It is likely that at some point during your time at University you will need to work with others to complete a task. This may be as part of your academic studies, contributing marks towards your degree, or as part of your involvement in a club or society. Whatever the situation, learning to work effectively with others increases your chance of success. It is also a skill highly sought by employers.
By sharing your ideas and experiences with others in your group, you are granting yourself the opportunity to meet new people and share the workload of a large project. Group work is also a good chance to make use of your academic strengths and work on improving any weaknesses.
Helpful tips and ideas
Successful group work is going to rely on good communication and co-operation between all members of the group. Think about what you want to gain from the group activity, and how this may impact on your group work. You should try to support each other in trying to achieve everyone’s goals; you may want to aim for a very high mark, whilst someone else may be looking for something to put on their CV. There are other things you may wish to consider, including:
- Role: Are you most likely to take on a particular role in your team, or is everyone going to contribute equally to every aspect of the project? Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each individual and try to play them to what everyone wants to achieve. You may end up with a role which you are good at, maximising your results. Conversely, a role which is unfamiliar to you could be a good chance to develop your skills set.
- Relationships: Take some time to acquaint yourself with your fellow team members. This will help you to feel comfortable with each other, yielding a better and more open platform for discussing each others’ views and ideas. Often, being friendly and polite with other team members can have a large positive effect on group motivation.
- Respect: Respecting each others’ views and opinions is important in maintaining group harmony.
- Rules: Setting ground rules, deadlines and assigning responsibilities at the start ensures that all members know what is expected of each other.
- Record: Keeping a record of decisions that the group make will help to keep you on track and focussed on the final goal.
Do participate as much as you can in group discussions, but try not to dominate the conversation, or the views of others may get suffocated. Equally, encourage others to be involved whilst recognising that some people prefer to take time to think about their ideas first. Finally, when the group task is over, take time as a group (or individually) to:
- Reflect: What worked well and what didn’t? What challenges did you face and how did you cope with them?
Thinking in this way will help you decide what to do differently next time, enabling you to become a more effective team member in the future.
More information
- The Careers Service provides a range of information on preparing for group work as part of the Assessment Centre process. This includes a video on Group Discussions which can be streamed from the Careers Service website.
- The Careers Service also runs presentations from employers on skills for recruitment, including group and team work. Details and booking information is available from 'Springboard'.
- The LearnHigher booklet, ‘Making Groupwork Work’ provides more details about how to work effectively in groups at University.
- LearnHigher also provides a video resource which follows students through a group work task, from their first meeting through to their impressions of the presentation and working together. Each of the ten episodes are available from LearnHigher Group Work.
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