Living in a Social World
Psy 324: Advanced Social Psychology

Assessment of Individual
Grades in Team Projects

    On team projects, the project itself will be evaluated and assigned an overall grade. However, each person on the team will receive an individual grade that is an adjustment of the overall grade based on the team members' perceptions of each person's contribution to the project.

    To arrive at this adjustment, each person on the team divides 100 points among the team members according to the effort he/she believes each person contributed to the project. For example, if there were 4 people in the group and you believed that all of you contributed equally, you would assign each person (including yourself) 25 points. All the ratings from the team members are then combined to arrive at an ideal total, which is the sum of equally contributing members minus the person's own rating. For example, if all 4 people contributed equally to a project, the ideal total for any one of them is 75 points. Each person's points assigned by other team members are then divided by this ideal total to get a "multiplier" that represents the group's consensus about his/her contribution. The multiplier is applied to a potential adjustment of 10 percentage grade points which are then added or subtracted to the overall grade for the project to arrive at the individual's grade.

    To illustrate the procedure, imagine a team of 4 people whose project gets an overall grade score of 82 percent (a middle "B"), and the team members assign each other participation points as follows:

    Note that in the example, there is general consensus in the group that Member C contributed somewhat more than his/her "share," whereas Member D contributed somewhat less. Individuals would get the following grades based (again, assume that the project earned an "82%"):

A: 65/75 = .87;  Adjustment:  10 x (1-.87) =  1.3.   A's project grade =  82 - 1.3 = 80.7%

B: 65/75 = .87;  Adjustment:  Same as A's.  B's project grade= 80.7%.

C: 115/75 = 1.53;  Adjustment: 10 x (1 - 1.53)  =  - 5.3. C's project grade = 82 - (-5.3) = 87.3%

D: 45/75 = .60;  Adjustment: 10 x (1 - .60) = 4.0.  D's project grade = 82 - 4.0 = 78%.  

    As you can see in this example,  A and B's grades are slightly lowered by the procedure, and C's is noticeably increased.  D's grade is noticeably lowered.

    Note that the procedure will not be followed mechanically -- cases where there are unusual patterns (e.g., 1 team member doing almost nothing, or 1 team member greatly downrating the rest ) will be investigated and grades will be adjusted according to the instructor's best judgment.

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