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From the Editors

Notes from The Conversation newsroom

Your say: week beginning March 2 Published: March 1, 2026 7.53pm GMT Judy Ingham, The Conversation

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Judy Ingham
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Cottonbro Studio/Pexels, Mick Tsikas/AAP, The Conversation https://theconversation.com/your-say-week-beginning-march-2-277213 https://theconversation.com/your-say-week-beginning-march-2-277213 Link copied Share article

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Every day, we publish a selection of your emails in our newsletter. We’d love to hear from you, you can email us at [email protected].

Monday March 2

Last week, we published an article asking if it’s time to ditch group assignments at uni. We invited comments on this story, so here’s a selection of what some of you thought.

“This topic has been the subject of op-eds in the media in the past and rightly so. The use of group assignments enables some students to literally do nothing while others do the main work and are the winners of the high marks. In some degree courses the loafers can even pass core subjects without having done any of the work and obtain a degree on a falsehood. The argument often cited by academic staff is that group assignments reflect the collaborative environment in the workplace. This is a furphy of an argument, for in the workplace disciplinary action can be taken against freeloaders, including termination of employment. Efforts by myself and others to raise concerns about the conduct of some freeloading students have been met by silence and inaction.”

Charles Latimer

“Surely the essential problem with group assessments is that there is no way to ensure that all members of the group have contributed? People may be getting a good mark when they have done none of the work.”

David South

“It’s pretty common practice to include reflections about the process and the contributions of team members. There are even dedicated ed tech platforms designed to support this (e.g. FeedbackFruits) which provide options for students to provide peer feedback and evaluation on the quality of the work undertaken by group members as well as the effort they all expended.”

Colin Simpson

Previous post Published: February 26, 2026 The Conversation shortlisted in Quill Awards for Victorian Journalism

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