reflection on learning behaviour and can facilitate increasing expertise in the subject area.