'Free riders' undermine classes

A group of students sit in a circle to discuss a group project. University professors have recently been implementing peer evaluation systems to minimize the number of free riders, who do not actively take part in group work but nevertheless take credit for it. / Korea Times file

Well-designed peer reviews can make group works fairer

By Yoon Sung-won, Park Jin-hai, and Kwon Ji-youn

G.O, a member of Korean idol group MBLAQ, gets angry after receiving an uncooperative text message from a free rider. On tvN's "SNL Korea," which aired on June 1, G.O acted as a group leader in a university class, who experienced difficulties in managing uncooperative group members.
/ Courtesy of tvN

The basis of group work is cooperation. In an ideal world, cooperation means a proper division of labor and genuine contributions from all group members. But in reality, there are few groups in which all members contribute equally.

People cynically refer to group members who contribute less than their peers as "free riders."

In fact, we come across many such free riders in our daily lives ― at work, at home, even when preparing for a trip with friends.

Free riders are becoming increasingly common (some might even say rampant) at universities, where professors and lecturers are turning more and more to team teaching and group activities instead of "boring," one-sided lectures.

Common problem

Induk University sophomore Oh Hye-rin said free riders were a common problem.
"It's very annoying when students seem to be along just for the ride and don't participate at all in group work," Oh said. "It means some students are doing twice the work they should be."

Lee Mi-yeon, another sophomore at the university, said that in extreme cases, some group members did not participate at all.

"I finished the entire project myself," she said. "Then the students who were supposed to be part of our team just signed their names on the last slide of the presentation."

Lee said free riders sometimes used cheap tricks to make sure they were credited as having participated in a project.

"They sometimes just take the presentation material, sign their names and send it from their personal email to the professor," she said. "That way, the professor thinks they were the people who completed most of the presentation."

Oh and Lee agreed that as students, there was not much they could do to stop their peers from free-riding.

"Usually they just mumble a short apology when they are confronted," Oh said. "Their apologies usually don't mean anything, because either the project has already been finished or they don't plan to participate."

According to Oh, only the professors have the power to make sure that students who participate significantly get good grades.

How to deal with free riders

Lim Ji-yun, 22, said her psychology professor told students that after their presentation they would be asked to fill out a peer evaluation.

"We were divided into four-person groups, and each of us was given a task," she said. "After the presentation, the professor asked us to fill out a sheet that would evaluate the performance of our peers."

Lim said that because everyone knew they were to be evaluated, everyone participated.

She recalled another case in which group work was put under peer evaluation.
"We had reading material due, but each week, we would take turns being the leader," she said. "For instance, if I was team leader this week, I would need to bring a list of questions for us to discuss. Then the next week, another student would lead."

She said that this way, each student took turns being a leader. Students could not avoid this because the professor would wander from group to group, making sure the assigned leader was doing his or her job.

"The leader then had to submit his or her list of questions. That made sure the questions were meaningful," she said.

The professor would then randomly choose a group member to present his or her case. Then the professor would ask the other three members to evaluate the chosen member's participation level.

"Not all students were evaluated, but a random peer would be," Lim said.
Kim Hi-cheon, a professor of strategy and organization at Korea University Business School, said peer evaluations were essential.

But he emphasized that the point was not to penalize those who do less work, but to promote teamwork and team performance, to make sure each member did at least a portion of the work.

"I tell my students at the beginning of class: a successful group project is the equivalent of 160 percent," he said. "It should be 80 percent each in a group of two."

Kim said he had his own method of handling peer evaluations.

"I make sure the students, once they're done with the project, write the names of their group members, and assign them each a percentage," he said. "That percentage should reflect their participation level."

Once this was done, he looked over the evaluations, with the main aim of picking out any free rider who has contributed nothing. Kim noted that members usually pretty much agreed with each other.

"Free riders are unlikely to give themselves high percentage points," he said. "Instead, they give themselves a few percentage points above the average given by their peers."

Kim said he penalized free riders, but doesn't take peer evaluation into account for the other students.

"The free riders evaluate their peers well because they know the peers are going to evaluate them," Kim said.

In a more productive way

Jeong Han-ho, a professor at Chongshin University Education Department, said teachers should first check that a project was appropriate for group work, because sometimes it took only one person to do a task.

"In such cases, students tend to divide the task, without regard to each person's ability," Jeong said. "Thus someone may gather presentation material while another person will collect data. Then they meet online to put together the final version.

"This is not proper group work. Teammates should put their heads together over a common issue and seek to find the answer."

Jeong suggested there were better ways to conduct peer reviews to a person's contribution.

"Instead of giving certain points for particular activities, students can write down their peers' roles in the team and give their opinion on their performance," he said.
"Or the teacher could apply a peer review plus a self-review, in which the student describes his or her own difficulties within the team or group. There are some things that only the person who took part can answer."

He said that when a class was small ― about 20 students ― a teacher could interact directly with each student. The teacher could ask each person, in the middle of a task, what difficulties they were having as part of a team.

The teacher can then conclude from the answers if a person has been participating.