With three young men in college (one graduating this month with his CS degree and encountering the oxymoronic stonewall of "entry-level" requiring a year or two of experience) I have been hearing about the travails of group projects for at least a dozen years. I keep telling them that it is good practice for working in groups once they enter the job market. And that is true. However, the group projects in college seem to be even more haphazard than the ones we all went through in elementary and secondary school.
This is second-hand, of course, since it has been a while since I have been in college. Apparently, the idea of forming a group is to pick out three or four people, either at random or in some type of alphabetical order, and then handing out an assignment to them. As much as I want to encourage my sons, and tell them the experience will lead to greater abilities in the work world, that's just not the way groups are "normally" formed in the business world (or, at least, successful groups).
In elementary and secondary school, the teacher has a pretty good idea of personalities, strengths, and weaknesses after a couple of months with a class. Secondary school teachers have less knowledge because they deal with multiple classes with distinct classes but they still have some. So, there is knowledge behind the choices of composition of a group. (Because of lack of experience, an "ideal" group is often still a matter of luck.)
A group needs a leader -- or a coordinator -- and it needs people who have specific known skills. Elementary school teachers know who the dominant children of the class are -- but may not know, or have enough children to choose from for, the type of leadership qualities that those dominant children may have. Thus, in some cases, there will not be a sufficient number of dominant children to have one per group and, in other cases, they might be someone who does all the work or who directs other children rather than working with them. In other words, just being dominant does not inherently mean a good leader.
In elementary school, there is rarely a real aspect of evaluation of success. If, at the end of the group project time, they are all still alive and have something they can present -- success! If, at the end of the group project time, they are all still alive and have pieces of a bit of a mess -- success! It is hard to have a failure.
In secondary school, they try to actively evaluate the results of the group but there is likely to be individual results presented as well as the group project. Evaluation can be weighted towards individual results with bonuses passed out for a successful group project. People who work within the group may grumble about those who are not showing an outstanding work ethic but they are not penalized much for them being part of a group.
Let's skip college for a bit and head to "real life". In real life, the results of the group project are of primary importance. This is true for a group, department, laboratory, or company. If the project is successful, the management will try to give greater weight to rewards for those who seem to have contributed the most (they may not be correct in their evaluations but those are the goals). If the project is unsuccessful, then all in the group will suffer. The ones who did "better" or "more" may be recognized but it is not much to their credit as they will also have a greater share of responsibility for the desired success and any shortcomings that occurred.
College groups appear to go above and beyond what is required in real life. All are rewarded for a success. All are penalized for failure and if you do your very best and it still fails, you still fail. The primary lesson learned is to do what one can to not become part of teams with less than optimum people in it. Perhaps a valuable lesson but not something that is always possible within the corporate environment.
