I Did My Part: Responding to Inequitable Group Project Contributions

Promoting effective group work has been a long-standing challenge for many counselor educators because of the difficulty of assessing individual contributions while focusing on the overall collective assignment. The role of the instructor is important consideration. The group counseling course and the corresponding project are ideal for the development and implementation of a rubric or set of rubrics that articulate goals and expectations of the project. The impact of failure to address student growth can be significant. Group assignments are an integral component of counselor training programs. Requiring students to complete group projects assesses two discrete domains: learning of the assignment and individual contributions of students toward the completion of the group assignment. Lack of intentionality, clarity, and communication in framing the evaluative framework for group assignments can create challenges for how counselor educators assess key performance indicators and student dispositions and for how students perceive the equity of work expectations across the program.