Group Work Module

Advantages & Challenges of Group Work

Advantages

Group work is commonly assigned in college. Whether you choose your group mates or not, working in a group offers many opportunities for learning and development. For instance, group work can help you:

• Expand your understanding through group discussion and explanation.  
• Plan and manage your time. 
• Develop stronger communication skills through the expression of your ideas. 
• Build relationships as it encourages communication between group members 
• Learn to delegate roles and responsibilities. 
• To be more open-minded and accepting of new ideas. 
• Develop strategies for resolving conflict.
• Obtain social support and encouragement (Carnegie Mellon University: Eberly Center, 2016, para. 5-7)

Challenges

While there are many advantages, group work isn't always easy! Here are some things that can make working in groups challenging:

• Social Loafing- Some individuals simply get away without giving any input to the project at hand. Gaining credit for academic work you did not complete can result in an academic integrity breach.
• No independent input- Individual ideas and opinions may get lost because the presence of numerous team members and their ideas
•  Loss of individual creativity- Creativity is likely to get lost when group thinking is given more precedence and importance.
• Unequal division of work- Work may get divided in a way that some individuals get burdened with most of the work and the others get much less in comparison which may lead to conflict later on.
• Groupthink- Groupthink occurs when well-intentioned individuals make irrational or non-optimal decisions to minimize conflict which could lead to loss of originality (Psychology today, n.d.)